Issue 33: Cultural Pyramids

Earlier this month, Michelle Obama did away with the long and tangled history of the Food Pyramid, replacing it with what she and the administration perceive as a simpler visual interpretation of what Americans should be eating every day: the Nutrition Plate.

Neither plate nor pyramid work very well. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to explain a nutritious diet through a simple graphic, especially a graphic that treats all calories and industry lobbyists as if they were equal.

In any case, now that the USDA is no longer using the pyramid, we figured that it could be appropriated to serve other, equally important purposes.

- Sandeep