"MyPyramid" news and stories

In an effort to help you eat more cereal eat more healthily, the Kellogg Company is joining the USDA's MyPyramid Corporate Challenge.

The breakfast cereal giant will be promoting (healthy) "eating and physical fitness for families," as well as putting the MyPyramid icon on cereal boxes. They'll also be launching L.A.U.N.C.H. (learning and understanding nutrition choices & health) next fall in elementary and middle schools.

What all this means is hard to say. I couldn't find out what L.A.U.N.C.H. will actually do, or how Kellogg's will actually encourage healthy eating. But the cereal maker did get its start as a maker of (what it considered) health food, and the company does still claim a strong theme of health and wellness in its products. So what do you think: will Kellogg's really do anything or is this a marketing gimmick?

[Via Baking Business]

The USDA's nutritional guidance system, MyPyramid, has not been the smashing success that organizers hoped it would be when it was unveiled almost two years ago. The problem seems to be that the new pyramid, as opposed to the old one, only provides guidance, not hard and fast numbers to follow. This means that diners need to take responsibility for their health and their choices - and motivating them to do so is not an easy task.

Trying to help the public to better understand and make use of the already in-place system, food manufacturers and retailers have joined together to create the Take a Peak program. The program aims to get people thinking more closely about health and using MyPyramid with in-store advertising, banners, signs and kiosk. Displays will how reminders of how many servings of whole grains should be eaten per day and what serving sizes look like. Some products will be given a logo indicating why it maybe a good choice.

The trial run of the program will cover 2,000 stores in 17 states and includes Publix, Raley's and SuperValue. Depending on the response from consumers, it may not be long before the plan (or propaganda, if you prefer to look at it that way) ends up in stores at the rest of the US, as well.

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A new study published by the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion says that Americans aren't eating enough servings of fruits and vegetables. The USDA looked at the results of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III from 1999 to 2000 to collect data from over 8,000 people, ages 2 and up and compared them to the new (MyPyramid) and old (5 servings a day) nutritional guidelines.

They found that based on the old guidelines, only 40% of people were getting the recommended amounts. Based on the new recommendations, which are significantly higher, only 10% of people would be eating the suggested amount of fruits and vegetables.

Wait - 1999? The problem with the study is that it is comparing old data to our new standards. Granted, people weren't eating enough vegetables in 1999 and you can be sure that not all people are eating enough now, but dietary trends have changed enough that the comparison might not yield accurate results. In the past 7 years, there has been a tremendous growth in organic and natural foods, heirloom fruits and vegetables and in healthier eating overall. The trends are so much more prevalent now than they were when the data for the survey was collected, that it is likely the numbers are more encouraging, even if we're only up to 15% instead of 10%.

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I know that there were more than a few people who found the labels "good source of whole grains" and "excellent source of whole gains" to be confusing and that the FDA has been working on developing a better definition of the term for some time now. The FDA has worked out a new system of classification based on the number of grams of whole grains in a food and has eliminated any good/excellent designations. The new labels are an eye-catching black and gold and clearly state the number of grams of whole grains per serving, as well as the recommended daily amount of 48grams, as suggested by MyPyramid. This eliminates any guess work - though it does call for a little bit of math - on the part of the consumer.

Products must be authorized to use the stamp, getting approval from the FDA or the UDSA, depending on what type of food the item is, since the two groups regulate different commodities. The USDA covers meat, dairy and eggs and the stamp is approved for use on those products, as well as the grains and other foods that the FDA regulates, if they contain whole grains.

So far, more than 800 products are approved. You can see a full list here or, of course, keep an eye out for the labels while you shop.

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This week marked the one year anniversary of the MyPyramid website, based on the USDA's "new" food pyramid. The site has been one of the most popular government website with 1.7 billion hits in its first year.

We're all now familiar with the pyramid itself, which has moved away from the idea that one nutrition standard plan fits everyone and to the notion that individuals require their own specialized dietary and healthy eating needs. The website is an interactive site that allows individuals to track and analyze their eating habits and physical activity, and offers guidance based on the President's Healthier US Initiative and current nutrition research.