Scaling the new pyramid

A new food pyramid has been put out by the Irish government last week.  Food Pyramids are thing since Sweden brought in the first food pyramid in 1974, same year they won the Eurovision with Waterloo, maybe they were concentrating their effort on the singing that year, as a pyramid is perhaps not the best representation of how we should eat.  A Pyramid is a huge and mysterious thing, the crowning achievement of many generations of great kings in ancient civilisations, would this be partly why most nations have moved towards the plate – like something relatable to actual eating? 

  

No, no – let’s keep the pyramid, it’s a lot more noble, isn’t it?   

Should we make it into like an Irish version, a food burial mound – what like Newgrange?  

 Yeah – it’d remind us of our bellies then too, when we’re lying down like, after dinner… 

No no, let’s keep the pyramid.   

(awkward silence)

Most other countries are switching to plates.  

 Are you a man or a shamrock,  we’re keeping our pyramid!

Pyramids were always loved by doctors too, the very first doctor in the entire world, was a pyramid builder called Imhotep  ( the first part of his name pronounced like Im the irish for butter) – the two things went hand in hand really, building pyramids, and then suddenly needing a professional dedicated to fixing broken people… diagnosing squashed clavicles etc. 

So this new pyramid comes to us, 11 years after it was commissioned by the way, it’s based on a survey of the habits of 11 hypothetical people, obviously they followed one of them around per year…  And what have they done with it.  Well we’re eating too much crap – so they’ve divorced the crap from the pyramid altogether – unfortunately mimicking the elevated evil eye – so now sweets and crisps are subliminally recognised for the role they have in controlling EVERYTHING!   

However the official line is that we should only have sweets, fizzy drinks and salty snacks once or twice per week.  So the selection box should last until the 10^th of Feb instead of 10 am xmas morning.  The box of Quality street should see you through till Easter, and sorry if you started the advent calendar late but if you wanted to follow the guide you should have started it at the end of September.

                    

Now the government are also looking to help us get active, which is great, they give us helpful descriptions of what exercise actually is – so

Moderate activity is any activity that causes

your heart to beat slightly faster and your

breathing to become noticeably heavier without

feeling out of breath. Like taking the water at Dublin airport without paying…

Vigorous activity is any activity that causes a big

increase in heart rate and your breathing becomes

much faster and deeper leaving you feeling out

of breath and sweaty… will let you insert your own joke here.

There’s guidance too depending on how lazy you are – so for lazy teenagers, and adults, they are accepting that some of us just won’t move, so they’ve given us a guide on how much less we should eat if we’re in that bucket.  At least they’ve left kids out of this saying "No kids should be inactive." 

Great timing coming into xmas too –  however remember – it’s not what you eat between xmas and the new year, but what you eat between new year and xmas that matters.