1992, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed the food pyramid as a tool of assessing the healthiness of a diet and as a proposal towards healthy living. While many of the issues that were relevant in the 1992 USDA food pyramid, such as "eating a variety of foods," balancing foods with physical activity" or moderate consumption of alcohol -- general indications for a healthy lifestyle -- the actual reference to food and to what can actually be called a healthy diet has been a point of controversy ever since. We will be proposing three modifications to key points in the food pyramid, according to the reasoning presented here below.

The first issue is the failure of the USDA pyramid to "recognize important health differences between red meat"

and other foods in the group. The risk of consuming red meat is clearly related with increased risk of developing coronary disease, colon...
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