My paper on how the food pyramid must be CHANGED!

Here it is- it's not exactly everything I hoped it to be, but that always seems to be the case. It's long so I don't expect EVERYONE to read it. But I assure you, it's a great read:) hhee. Just joking. Anyway, it's formated in MLA style, so there are a lot of things in parentheses you may be confused about, just don't worry about that. I'll put my sources too at the bottom incase you don't trust me. Oh, and when I copied and pasted, I think that a few formating things like indentations of paragraphs changed, so don't worry- it looked good when I turned it in, blogger just changed it a bit and I'm too lazy to go through and fix it.

A Long Needed Change

In a world where so many options are available, and so many viewpoints are openly given, humans are easily confused. In academics and scientific reasoning, the one “safe” research guide is anything to do with the government. The government is thought to be a safe route because Americans, at least, are born to believe that they can rely on their government to help keep them safe. Americans should have the relief that one area of their lives is consistent and safe to count on. They shouldn’t have to worry if their government is promoting things that could possibly kill them. The truth is: Americans should worry.

The government is currently, and has been for years, promoting something that causes cancer. The horrible thing is that it’s not a seldom consumption that may get one or two people. It is a daily consumption that we are encouraged to have at least three times a day! Does “3-a-day of Dairy” sound familiar? Do you ever look at the food pyramid to confirm that you’re eating a well balanced diet? Unfortunately, these government recommendations are leading you and your loved ones to an early death, and putting dollars into these officials’ pockets. What needs to be done? These dietary guidelines need to be modified.

Currently, the government is recommending three cups of dairy and five to six ounces of meat and beans per day (www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid). According to MyPyramid.com, a small hamburger is two to three ounces. This means that someone could eat two to three hamburgers a day, with a cup of milk per burger, and still be within the guidelines of the government’s recommendations. The government website recommending these servings does advocate lean and low-fat foods, but it also encourages large amounts of protein and servings of meat and dairy. Did it ever occur to the government that we are the only mammals on earth that drink another mammal’s milk? All mammals except humans are eventually weaned off of their mother’s milk at a very young age. They then, of course, move on to solid foods. Humans, on the other hand, wean off of their human mother’s milk at a young age, but then move onto a completely different mammal’s milk. Is this natural? Do we ever stop to wonder why so many humans are lactose intolerant? We might lean towards the fact that humans aren’t naturally able to digest mammal’s milk beyond childhood. We might also lean towards the numerous studies that give evidence of the damage milk can actually do.

Many studies have been done, and ignored, by credible scientists that prove the fact that animal-based foods such as dairy and meat cause cancer and chronic diseases. Americans are dying on a daily basis because of them. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of over 300 research papers and receiver of over seventy grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and author of “The China Study”, led a study based on the link between nutrition and cancer within the survey of 65 counties, 130 villages and 6,500 adults and their families resulting in over 8,000 statistically significant correlations. Campbell explains part of the study,

We organized a very large study of several hundred rats and examined tumor formation over their lifetimes using several different approaches…Animals switched from a high-protein to a low-protein diet had significantly less tumor growth (35%-40% less!) than animals fed a high-protein diet. Animals switched from a low-protein diet to a high-protein diet halfway through their lifetime started growing tumors again (61).

This study helped prove that high protein diets created and sped the process of tumor growth. This alone should change the nutritional recommendations made by the government. Campbell goes on to say that “nutritional manipulation can turn cancer “on” and “off”,” (62). Did anyone ever stop to think that nutrition alone could save the 550,000 people who died of cancer in the United States last year (www.cancer.org)? Campbell goes further in specifying that, “Nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development” (66). This study was thorough with tremendous statistically significant evidence to prove that animal-based protein is the leading cause of cancer.

Additional studies have shown that consumption of milk in certain areas strongly correlates with cancer. Ganmaa Davaasambuu, MD, PhD, physician, scientist and research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health reported, “In the past 50 years in Japan, rising rates of dairy consumption are linked with rising death rates from prostate cancer - from near zero per 100,000 five decades ago to 7 per 100,000 today" (4). Neal R. Barnard, M.D. wrote on “The Cancer Project”,

Dairy product consumption has been consistently associated with prostate cancer mortality. The largest and most recent of these, based on World Health Organization mortality figures for 1985-1989 from 59 countries and United Nations food balance data for 1979-1981, reported a strong correlation between per capita milk consumption and prostate cancer mortality (r = 0.78, P<0.0001)>

Why have these studies been ignored? Why is our government still recommending such an enormous amount of meat and dairy protein consumption? Like many sore subjects, the answer is: money.

Many people don’t understand that there is an extreme conflict of interest in the process by which the food pyramid is created. Currently, the government is required to buy, store and dispose of any dairy product that isn’t sold (healthydairyindustry.org). Is this not a conflict of interest? The less Americans consume of dairy, the more the government has to spend to dispose of it. According to Dairy Farming Today,

Dairy is the number one agricultural business in California, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Vermont, and Maine. In California alone, dairy is a $31 billion industry employing 400,000-plus people. (5).

With such an effect on the economy, it isn’t surprising how strongly the government pumps dairy consumption. Yes, the economy is important, but are human lives not?

When the most recent report from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans committee was established the committee had a chairman who was also over the Food Guide Pyramid, the Food Stamp Program, and the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Feeding Program (WIC). When revising the Dietary Guidelines, the committee hears from several heads of food industries including the National Dairy Council (OMB Watch). These food industries are contributing in the recommendations for the American diet. How is this right? Can’t you see the National Dairy Council pushing for more servings of milk per day? What is needed, is a council of objective professional nutritionists, involved in no such food industry, to come up with the healthiest guidelines for Americans. Yet, who has America had on the committees we rely on for a healthy recommendation? A committee in which six out of eleven members had ties, such as being a consultant, to the dairy industry (Campbell 312)!

A common misconception is that without dairy and meat, we aren’t getting enough protein. This is false. The studies done by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, and multiple other nutritional scientists have shown that protein intake by Americans is far and away too much. Many dairy and meat products can be substituted in order to get the proper amount of protein. Milk can be replaced by soy or rice milk. Butter can be replaced by canola oil or vegetable broth (www.womenfitness.net). A good meat substitute is legumes. “Beans, peas, lentils, and peanuts are collectively known as legumes, which are plants that have pods with tidy rows of seeds inside…Legumes have many of the nutrients recognized as important in preventing heart disease, cancer, obesity, and other chronic diseases” (www.med.umich.edu). Legumes are a better option all around because they have less fat and more fiber.

Many people may learn the truth about animal-based foods and think, “But it’s so good!” This is true. Meat is delicious, it makes you feel good. This can be compared to the people that make the same excuses for cigarettes. No one is trying to control America’s agency to choose what to consume. It isn’t illegal to smoke cigarettes, but there are now warning labels on the packs themselves. The same change needs to occur for animal-based foods. Not only do warnings need to occur, but the government’s recommendations of animal-based food consumption needs to stop. Also, the dietary guideline committees need to be objective nutritionists, not biased investors. People are always going to consume what they wish, but they do have a right to know the consequences to their bodies when they consume these products.

The fact is, America deserves a trusted source of what to eat and why. The sources we have today, The Food Pyramid Guide, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the USDA, are all disregarding the tremendous amounts of evidence showing that animal-based foods cause cancer. How can we trust these committees when they are all conflicted in interest? If this is what our nation’s dietary guidelines have been set on, which they have, the dietary guidelines need to be changed. Could this hurt the economy? Yes. Could this outrage America? Possibly. Could this save lives? Most definitely.

Bibliography

American Cancer Society. 2007. 26 May 2008. .

Barnard, Neal D. "Eating Meat Is Unhealthy." Opposing Viewpoints: Health and Fitness. Ed. Scott Barbour and Karin L. Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Brigham Young University - Idaho. 30 May 2008. &tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010141213&source=gale&srcprod= VRC&userGroupName=byuidaho&version=1.0>.

Barnard, Neal D. “Milk Consumption and Prostate Cancer”. 26 May 2008. <http://www.cancerproject.org/diet_cancer/diet/prostate_dairy.php>.

Campbell, T. Colin; and Thomas M. Campbell II. The China Study. Dallas: Yeffeth, 2005.

Insuring a Healthy US Dairy Industry. 2007. IDFA. 26 May 2008. <http://www.healthydairyindustry.org/current_programs.html>.

Is Drinking Milk Healthy For Humans? 29 May 2008. ProCon.org. 26 May 2008. <http://www.milkprocon.org/>.

OMB Watch. 4 Oct. 2004. 29 May 2008. <http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/2435/1/235?TopicID=1>.

United States Department of Agriculture. 2008. 26 May 2008. .

University of Michigan Integrative Medicine. 2006. University of Michigan. 26 May 2008. .

Women Fitness. 2008. 26 May 2008. <http://www.womenfitness.net/vegan_diet_wtloss.htm>.