The Government's Fattening Food Pyramid

As the Washington Post winds down its five-part series on childhood obesity, we thought we'd take a look at the U.S. government's "food pyramid" to see if it is helping--or hurting--in the fight against obesity.

From 1992 to 2005, the USDA promoted a food pyramid (at right) that showed various categories of food--grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat--and stacked them up in a way to suggest which you should get more of versus which you should get less of.

The old food pyramid, pictured here, surely contributed to obesity. If you tried to follow the guidelines for number of servings of each type of food, you'd likely eat WAY too much. For example, the food pyramid says you should have 6-11 servings of "bread, cereal, rice, pasta" and it includes photos of a loaf of bread, a plate of pasta, and bowls of rice and cereal.

Okay, so let's say you eat six bowls of cereal in one day--the low end of the scale. Whoops--you've probably already eaten too much, and that's without getting to fruit, veggies, dairy and meat. What you couldn't tell from the pyramid is that a "serving" of cereal was meant to be one cup, and that a "serving" of bread was meant to be one slice (not the bowl of cereal or loaf of bread pictured).

Similarly, many of the other food items pictured in the old pyramid constituted more than a single serving under the government's guidelines, but no one would've known that.

Another problem is that most people eat meals that combine these food elements. Let's say that I have a six inch Subway roast beef sandwich on wheat bread, with swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, and oil/vinegar. That's actually a pretty healthy meal. It should count for at least two--maybe three--"servings" of bread grains, 1-2 servings of veggies, one of dairy, and one of meat. But how many people would look at it that way? A lot would view it as, essentially, one "serving."

The new pyramid, pictured here, appears intended mainly to get you to eat a diverse diet that includes grains, fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products. The new pyramid doesn't make the mistake of including recommendations for number of "servings" of each type of food.

Still, it visually suggests that you should eat a LOT of food. At the bottom of the pyramid are pictures of all kinds of different foods. The problem here is that about 3-4 days worth of food are pictured. It certainly looks like you should be eating many portions of each of these. It's probably also no mistake that the dairy side, in particular, looks like you should be consuming quite a bit of milk, cheese and yogurt.

We wish we had some graphics arts skills here at the Curmudgeon. If we could, we'd picture some sample meals--breakfast, lunch and dinner, with maybe one midday snack, that would provide the requisite variety and balance, yet still be reasonably sized.

For example, breakfast would be a modest bowl of cereal, with skim milk, a small glass of orange juice and maybe one slice of toast. Lunch would be a small sandwich, with whole wheat bread, a small amount of meat, one thin slice of cheese and some veggies, with a piece--or couple slices--of fruit on the side and a bottle of water. And dinner could be a variety of things, but what about maybe a roasted chicken breast, side salad, small serving of rice and 2-3 strawberries. Most people--if they aren't already obese--could get by pretty nicely on meals like this. We'd show various other combinations--the point would be to keep the portion sizes reasonable.

The government should do away with the pyramid altogether. They might as well have used a sphinx for all the good it has done.

Even With Michigan And Florida Counted, Obama Has A Comfortable Margin

Honestly, the Hillary supporters need to give it up and move on.

Under any reasonable scenario, Obama has at least a hundred delegate lead over Hillary with the contest winding down.

For a neutral account of all the potential scenarios involving Michigan and Florida, take a look at Democratic Convention Watch.

The salient points are these:

If you exclude Michigan and Florida, per the DNC rules, then Obama needs just 61 votes to clinch the Democratic nomination, and he leads by 185. This is the scenario the mainstream media will most likely follow--for now. Accordingly, it won't be too long before he is "officially" declared the victor.

But, you say, Democrats ultimately won't entirely exclude Michigan and Florida, so that scenario may be wrong. True, but it won't make a difference.

There are a lot of options for dealing with Michigan and Florida. They range from seating half the delegates from both states, to seating half the pledged delegates and all the superdelegates, to seating the delegations "as is" under the votes that occurred to various other options in between. Under all but one of those options (nicely laid out by the folks at Democratic Convention Watch) Obama has a lead over Hillary of at least 120 delegates. Under all but that same outlier option, Obama needs no more than 122 delegates to clinch the nomination.

That one outlier scenario is the one under which Hillary and Obama both get delegates from the Florida and Michigan elections exactly as they voted. That would mean NO delegates from Michigan for Obama, because his name was not on the ballot. It would, however, add 55 uncommitted delegates to the Michigan delegation.

Now, if you don't count any of those 55 uncommitted delegates for Obama, then his lead is down to 70 delegates and he needs 166 more delegates (out of a total of 381 not yet allocated) to win.

Of course, the bulk of those 55 uncommitted delegates would go for Obama. Let's say he gets just 40 of them. Well, then his lead is back up to 110, and he needs only 126 delegates to clinch.

In short, the delegate math heavily favors Obama UNDER ANY SCENARIO.

The same is largely true with respect to the "popular vote." We've seen a few Clintonites still out there arguing that she leads in the popular vote. Yet, the only way you get to that conclusion is to include all of Hillary's Michigan votes and give Obama NO votes for Michigan. Talk about stacking the deck.

In short, even with Hillary's recent lopsided wins in West Virginia and Kentucky, and even if you include Florida, Hillary is still behind in the popular vote--and that's excluding all the voters who overwhelmingly favored Obama in the caucus states.

Little will be served by having the Clinton campaign engage in a "fight to the last man (and woman)" strategy all the way to the convention. We think Hillary knows this. We'll see a concession speech around June 3. We hope it will be in conjunction with a satisfactory solution to the Michigan and Florida problems as well.

Rock Star Versus Rocking Chair

The stage is set for a historic battle this November, between Sen. Barack Obama--the rock star--and Sen. John McCain, in the rocking chair.

Okay, that's unfair. We actually have a lot of respect here for Senator McCain, although we expect to lose it in the next few months.

Here's some things to expect: first, Hillary Clinton will keep at it for a couple more weeks. After the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota on June 3, she will give a gracious concession speech, and Obama will formally claim the mantle of the Democratic Party nominee.

Obama will then spend the summer fence-mending and uniting his party, recruiting some new people into his campaign to help especially with (1) blue collar whites; (2) middle-aged women; (3) the elderly; and (4) Jewish voters.

Us bloggers will go into full-time speculation mode on both nominees' VP picks. At some point, Hillary will declare that she is not interested (we were intrigued by the suggestion in today's Post that she should be appointed to the Supreme Court; she'd be an excellent choice).

A bunch of irrelevant polls will be released, showing a close race. The worst of these polls will be national polls, based on phone calls to a few hundred voters, which won't really tell us anything. (Indeed, if you look at such polls now, you'll see that McCain is beating both Obama and Hillary; that Obama is beating McCain, but Hillary is not; and that Hillary is beating McCain, but Obama is not. Take your pick.)

There will be a lot of speculation about the impact of racism on the election, and the so-called "Bradley effect" (voters who tell pollsters they'll vote for Obama, but who won't vote for him because of his race). Maybe some voters will figure out that Obama is just as white as he is black.

Finally, a couple reflections on the Democratic nomination race. When the race started, Obama was questioned as not black enough for African-Americans. Hillary had significant African-American support, and many whites despised her for being part of the rich, liberal elite. Then, in the South Carolina primary, the Clintons stumbled on the race issue, allowing Obama to be viewed as sufficiently black to garner the overwhelming support of African-American voters. When that happened, Hillary suddenly became popular with blue-collar white males. Only a black man could've accomplished that!

Team Obama out-organized, out-energized, and out-strategized team Hillary. Frankly, we here at the Curmudgeon wish it had ended up the other way around, with Hillary winning by a small margin and then offering the vice presidency to Obama. That would've worked. But for all the mistakes team Hillary made, for all they got out-maneuvered, there was one mistake that was fatal: the failure to plan for and organize the caucus states.

For the all the post hoc moaning and whining of Hillary supporters about the "unfairness" of the caucus system, we should remember that when this started, Hillary assumed she'd be the beneficiary of caucuses dominated by party activists and insiders--the liberal elite. Little did she know she was going to become the NASCAR candidate. In the end, Hillary lost in the nomination in the caucus states, but not because of any unfairness. It was, instead, bad strategy. Her campaign took those states for granted and never bothered to organize them properly, leaving a huge opening for Obama. Future campaigns should take heed.

Childhood Obesity: Help Parents With Portion Sizes

The Washington Post yesterday launched a five-part series on childhood obesity in America. Although the Curmudgeon kids are skinny, this is an issue of interest to us as we see so many young children whose future is already being robbed by struggles with weight and obesity, including many of the kids in our soccer programs.

The Post series is important, but like many debates about obesity and its causes, it mixes together a lot of disparate information, much of which is mere noise. A good deal of the confusion comes from advice about what constitutes good nutrition, versus what will keep kids from getting fat.

Our youngest child undoubtedly has poor nutrition in his diet. He avoids vegetables and has a huge sweet-tooth. But he is small for his age, and skinny. That may in part be due to the struggle to get enough protein in him. But his diet is not going to make him fat, because he eats very little of anything. He's also incredibly physically active.

The point is, you can have a bad diet--nutritionally--without getting fat. Conversely, you can have good nutrition and still be overweight.

The weight issue is a function of how MUCH one eats. As the Post notes today, the difference between what an average person consumes each day and what is burned off by physical activity is about 100 calories. Doesn't sound like much, but over a year that's 36,500 calories, or about 18 days worth of excess food for an adult woman! (Adult women consume approximately 2000 calories per day on average.)

For many who are obese, that calorie gap is actually a good deal higher, too.

In today's article, the Post explored the government's failure to do much about the childhood obesity epidemic. But really, most of the potential actions mentioned in the Post wouldn't accomplish any reduction in obesity. More nutritional labelling, or eliminating trans-fats, or restricting soda machines in schools--none gets at the root problem of people simply eating too much.

What would help? We don't have all the answers, but parents desperately need some easy to use, practical guides to how much food their children should be eating, and they need help getting servings of the proper portion size.

Let's take McDonald's, ubiquitously blamed (for good reason) for America's obesity epidemic. There's no reason you couldn't take your child to McDonald's and get a reasonably sized meal that the kid would like. But the way Mickie-D's is set up, it ain't easy.

For a typical 10-year-old boy, a basic McD's single cheeseburger, with a SMALL packet of fries and a 10 oz. soda would be fine. Sure, it's nice to fantasize about having the child eat something more nutritious, with maybe fruit juice and some real vegetables, but let's start by getting the portion right and then work on the content. The government, and nutritionists, doctors, public health experts, etc., would do parents a huge favor by telling them that such a meal would be okay, instead of saying "don't eat fast food." In other words, the single cheeseburger with a few fries is MUCH better than the "value" meal with Big Mac, "medium" fries and 20 oz. drink pictured above.

Then we'd also have to get McDonald's to make that meal easily available to parents at a price competitive with their larger, calorie-packed meals. Again, if the government were in a position to identify what WOULD be appropriate for McD's (and other fast food outlets) to give a kid as a meal, then maybe they'd comply, or could be embarassed into doing the right thing.

Perhaps the government could also develop a standard system for labelling portions, with an attractive seal of approval for those approved for kids of a certain age.

It would also help to have labels that say something is NOT approved for kids of a certain age. We'd love to see labels on ALL packaged drinks--not just sodas (juice has a lot of calories too)--with more than 10 ounces saying they are inappropriate for children. Other packaged foods could earn similar labels.

You'd be surprised how many parents think they are giving their kids the right-sized portion when they aren't, just out of ignorance. (At our local Wendy's, the "small" combo meal comes with a 16 ounce drink and what used to be called a "large" fries; a lot of parents probably think that looks okay compared to the even bigger other options.)

There are probably other ways to give parents more practical advice on HOW MUCH food is appropriate for their children. We should look for opportunities to help.

Will Oregon Be An Ugly Surprise for Obama? UPDATE: Or Not!

Not too long ago, it looked (based on polls) as if Obama would crush Hillary in Oregon (while getting walloped in Kentucky) tomorrow. Now, it's not so clear.

Most voters in Oregon cast their ballots early, by mail. Accordingly, about half of the state's voters have already expressed their preferences. In other early voting states, Obama has done quite well with the folks who opt to cast ballots before election day, so you'd think by now he'd be well ahead of Hillary in Oregon.

But he's not. According to analysis of two recent polls by the CCPS blog, Obama and Hillary are dead even in the mail-in ballots. Those who say they still INTEND to vote heavily favor Obama, but with half the ballots already in, it appears his margin of victory will be fairly small, and that only IF those folks who say they still plan to vote actually do so.

Meanwhile, Kentucky clearly looks like a repeat of West Virginia, with Hillary likely to cruise to a 20+ point victory their.

It doesn't matter much in terms of whether Obama will get the nomination: after tomorrow, he will need fewer than 70 delegates to clinch the nomination (and his margin over Hillary currently stands at 182). Nonetheless, team Obama would surely like to do better than to limp across the finish line, so a strong Oregon finish is important.

We'll see what happens in this often surprising election season.

UPDATE: Two more polls out today show the opposite: Obama has a large lead in the early voting in these polls, from Public Policy Polling and Survey USA, both of whom have been pretty reliable this election season. Indeed, in the PPP poll, Obama has 59% of the early voting ballots, and they called it quite correctly in NC. So maybe Oregon will be an Obama blowout after all (consistent with his HUGE rally yesterday).

Evidence of Progress In China

Many heart-rending stories are coming out of China in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Sichuan province that likely killed more than 50,000.

One thing that's interesting is the relative openness of China to reporting of the disaster from the western news media. (Contrast: Myanmar.) It wasn't that long ago that the Chinese government's response to a natural disaster like this would be to clamp down on the media and try to control all reports of the catastrophe.

Today, China continues to look more and more western. The Chinese premier goes on television to discuss rescue efforts, does a few flyovers, and (unlike our President during Katrina) stays in the area to direct relief operations.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported today that ordinary Chinese citizens are opening their wallets to contribute to private relief efforts, just as Americans do when the going gets rough.

And while the Chinese government is directing search and rescue, as it should, there are reports of many volunteers, such as a doctor from Tangshan--a city destroyed in a 1976 earthquake--who decided on his own to go to the earthquake zone and provide whatever help he could.

These are all signs of an increasing "middle-class-ness" in China, especially in the more prosperous cities, with values that mirror those of the middle class in western societies.

Another value of the middle class in many nations is nationalism. In the Chinese, it manifests when westerners try to tell them what they should do with Tibet.

Will these emerging values eventually lead to a clamor for democracy, and a potential showdown with the Communist Party? Or will Party leaders who share similar values eventually allow the country to morph into a multi-party system? Those are some of the issues this massive nation will likely face in the coming decades.

Obama's Brilliant Timing?

Was it just a coincidence, or an example of brilliant timing, that the Obama campaign staged the endorsement of John Edwards at a massive rally just a day after the Illinois Senator's West Virginia debacle?

We opt for the brilliant timing theorem. Surely, the Obama campaign was aware of Edwards' decision at least a few days before they held a big rally to announce it. Since the Obamans knew they were going to get creamed in West Virginia, their strategic decision on when to drop the Edwards bomb--which more than made up for the delegates lost on Tuesday--was quite clever.

The Quick Brown Fox Sighted In Arlington?

Arlington's increasingly pedantic emergency email "Arlington Alert" system notified us today of a "rapid fox" was captured after biting a local woman, and had been found to have rabies.

Our question: is this the "quick brown fox" of typing lore?

Unfortunately, there was no indication as to whether this particular fox had jumped over the lazy dog, so we can't tell for sure.

First Hand Account From The China Quake

Yesterday, we posted about our travels last summer through parts of Sichuan, China, not too far from the awful earthquake that occurred Monday. Below is a first-hand account from a cousin of my father-in-law (who emigrated from China immediately after WWII). The cousin lives in Sichuan, not too far from the quake, but out of the primary damage zone.

You get a good sense from this account as to how widely felt the earthquake was, and of the resolve and resiliency of the Chinese people.

We have not edited his account, other than some clarifications in brackets--we can assure you that his English is a lot better than our Chinese!

"Dear Brother Shulong,

You would have known the tragedy occurred in Sichuan . A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Wenchuan County(汶川) in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. on Monday, Many parts of China , even the remote southern island province of Hainan , and Bangkok of Thailand, felt the quake.

Deyang [where our correspondent lives] is not far from Wenchuan—only about 100km . Mianzhu County(绵竹县), which, under the jurisdiction of Deyang City, is only 36km from the epicenter, was damaged seriously , causing heavy casualties. Shifang (什邡)，another county under the jurisdiction of Deyang City, was also seriously affected, where a chemical factory collapsed ; more than thousand people were buried. As for Deyang City itself, the situation was much better.

When the quake occurred, Quanlu [his wife] was drinking wine in front of the TV set and three cleaners were cleaning my house [an apartment]. I was going to the kitchen to take dishes. I was the first one felt the floor under my feet was trembling strongly.

I immediately sensed what the matter was. I shouted “Earthquake! Run out quickly! " I dashed out of the door; the cleaners followed. Quanlu responded a little slower and was the last one running out. In a minute, lots of people rushed out from the buildings to the yard, all shocked.

The tremor lasted one or two minutes. It calmed down temporarily. I returned into my house, I saw some wine bottles fell down to the floor, broken. And the water in a bowl in the kitchen splashed on the ground. Soon I felt the aftershocks again and again, not as strong as the first one. I went out to the yard. There an old woman living in the upper part of the [apartment] building told us lots of things had fallen down to the floor, even the TV set. We’ve never experienced such a big earthquake.

Soon the water supply was stopped, the electric supply was cut off. The cleaners couldn’t finish their work, but to leave it to be done the next day. We didn’t know where the epicenter was, since we couldn’t watch TV and open the computer.

I called Zhichuan who had returned to Shenzhen on May 5. He searched websites on his computer and told me immediately that the epicenter was in Wenchuan. We heaved a sigh of relief.

After having finished the lunch, we took a nap as usually. We woke up at five o’clock and saw lots of people were still in the yard. We joined them. We felt not big aftershocks from time to time. When it was getting dark, there were still no water, no electricity.

Not a few people didn’t want to go back to their apartments; but we did. We had a calm attitude. There were two advantages we had : 1) Our building was constructed according to the standards of anti -7 earthquake; 2) We live on the first floor, so we could run out quickly if necessary.

We lit a candle and listened to the tracking reports from our battery –powered mini radio, while taking the supper. The electricity and water supply were not restored before midnight. When we could use electricity, we turned on TV immediately to get the new tracking reports with images. When there were no fresh news broadcast, we went to bed.

I was awakened by the quiver of the bed and the windows. I felt it was a little bigger aftershock than those occurred in the afternoon. I heard noise in the yard. Some of our neighbors had run out of their departments to the yard. But Quanlu was still slept sound.

Now the governments at all levels regard earthquake rescue and relief as the top priority. A large number of the army, armed police and paramilitary forces, as well as medical personnel are sent to the quake-hit areas as soon as possible, mounting all-out efforts to save the injured and reduce the impact caused by the havoc.

We are closely watching the development of the search and rescue work. And I believe Chinese people will unite closely to defeat this great natural disasters."

Mourning The Sichuan Quake Victims

Less than a year ago, the Curmudgeon family enjoyed an extended vacation in Sichuan province, site of the massive earthquake that struck China two days ago.

We spent most of our time in and around Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, which has a population of more than 10 million people. Part of our travels included a trip to Mt. Emeishan, a 10,000 foot summit that houses one of China's major Buddhist shrines. (Below is one of our photos of the gold Buddha near the summit.) Mt. Emeishan is right on the edge of the mountains where the quake was centered, but probably 50-80 miles south of the epicenter.

We have many fond memories of our travels through Sichuan, especially of the hospitality shown to us by many Chinese, who, like Americans, tend mostly to be friendly toward foreigners and proud of their tourist attractions and history.

China is a real mix of the old and new these days. Chengdu is home to many modern office towers, hotels and high rise apartment buildings, most of which likely survived the shock with little or no damage.

By the same token, travelling through the Chinese countryside, one sees many old, smaller buildings that are having enough trouble just standing up on an ordinary day. Some of the smaller towns and cities have modern structures, others don't. And some of the larger buildings that are 20 or more years old probably would not withstand a large quake.

The photo below is of the Curmudgeon's father-in-law's ancestral home in China, which at one time (pre-Chinese revolution) was a magnificent estate in southeastern Sichuan, near Zigong. In the countryside, millions of Chinese still live in dwellings like this--and far worse--which could fare poorly in a large earthquake.

Thus, it is not that surprising to us that some important buildings, such as a hospital and several schools, collapsed. Sichuan Province has a population of nearly 90 million people, and it appears that tens of thousands lost their lives. Bad as that is, a 1976 quake levelled the Chinese city of Tangshan, killing more than 250,000. Very few structures in China at that time could withstand a major earthquake.

We almost took a side-trip from Chengdu to a tourist site that represents an example of ancient irrigation practices, and that is near one of China's largest panda preserves, which would have put us almost exactly at the epicenter of this recent temblor. While we didn't head in that direction, it is pretty clear based on our other road travels through the countryside that many roads would easily become blocked with fallen rocks, or made impassable by collapsed bridges and broken pavement, in any type of major earthquake, so we're not surprised by reports that rescue crews are having trouble reaching the hardest hit regions.

Our hearts go out to the victims of this most recent earthquake in China, in a region we've so recently toured, and where we were touched by the people and their hospitality toward us.

McCain v. Obama in Virginia: Statistical Tie; NC in Play, Too?

The latest Rasmussen poll of Virginia voters has John McCain leading Barack Obama by just three percentage points (47%-44%), which is a statistical tie. That's a lot better than a couple months ago, when McCain had an 11 point lead.

It's still way early, but it looks like Virginia will earn it's designation as a battleground state.

Will North Carolina also be a battle ground state? Could be. With a hot gubernatorial race, an increasinly competitive Senate race and the huge expansion of Democratic voter rolls, NC could be in play. Rasmussen reports a three-point lead there for McCain as well.

If McCain and the GOP start having to devote significant resources to previously reliably red states such as NC and Virginia, then this race will be very interesting indeed.