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The food pyramid asked the wrong question
What Was Blamed
Guidelines of that era attributed the rise in heart disease to saturated fat and cholesterol in food. The pyramid pushed six to 11 servings of carbohydrates and a long list of things to cut back on, including salt and red meat. A huge percentage of the population was smoking at the time.
What Changed
Smoking has since fallen to maybe 15 percent of the population, and red meat consumption is down 40 percent since the 1970s.
The Premise
The question behind the guidelines was whether heart attacks and strokes came from nutrition. Nutrition then got modeled around that premise for 50 years. Soon after the pyramid appeared, obesity and type 2 diabetes began a drastic rise.
Why did saturated fat become the villain?
In 1958, Ancel Keys began the Seven Countries Study, which compared diets and heart disease rates across communities in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. It reported that populations eating more saturated fat had higher average cholesterol and more heart disease. In 1977, a US Senate committee led by George McGovern published Dietary Goals for the United States, which urged cutting fat. The first Dietary Guidelines for Americans followed in 1980.
How did smoking shape heart disease statistics?
Cigarette smoking among US adults peaked in the mid-1960s at over 40 percent, according to Gallup and CDC surveys. Smoking damages the lining of arteries and makes blood more likely to clot, which raises the risk of heart attacks. The US Surgeon General's report of 1964 named smoking as a cause of lung cancer and chronic bronchitis, and later reports tied it to heart disease. Age-adjusted heart disease death rates have fallen substantially since the late 1960s, and CDC analyses credit lower smoking and better treatment.
Why was the pyramid's base all grains?
The USDA released the Food Guide Pyramid in 1992, with bread, cereal, rice, and pasta forming its widest tier. The design followed the 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which urged people to avoid too much fat and to eat foods with adequate starch and fiber. The USDA replaced the pyramid with MyPyramid in 2005 and with MyPlate in 2011.
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