- Joined
- Aug 8, 2020
In 1972, Sweden introduced a basic set of guidelines for how to cheaply fill your nutritional needs during a time of food insecurity. A grocery store chain reframed these guidelines into a visual representation that was easy to read. This was the birth of the, largely defunct, "food pyramid" that we are all at least familiar with today. The important takeaway being that it was never intended to be the "optimal" human diet with regards to health and longevity. It was designed to minimize the overall health impact of rising food prices. It can probably best be understood with an analogy to Maslow's hierarchy of needs:
The image on the left is basically tiers of health and happiness, with each tier below being more "strictly necessary" than the one above. Fixating on your "higher needs" when your "lower needs" are not satisfactorily fulfilled is claimed to be to your detriment. I'm not gonna waste too much space talking about it as it's all shit you probably already know anyway. It's just there to demonstrate a similar philosophy at play with the food pyramid on the right (pic related just happens to be the USDA version from 1992). Again: the advice on the pyramid is based on Sweden's guidelines on how to deal with a food shortage.
The bottom tier is cheap starches. These are proposed as your primary source of calories as calories are your first and most important consideration with regards to a planned diet and they're cheap as shit. The human body can subsist for quite some time on a nutritionally void diet so long as the energy required for basic bodily functions is consumed. A starch only diet is far from optimal, but it will keep you from dropping dead via starvation and instead you'll face the slow burnout of malnutrition.
The next tier is your other plant based foods. These are proposed as your source of micronutrients as they're relatively inexpensive and provide most of the other shit your body actually needs to function properly. Once you know you have the necessary calories for basic survival, you can begin to focus on these for the sake of your health and well being.
Above that is animal products and yogurt. These aren't "strictly necessary" (vitamin B12 is a potential counter to that claim but caveats abound) but you will be a lot healthier if you eat them in moderation than if you forgo them entirely, especially on a diet structured like this. They're more expensive though and are basically the last thing you should be worrying about health wise if food security is an issue.
The very peak is your strictly unnecessary added sugars and oils. Sure, they are a source of calories, but even the starches at bottom level provide some of the nutritional basics where you could subsist on the shit a lot longer than if you just guzzled 2000 calories worth of sugar water and canola oil every day. These might improve the quality of certain foods and encourage you to eat them. But these are the last things you should be considering if you want to make it through a food crisis.
In summary: There is no "optimal" human diet. Anything that's not obviously terrible will work just fine so long as it's not making you sick. The original goal of the food pyramid, and the guidelines it was based on, was to minimize the impact of a food shortage by focusing on what the body literally cannot operate without.
The image on the left is basically tiers of health and happiness, with each tier below being more "strictly necessary" than the one above. Fixating on your "higher needs" when your "lower needs" are not satisfactorily fulfilled is claimed to be to your detriment. I'm not gonna waste too much space talking about it as it's all shit you probably already know anyway. It's just there to demonstrate a similar philosophy at play with the food pyramid on the right (pic related just happens to be the USDA version from 1992). Again: the advice on the pyramid is based on Sweden's guidelines on how to deal with a food shortage.
The bottom tier is cheap starches. These are proposed as your primary source of calories as calories are your first and most important consideration with regards to a planned diet and they're cheap as shit. The human body can subsist for quite some time on a nutritionally void diet so long as the energy required for basic bodily functions is consumed. A starch only diet is far from optimal, but it will keep you from dropping dead via starvation and instead you'll face the slow burnout of malnutrition.
The next tier is your other plant based foods. These are proposed as your source of micronutrients as they're relatively inexpensive and provide most of the other shit your body actually needs to function properly. Once you know you have the necessary calories for basic survival, you can begin to focus on these for the sake of your health and well being.
Above that is animal products and yogurt. These aren't "strictly necessary" (vitamin B12 is a potential counter to that claim but caveats abound) but you will be a lot healthier if you eat them in moderation than if you forgo them entirely, especially on a diet structured like this. They're more expensive though and are basically the last thing you should be worrying about health wise if food security is an issue.
The very peak is your strictly unnecessary added sugars and oils. Sure, they are a source of calories, but even the starches at bottom level provide some of the nutritional basics where you could subsist on the shit a lot longer than if you just guzzled 2000 calories worth of sugar water and canola oil every day. These might improve the quality of certain foods and encourage you to eat them. But these are the last things you should be considering if you want to make it through a food crisis.
In summary: There is no "optimal" human diet. Anything that's not obviously terrible will work just fine so long as it's not making you sick. The original goal of the food pyramid, and the guidelines it was based on, was to minimize the impact of a food shortage by focusing on what the body literally cannot operate without.
