July 19 - Twenty years into an obesity epidemic partly of its making, the United States Department of Agriculture is finally going to revise its recommendations for healthy eating!

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At least I think so. I can't be sure from the agency's press release last week:

"USDA Calls for Public Comment on Revision of the Food Guidance System," it said. "USDA will seek written comments and hold a public meeting to provide opportunity for public input into its comprehensive review and update of the Food Guidance System." (Sure, maybe the Pentagon failed to develop the missile defense system, but I'm proud that the USDA successfully designed the food guidance system. Maybe I won't get stains when I eat spaghetti anymore.)

As it turned out, the agency was actually talking about the food pyramid, that 1992 USDA project that made us all incredibly obese. 

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Now, I don't want to blame the good people at the United States Department of Agriculture—their job is, after all, to support America's agriculture producers, not serve as the nation's dietician. And the food pyramid is a wonderful idea, allowing Americans to see, at one glance, what types of food—vegetables, fruits, grains, meat, poultry, etc.—they should be eating. The problem is that the existing food pyramid is as consistent with the tenets of healthy eating as downing a cup of Haagen Dazs Deep Chocolate Peanut Butter with hot fudge.

The pyramid recommends 6-11 servings per day of breads and cereals, 2-4 servings of fruit, 3-5 servings of vegetables, 2-3 servings of meat, poultry, fish or nuts, 2-3 servings of milk and cheese, and a sparing daily indulgence of "fats, oils and sweets." Experts have questioned why the pyramid treats fatty meats like bacon or bologna the same as healthy meats like fish, why it pushes milk when green, leafy vegetables offer a non-fattening source of calcium, and why Wonder bread is treated the same as a bowl of oats.

But the bigger issue for me is the amount of food the government wants me to eat. In the name of research, I recently tried to consume all the food recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid. By the end of the day, I felt like the guy from "Super Size Me."

To consume 11 servings from the bread and pasta group, I had to have two slices of toast for breakfast, a spaghetti sandwich for a mid-morning snack, a lunch that consisted of another sandwich, and then a dinner of Tuscan bread soup, rigatoni and bread pudding.

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And I was still one bread portion short. I gobbled down a slice of bread before drifting off to sleep.

And that was just the bread. The few moments when I was not consuming processed grain products, were consumed by...consuming more stuff—fruits, vegetables, meat, cheese, milk, nuts. I'd no sooner polish off a banana then have to guzzle a glass of milk. When I devoured a plate of celery, I still needed to eat that piece of skinless chicken breast. I felt like the fat guy in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" (before consuming the "wahfer thin mint").

The good news is that the USDA is apparently going to address America's super-size problem, giving actual portion sizes on the new pyramid rather than merely saying "four servings per day." The bad news is that the department is still going to be the nation's meat-and-milk pusher—advocating far more of each than is necessary. The federal government is already being sued by nutrition advocates who claim that America's meat, egg and milk producers have too powerful a voice in drafting nutrition policy (no surprise; after all, America's oil, gas and coal industries have too powerful a voice in drafting energy policy, so it's nice to see that the same government that allows  too much pollution to get into our lungs allows too much fatty food to get in our stomachs). And lest we forget, the guy who was president when the first food pyramid was drafted had a well-publicized aversion to broccoli and was far more partial to pork rinds.

"The Food Guide Pyramid should be independent of business," the Harvard School of Public Health said, in a statement posted on its website. Instead of waiting for this to happen, the HSPH has created its own. "The Healthy Eating Pyramid,"  recommends eating red meat "sparingly" and differentiates between white rice and whole grains. It also includes something weird called "daily exercise."

But the eggheads at Harvard don't have much pull with the USDA. Last month, the batter-dipped French fry industry (motto: "Making French Fries Even Less Healthy Since 1940!") won a major victory when a judge ruled that batter-dipped fries actually qualified as "fresh vegetable" under USDA rules. Under the USDA's "Batter-Coating Rule," a box of chocolate-covered cherries would probably now qualify as fresh fruit, too (clearly Ronald Reagan's USDA was ahead of its time declaring ketchup and pickle relish vegetables). Nonetheless, U.S. District Judge Richard Schell ruled that batter-coated french fries are a fresh vegetable—so, according to the food pyramid, feel free to eat three to five portions per day!

The USDA is so beholden to American agricultural producers that a report it commissioned in 1999 didn't address the health needs of Americans, but merely the concerns of the agriculture industry. For example, if Americans cut their consumption of sweeteners to healthy levels, it would translate "into a 4.8-million-ton reduction in domestic sugar output" in Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Idaho, Michigan, and California. If Americans cut their world-leading consumption of fats and oils, the "reductions will have the largest impact on the soy bean sector...translating into 20 percent less acreage." If we were to cut our intake of meat, the shift "would have a measurable effect on the grain sector."

But if we were to eat more fruit, the report said, "imports would likely take up the slack, as land, labor and climatic constraints limit expansion of domestic fruit production." In other words, the USDA can't afford to encourage healthy eating. No wonder nutritionists think the USDA and the agri-industrial complex are part of the problem, not the solution.

"Commercial breakfast cereals have no place in the pyramid," said Christine Gerbstadt, a dietician and medical doctor in Pennsylvania. "They're processed grain, not whole grain, and they're high in sugar. But they're included because the cereal industry is so powerful. Fats and sweets shouldn't be on the pyramid at all? And what does that mean, 'Use Sparingly'? Why leave it to interpretation?"

When it comes to sweets and fats, my definition of "Use Sparingly" tends to be "Use Whenever I've Had a Bad Day That I Need to Forget or a Good Day That I Need to Celebrate." But, hey, that's just me. According to Gerbstadt, "Use Sparingly" is supposed to mean once or twice a month! And that includes alcohol.

So that cupcake and beer I just had at that barbecue pretty much does it for me for the next 29 days?  (Man, I need a drink!)

Gersh Kuntzman is also a reporter for The New York Post, who really does try to eat right. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv/

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