Posted on Renew America
Michelle Obama seems fixated on pie: Pizza pie eaten both in the White House and outside the White House, apple pie, Thanksgiving pie, the Crust Master’s’ “dangerously good” pie, other people’s pie, and now the pie-obsessed first lady may be responsible for dismantling the food pyramid and changing it into….? You guessed it, a pie chart.
What a coincidence. Remember when Michelle said: “The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more?”
Could it be that Mrs. “share your pie” Obama is behind purposely associating food and health with a logo that coincidentally symbolizes what Michelle suggested all Americans volunteer to do for the greater good?
The new symbol was designed to underscore a central mantra of the federal government’s healthy eating push: make half your plate fruits and vegetables. And it is expected to be a crucial element of the administration’s crusade against obesity, which is being led by the first lady, Michelle Obama.
Dr. David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, called the pie plate a “major improvement over the pyramid.” Dr. Kessler is confident that “It conveys the message simply in a way that we all can understand.”
Apparently, the Food and Drug Administration, along with Mrs. Obama, are concerned that adult Americans are so nutritionally ignorant they’re unaware that squash is healthier than Twinkies. The belief must be that without input from the federal government a large portion of Americans are destined to be victims of “Death by Chocolate.”
Kudos to the FDA for courageously saving lives by divvying up dinner plates into triangular shapes. The new pie-chart plate “consists of four colored sections.” On behalf of color-challenged adults, the hope is that the four sections are designated to be familiar primary colors. There is one section each “for fruits, vegetables, grains and protein… Beside the plate is a smaller circle for dairy, suggesting a glass of low-fat milk or perhaps a yogurt cup.”
Referring to everyday Americans, Michelle once said: “They don’t want the whole pie,” which raises a serious concern: Is there at least room for a hunk of cheesecake on the dairy circle?
Maybe I’m overly suspicious, but the first lady’s fingerprints appear to be all over this pie – sorry, the pie chart initiative. Last year, right around the time Mrs. Obama was busy sluicing salt and dictating portions on restaurant menus, a “group of public health experts, nutritionists, food industry representatives and design professionals were invited to a meeting in Washington where they were asked to discuss possible alternative symbols. One option was a plate.”
Because the pyramid was “widely viewed as hard to understand…several participants at the meeting said it would be better to create an improved version.” Brought to Washington to “discuss” options, one healthy-eating professional claimed an unidentified administration official “rejected the [improved version] idea,” allegedly telling the group, “We can’t go back.”
Requesting anonymity, the pie-spy was convinced the “Marching orders were obviously to come up with something new” and the something new just coincidentally ended up being shaped like Michelle’s all time favorite: pie.
Everyone agrees that eating healthier is a laudable goal. However, should Michelle Obama, a “tasting tour” fan who flies pizza chefs from St. Louis to the White House and whom Obama says “can afford to have as many tamales as she wants,” be the one dictating food choices and portion control with a symbol used to promote the “piece of the pie”-sharing cause of Obama-style socialism?
