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| The Irish Food Pyramid: how many mistakes does it have? |
This term, my students at FT4428 "Advanced Food Chemistry" carried out a critical appraisal of the Irish Food Pyramid. Some excellent work has been produced and many congrats to all 65 students!
It is an immense satisfaction for a teacher to see his students produce scientific work of so high caliber!
Thank you all!
The changes that the students suggest that they should be made to the Food Pyramid are as follows (group 1 is the bottom one and group 6 is the top shelf).
Group 1
Amy Fahy,
Darren Monnelly & Sorcha Mullins
Group 1: Fruits, Salads and Vegetables
Suggestions:
- Separate
fruit and vegetable portions- allocate majority of portion proportions to
vegetables because of their superior nutritional value
- Clarify
fruit juice intake guidelines
- Note
compositional differences between fruits and vegetables- sugar/ fat
contents
- Clearer
indication of portion sizes
Group 2
SO’C, RO’D and SMA.
Suggestions:
·
Firstly splitting this shelf in two sections,
one being for high glycaemic food and one for low glycaemic food.
·
Giving and explanation on the importance of low
GI foods and the negative impact on over consuming high GI foods.
·
Identifying a consumption ratio for high to low
glycaemic foods. Our suggestion would be a ratio of 4 low : 1 high, glycaemic
load.
Seamus Lane,
Megan O'Leary and Katie Enright
Suggestions:
- Add
guidelines for inactive children to the daily servings guidelines which
compares inactivity vs activity. It currently states instead that "It
is essential all children are active" instead of including actual
guidelines
- More
consideration needs to be taken in regards to educating people on
processed vs unprocessed carbohydrates. Advocate eating foods naturally
high in fibre, not foods labelled high in fibre and select 100% wholewheat
and wholegrain products.
- Servings
have been reduced to 3-5 servings per day but serving size has increased
e.g. it is now 2 slices of bread per serving instead of one, which may
result in the possible of over consumption of carbs leading to obesity,
diabetes etc.
-
-
- Group 2
Sarah Cunningham, Amy
Gillooly & Colm Dillon
Suggestions:
- It should be clearly stated that 45 to 60% of the total
calories intake for adults should come from both simple and complex
carbohydrates. It should be clearly stated that 25 grams of Dietary Fiber
must be consumed as part of those calories for normal bowel function
especially in adults.
- The shelf 2 should give recommendations for people who
are exercising, Low-intensity 3-5g/kg BM, Moderate 5-7g/kg and High-intensity
6-10g/kg BM. There should also be separate recommendations for both
athletes and non- athletes for the frequency at which they consume foods.
- Include both the Glycemic load of the each of the foods
against a reference food with a low Glycemic load but for this to work
there needs to be more education around Glycemic load and Glycemic index.
Group 3
Sorcha Regan,
Shauna Morley & Eoin O’Keeffe
Suggestions:
- Re-designed to focus on
fermented dairy products similar to the Mediterranean food pyramid rather
than products like milk.
- Promote consumption of goat and
sheep dairy products rather than cow’s milk.
Shauna
Geary, Fiona Casey, Sara Murphy
Suggestions:
·
The average life expectancy is growing for both
genders in Ireland. Elderly people are more prone to falls and certain diseases
e.g. Osteoporosis. Therefore, fortified milk with Vitamin D and Calcium or an increase
in the number of servings should be included in the food pyramid for the
elderly population.
·
The number of dairy servings should be reduced to two
servings a day to combat the rising numbers of obesity in Ireland. The relevant
calcium intake would not be affected due to the high servings of Vegetables.
·
Alternative dairy options should be included in the
dairy shelf for individuals who suffer from allergies or lactose intolerance. For
example, Almond Milk, Kefir or Greek Yoghurt.
Group 4
EOS, JOS, JK
The three
changes we propose to alter the latest Food Pyramids are:
- 1. Separate
beans & nuts, fish, poultry and red meat rather than encouraging their
consumption in equal levels.
- 2. Have beans
and nuts on a lower level on par with vegetables and include legumes and
sprouts.
- 3. Move fish
down lower on the pyramid to encourage its consumption and move red meat
further up to discourage regular intake.
Group 5
Elaine Brennan, Edel Ryan and Bernadette Coffey
Suggestions:
·
Saturated, trans and unsaturated fats
should be separated out into different shelves.
·
Saturated and trans fats should remain
in shelf two.
·
Unsaturated fats should be relocated to
the bottom shelf.
·
New and clear guidelines in relation to
portion sizes should be implemented.
Group 6
Elizabeth Kennedy, Aisling Towey and Clodagh Treacy
Suggestions:
- The first observation of
the newest food pyramid is portion size. It is necessary to quantify what
a portion size is. The pyramid also gives no indication as to how much of
fat, sugar or salt our body needs to function.
- Processed meats should
be included on the top shelf of the pyramid as 65-70% of sodium occurs in
manufactured foods. The RDA for salt is 4g per day for adults, and
two sausages can contain up to 2g of salt and 12g of saturated fat. Two
sausages would total 65% of saturated fat intake.
- The top group of the
pyramid only depicts carbonated drinks as high sugar. However, squash or
fruit concentrates have high sugar content and are full of additives, such
as E129 (Allura red).
- It can be observed that
there is no alcohol present on the table. It’s shown that the consumption
of red wine, amongst other natural antioxidants, can reduce oxidative
stress and encourage healthy aging.
