Pyramid Schemes

Remember the four basic food groups? I do. In the halcyon days of my childhood, that was how we were taught what foods to eat. Of course, I completely ignored its advice, but it was a source of comfort that in the event that I started caring about what I ate, I would only have to remember to have a balance of four kinds of food and I would be perfectly healthy. Naturally, many years after the halcyon days, just when I had memorized the four groups - meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy, and Michelangelo - the USDA changed things up and gave us something new to ignore:



The food pyramid. The new shape showed the new weighted balance of foods. For instance, we're supposed to eat a whole lot more carbohydrates than proteins and get really, really fat. The big change was that fruits and vegetables split up. This was devestating for me. I was so used to thinking of them as a couple. I had always hoped that some day they would get married. It was especially hard on their illegitimate child, Tomato. Fruit got custody, but he still visited vegetables frequently.

I thought that we had reached the ultimate in graphic representation of our dietary needs, but today I saw a queer pictogram on a box of Cheerios:



That's right, it's a new food pyramid. You'll notice that the food groups have been made into vertical bars to make it much more unreadable. Also, you can tell that this new pyramid was made by our government because they added an "oils" group and, as we all know, our oil consumption is never high enough for the Bush administration. Also, you will notice some sort of malformed person scaling the new pyramid. He's Sisyphus, the depressing mascot of the new "exercise" group.

You know what? Fuck you, USDA. Why the hell did you put exercise on a food pyramid? The food pyramid isn't your fucking advice column. Why didn't you add a "floss daily" group or a "call your mother; she misses you" group? When I buy spaghetti, the package doesn't tell me to boil a pot of water and then jog half a mile. I know how important exercise is to healthy living, but a food pyramid is just supposed to tell you what food to eat. Our children are stupid enough without them thinking they have to eat exercise or worse - eat people who exercise. If we raise a generation that chops off the hands and feet of people at health clubs, sands off their facial features, and then eats them, we'll have your stupid diagram to thank.

On the other hand, there is one good thing about the new food pyramid. It means that the USDA is receptive to new ways of thinking about dietary requirements. It gives me hope that maybe, some day, they will accept the more perfect food pyramid that I came up with: