I like visuals. Like the US Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid guide to healthy eating. You can click on the various wedges of the pyramid to see what the government is recommending. The first big wedge is labeled “Grains,” and urges us to eat at least three ounces of grain-based foods like crackers, rice, bread, or pasta everyday. After living a year in Milan, Italy, I really learned to love pasta. I make great pasta too!
Economists are curious about incentives. Why does the pyramid look the way it does? Might the healthy diet suggestions the USDA is putting out there be influenced by grain lobby groups? Could the food pyramid reflect lobby interests as well as sound nutrition advice? Is government information good for you?
Recently, at the urging of our son, my wife and I started doing CrossFit, a very challenging exercise program. Many CrossFitters are also interested in the paleo diet which is based on our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ eating patterns. When we started doing CrossFit, the CF gym proprietors wanted to know if we were interested in learning more about the paleo approach to eating. I was leery, having suffered through a protracted vegetarian experiment earlier in the marriage. But, I’m willing to learn new things, and my wife has always been really good about encouraging healthy eating habits, so we indicated a willingness to find out more.
The paleo approach is very interesting, and seems to be opposed to some aspects of what the USDA food pyramid urges Americans to eat. Paleo suggests each meal include a mix of protein from fish or meat but not beans or legumes, carbohydrates from fresh fruits and vegetables but not grains, and unsaturated fats from plant sources. Paleo Diet books urge people to avoid grain-based foods like pasta. PASTA?!?! Oh no, not pasta.
Setting habit, emotion, prejudice, and all those pleasant pasta dinner memories aside for a minute, what about grains, and pasta? Is pasta good for me? Should I eat it? How much, how often? According to this site a cup of pasta, a really tiny amount for me, has a glycemic load value of 27, outside the upper limit of the high level. Shucks! The truth hurts, but might lead to a shorter belt in this case.
Paleo pays close attention to the science behind the glycemic index and the more helpful glycemic load measures. Basically, these measures give an indication of how rapidly and efficiently various foods are turned into usable energy through human digestion chemistry.
What I like so far about the paleo way of eating is the way I feel during those challenging workouts. After eating a big pasta lunch I used to feel like taking a nap. After a paleo lunch I feel like jumping up and chasing a deer. Little exaggeration there, but not much.
So, back to the question is government information good for you? My answer is a qualified yes. My favorite sites on the internet are the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the National Center for Education Statistics, all government-sponsored sites. But the question about pasta and grains, and generally, the question of what really is a healthy diet makes me think about the importance of getting second and third opinions, and thinking critically about the incentives and purposes behind information and advice.
What can we discover about the science of human digestion and answers to questions about healthy eating habits? A lot, thanks to the variety of sources available through modern telecommunications technology! And it’s probably healthy too to remember that information is produced for stated as well as unstated purposes.
Government information is good. Participation is what keeps it that way. We, the American people, participate when we work, vote, and do just about any other daily activity which can be monitored – shopping for example. This participation on our part is what creates the data which the government uses to formulate certain statistics or provide the public with legitimate information.
On a more economic level, incentives keep the good information coming. Without the incentives, the government wouldn’t really need to hand out information – much less good information. The greatest incentive for a government is keeping its people happy. People are happy when they know what is going on, so therein lies the incentive to provide people with good information. Otherwise, the government simply would not last very long.
A good example of good information given by the government is the most wanted lists provided by the FBI. They do this to protect their people and to warn them of dangers which may be present. Without the lists being publicized, big time criminals could roam the streets freely and become even more dangerous due to their unkown nature. Government information is good for all of us!