It has been a long time coming, however 2015 is now a special year when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. For the first time in Australia’s history we have been handed a food pyramid which does not contain any processed foods.
Nutrition Australia has provided us with a food pyramid for health. For anyone that thinks that purchasing food in a supermarket is a healthy choice think again. Over the years a number of studies have shown that when food is processed, or built from mono nutrients it will contain sugar and simple carbs that metabolise into sugar after ingestion quickly, it will contain unhealthy oils so the food is energy dense (full of sugar), but very low in nutrition. These foods provide a massive oversupply of energy or sugar which then the body has to store. When this sugar is put into storage it is stored as fat. Because of the high consumption of these foods people have such a massive oversupply of energy that we are now in the midst of the obesity epidemic. Yet people continue to consume these health destroying processed foods without the knowledge of what they are doing to themselves and the negative impact they are making on their health.
Obesity is in epidemic proportions. Along with obesity there is a string of other lifestyle diseases including type 2 diabetes which are also out of control. Recently in Queensland the “Diabetes Epidemic” has been renamed to the “Diabetes Catastrophe.“
The new pyramid now excludes all processed foods. Here is an outline of how the pyramid looks.
- The foundation of the pyramid consists of vegetables & fruit with water as the first choice for drinks. These foods should be the largest part of a person diet.
- The second level of the pyramid consists of grains. It is important to understand that our modern day wheat or “Semi Dwarf Wheat” has a very negative impact on our heath. It is important to eliminate this grain from the diet. Other grains are very beneficial to our health.
- The third level nuts, seeds, legumes, lean meats and diary. It is important to understand that there is some question in relation to diabetes and meats, especially red meats. It should also be noted that there is a host of studies which suggest that people who do not eat meats have better health outcomes and actually live longer. There are also some questions in relation to diary. It has been shown that milk depletes the bones of calcium. The new food pyramid suggests alternatives. Nut milks are popular and tasty milk replacement.
- The last level of the pyramid are healthy fats. This means that there is an exclusion of saturated fats and trans fats.
For the first time we have a pyramid which shows people what eat to become healthy. There is now a large amount of studies that all point to the same the of food consumption for the maintenance of health. It also needs to be noted that studies show that eating a plant based diet free of processed foods protects against type 2 diabetes.
Click this link to view the Nutrition Australia page regarding the new food pyramid.
