EVF2033: English in Food Science and Technology

TOPIC 8 HANDOUT
HEALTHY FOOD PYRAMID
1. VOCABULARY
Write down new words (to you) and look up in the dictionary for their meanings

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2. READING
A Brief History of Dietary Recommendations
First there was the "square meal", a four-cornered approach to meals that dated
from 1943, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the Basic
Four to help citizens achieve better nutrition during war shortages. The square meal
included a meat portion, a vegetable or fruit portion, a starch portion, and a milk portion,
three times a day every day. By the seventies Americans were no longer active and as
they became fatter, scientists proved links between rich food and heart disease. It was
obvious that the square meal needed an overhaul.
In the late 1970s, the USDA added another category to the Basic Four and put
the culpritssweets, alcohol and fat- into it. Despite, or perhaps because of, the fifth
element, incidences of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and stroke, and weight gain
mounted. So during the eighties the USDA decided to get graphic. The agency came up
with an emblem designed to signify what previous polygons could not – variety,
proportion and moderation. The 1992 Food Pyramid stacked the food groups according
to the proportions in which they should be consumed, with grains occupying the wider
base and sweets at the top. The message was, and still is, make cereals, rice, pasta and
bread the foundation of your diet. Consume plenty of vegetables and fruits. Enjoy milk,
cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products. Eat some meat fish, poultry and legumes. Add
a smattering of sweets, oils and fats. Unfortunately, the food pyramid did not make U.S.
citizens healthier. Today, two-thirds of Americans over the age of twenty are
overweight, and nearly one-third of adults are obese, according to the 1999-2000
National Health and Nutrition Examination.
Increasingly poor nutritional habits and lack of exercise undermined the Food
Pyramid's good intentions. The pattern of weight gain continued. Our bodies reflect
what we put into them, what we do, and where and how we live. Before the mass
commercialization of food products, people lived and ate closer to food sources. They
ate whole foods. Today, there is the drive to fill commercial demand at the least possible
cost and increase shelf life and visual appeal, whereas the quality of food deteriorates.
Even though great advances have occurred in food cultivation, food suppliers are
delivering foods that were raised far from most people's lives and often harvested weeks
and months in advance of being sold. Lettuce harvested last week does not supply as
many nutrients as that picked today. Besides, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approves irradiation of meat and poultry, fresh fruits and vegetables to decrease or
eliminate harmful bacteria. Irradiation reduces spoilage bacteria and inhibits sprouting
of vegetables and delays ripening. For example, irradiated strawberries stay unspoiled
up to three weeks, versus three to five days for untreated berries. Thereby, nutritional
value is decreased and food irradiation masks what may be unsanitary conditions in
food processing plants.

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At the same time civilization is increasingly busy and food consumption patterns
are being transformed – and not necessarily in good direction. Many families rely on
packaged and processed food, heat-and-eat food, fast food. Even when we do eat at
home, we tend to eat prepared or partially prepared food. Only about a third of home-
cooked meals are made from scratch. As a result we are getting fewer nutrients, while
our body remains genetically programmed to thrive on the whole foods of our ancestors.
As we live in very stressful times, every time we are worried, sad or mad, our body
reacts chemically. Like pollution, anxiety destabilizes our systems by creating free
radicals. Stress uses up extra nutrients and makes existing nutrients more difficult to
assimilate. In addition, stress often leads to overeating- and overeating the wrong foods.
Anxious people do not reach for carrots; they reach for chocolate, chips and alcohol.
Meanwhile, people are becoming more inert and less physically active.
Since consumers did not follow the advice of the old Food Pyramid, The USDA
went to work, with the goal of incorporating the latest science and making not a diet,
but a set of nutritional and educational tools. They aimed at a "food guidance system",
that should be much more motivating than the old food pyramid. The result , My
Pyramid, is the tools designed to encourage behavioral changes. While the old pyramid
guided everybody to eat the same proportion of fruits or vegetables, My Pyramid has a
more personalized approach.
For a quick estimate of what and how much you need to eat, you can simply
enter your age, sex and activity level in the My Pyramid Plan Box on the website. A
page immediately pops up telling you how many servings of each group you need to eat
daily. The website shows six coloured food-group segments: orange for grains, green
for vegetables, red for fruit, yellow for healthful oils, blue for milk, and purple for lean
meat, poultry, seafood, beans and eggs. Clicking on each one directs you into that
specific food group and presents a cornucopia of information on why each food group
is vitally important to your health and weight. Finally, the new stairway image on the
pyramid reminds users to be more active, and a few clicks on physical activity will show
you how many calories various activities burn, and so you learn the health benefits of
exercise.
(Adapted from What Should I Eat? A Complete Guide to the New Food Pyramid by
Tershia d' Elgin)

Exercise 1: Read the text (handout) to answer the following questions:

1. What was the purpose of the Basic Four?

2. What changes were introduced in the graphic of the late 1970s?

3. How was the message from the 1992 Food Pyramid formulated?

4. What are the differences between the eating patterns of the past and the present?

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5. How does stress influence our digestion?

Exercise 2 - Text organization: Skim the text to order these subtitles

chronologically as they appear in the text:
______ My pyramid
_______ Eating patterns of the past and the present
_______ Present changes of food consumption patterns
_______ Historical overview of diet guidelines
3. WRITING

3.1. Translate into Vietnamese

Exercise 1:

The Healthy Eating Pyramid puts some fats near the base, indicating they are okay to eat.
Although this recommendation seems to go against conventional wisdom, it is exactly in line
with the evidence and with common eating habits. The average American gets one-third or
more of his or her daily calories from fats, so placing them near the foundation of the pyramid
makes sense. Note, though, that it specifically mentions healthy fats and oils, not all types of
fats. Good sources of healthy unsaturated fats include olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower and
other vegetable oils, trans-fat free margarines, nuts seeds and fatty fish such as salmon.

Exercise 2: Your Plate and the Planet

Just as different foods can have differing impacts on human health, they also have differing
impacts on the environment. Food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas
emissions, and it places an enormous demand upon our earth’s natural resources.

As shown in the figure below, the production of animal-based foods tends to have higher
greenhouse gas emissions (orange bars) than producing plant-based foods—and dairy and red
meat (especially beef) stand out for their disproportionate impact. Beyond emissions, it’s also
important to note that food production places an enormous demand upon our natural resources,
as agriculture is a major contributor to deforestation, species extinction, and freshwater
depletion and contamination (in this figure, these impacts are represented by land use [green
bars] and freshwater consumption [blue bars]).

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3.2. Plan and write a paragraph (about 100 words) about your planned healthy
eating plate

Paragraph structure:

• a topic sentence
• supporting sentences
• a concluding sentence.