Food pyramid is “outdated”, say critics

Belgium’s Health Council (Hoge Gezondheidsraad/Conseil Supérieur de la Santé) is working on a new food pyramid as a recommendation for a healthy diet, taking into account the opinions of a steadily increasing number of critics who call the traditional pyramid “complex, outdated and tailored to the agriculture and dairy industries”.

The Health Council will introduce its new recommendation for nutrition by 2015, and the Flemish Institute for Health (VIGeZ) will then communicate that advice to consumers. If the Health Council says, for example, how many milligrams of calcium one should consume daily, the VIGeZ expresses that amount in terms of number of glasses of milk or cheese slices per day.

It's been more than 15 years since the food pyramid was updated. It is not yet clear what the new model will look like, but the Health Council will likely look to other countries as an example. In the Netherlands, the pyramid already underwent a major overhaul, and in Switzerland they put vegetables at the base of the pyramid, replacing grains and starches.