MYPlate is not USDA Approved.

My diet these days looks a lot like the Paleo diet, the hunter-gatherer just without all the traveling. Whereas my diet for the 30 years before that looked like the supermodel diet: all lowfat, no-fat foods. Butter was a sin, avocados were drooled over, then set aside, nobody drank milk at all (except for fat-free half & half -- what do you suppose is in that crap?), and only heathens and body builders ate red meat. Ok, I ate it, secretly. I didn't want anyone to know. For the first 10 years, I looked great (read: "was skinny"). Then, one day, out of the blue, I started packing it on. No matter what I did, even eating fat-free ice cream (???), I could not lose weight. My metabolism was toast. Do I know what caused that? Not for sure, but from what I know now, I suspect ten years of no fats! Menopause was certainly an ingredient. Mine started at 38... I've read that a supermodel diet messes with your hormones and encourages early menopause. Great. I'm still investigating, but I'm pretty sure the supermodel low-fat diet is not the way to vibrant health. When I suggested to a friend that, in fact, the way to obesity is the USDA way (based on the fact that the same food model is how farmers make cows fat), he sent me packing to the...

USDA's MyPlate!

When you look at the MyPlate graphic (left), it appears to suggest one might eat from all the groups fairly evenly, rather than from the, ahem, weighty and now discarded MyPyramid (below right).

But, actually, once you fill in your height and current weight details for your very own personal USDA daily food plan, it's the same old story: heavy on grains, fruits and veggies (aka carbs), light on fats and protein. This has been the USDA's food prescription since 1992, just under 20 years. Just long enough to be considered "conventional wisdom," making it heresy to suggest any other eating plan. Sad. Because here's where the USDA's eating prescription has gotten us:

Adele Hite offers an excellent breakdown of the Get Fat the USDA Way Pyramid. Ms. Hite is a PhD candidate in Nutrition Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. She doesn't miss a trick.

So, what would a healthy Food Pyramid look like?

Food Pyramid by Sandrine Hahn on behalf of Nourishing Our Children. Copyright 2012. All Rights Reserved.

It looks like the WAPF one, the one I follow. I'm aiming for 70% good fats in all its glorious forms: butter, coconut oil, pastured steak and eggs. Throw in a little pastured chicken fried in coconut oil -- girlfriend, we have a winner!

Fat and protein bottom-load MY pyramid, followed by raw dairy, then organic veggies, then Non-GMO grains (I eat little wheat and aim for sprouted as much as possible). Topping my pyramid is organic fruit. The fact is sugar and I don't do well no matter what the form.

Oils

The WAPF pyramid doesn't include oils because, if you are eating high fat foods, you don't need to add oils. Besides, most oils sold today have zero nutritional value because the time period between the picking and the squeezing is so long, all the good is gone. Add to that the fact that most oils are GM oils -- corn, soybean, vegetable (which will include corn), cottonseed, canola -- and you have double yer trouble. Which brings me to the question: how does one get oil from corn? It doesn't seem like a particularly oily vegetable to me. So I looked it up. I wish I hadn't: they extract the oil from the corn chemically. Yuck. GM and chemical residue. No thank you.

Sugar Blues

Speakering of sugar, I've given it up totally. It's not that hard when eating lots of fats, lol. I don't miss it at all. The only sweet I have is honey in my ONE cup of coffee in the morning. In which I also put a Tablespoon of unrefined coconut oil and raw cream. Oh my, that is good stuff!!!

Caffeine

I've given up giving up coffee. Maybe if I discovered that it's the one thing between me and getting my voice back, I would do it. Or between me and a slow painful death... maybe that would do it. Otherwise, I'm having my morning cuppa C8H10N4O2. It makes me deliriously happy. (Yeah, I know: it's the caffeine/honey high. I'm an addict. I can live with MYself... for now.) Hey! I gave up sugar -- that should impress everyone. It's a big deal for me. What's amazing is that I don't miss it! Sweet.

Why All the Food Fuss?

Because I still have a nasty cough from the Pneumonia Period and I still sound like Phyllis Diller... sucks for me, that. My musical comedy career is on indefinite hold and, darn it, I miss that! I believe the cough is caused by acid reflux, which I had before the pneumonia. In fact, looking back, my voice was oddly unstable before the P.P. so I'm thinking that damage was in the middle of being done. Add three weeks of strong antibiotics and unbelievably awful hospital food* to the 10 days of intubation and we've greatly exacerbated an already bad situation. My goal this year is to cure the cough which means curing the acid reflux first. I'm in it to win it, lol. Because, well, you guys want to hear me sing again, right? *So bad. Like, my papaya was washed in clorox just before I got it. Some days, we only had sweet packaged crackers and hot tea for breakfast. Suffice it to say, this was not food to make a person whole. Just to keep 'em alive.