President Obama says we should allow the federal government to take charge of our healthcare; as usual, the “experts” are best positioned to instruct us how to live our lives.
Except they’re not. Today, according to the AP, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans that they eat too much bread and rolls, and that such foods account “for more than twice as much sodium as salty junk food like potato chips.” No wonder we’re fat.
Unfortunately, the federal government that now tells us that we eat too much bread is the same government that originally told us to stuff our pieholes with … bread. Remember the original food pyramid?
I remember this pyramid – I grew up learning about it in my vaunted public school. Notice how the bottom section is enormous, and suggests 6-11 bread, cereal, rice and pasta servings each day. Why did the government originally mandate that? According to Harvard Medical School’sEat, Drink and Be Healthy (Simon & Schuster, August 2001), the government was attempting to help out farmers via the Department of Agriculture’s recommendations.
Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard Medical School says that the original pyramid blatantly ignored the evidence against grains. “There’s an inherent problem with the USDA creating the pyramid,” Willett said. “The economic interests are so strong …. It’s very difficult for them to be objective, so it’s probably the worst possible agency to do the pyramid.” As anybody who has ever tried to lose weight by eating bagels can tell you, the food pyramid is a dramatic failure.
The last time the government tried to make everybody skinny, in other words, it made everybody fat instead. Now the government’s trying to make everybody healthy – by telling us we don’t need early mammograms. Do you trust them?
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