Episode Details

We promised last week to dive deeper into the newly flipped and revised Food Pyramid including sharing insights. Wednesday we did it live here on Substack and over on LinkedIn. You can watch and/or listen to a recording of that here or find it where you go for your regular podcast and video content.

For some, watching or listening just isn’t a format that works, so we have put together a bit of a smorgarboard of a few highlights of the discussion, the deeper first principle design and human outcomes focused framework, as well as the detail we pulled together in advance of the session, some of which wasn’t explicitly covered.

Ellen: Friends, we had quite the conversation this week. And I came prepared—believe it or not. I even successfully streamed on two platforms simultaneously without spending an hour troubleshooting. Growth, people.

But here’s what kicked off the whole discussion, and I need you to appreciate this: The South Park episode we opened with? It’s from 2014.

Season 18. Episode called “Gluten-Free Ebola.” It shows the food pyramid getting flipped upside down, fire-hosing grain fields, removing ultra-processed snacks. There’s even an inference to removing high fructose corn syrup. These guys weren’t just making jokes—they were predicting our present reality. (You can watch it below the link is on the image)

Carter: So there’s nothing new about flipping the pyramid. It’s not that radical. It takes decades to change perspective. We had a food system that worked for us for 350,000 years. Our bodies were tuned to it. That’s System A.

Then we dove into the idea that we wanted to boost yield. We ended famine. We decided we were going to have hero healthcare to solve awful diseases and eliminate pathogens. That’s System B. It worked—for what it was designed to do.

But then we thought System B could fix food. We took the signal out of food. Getting yield up took out micronutrients and took the signals out. Signals program our bodies. Our bodies were trained for 350,000 years how to adapt to the signals they saw. We muted them. We confused our bodies.

It takes 40,000 years for us to evolve to a new system, but we tried to evolve in 70 years.

Ellen: And now we’re paying for it. But we promised everyone we’d talk about the food pyramid, so let’s get into what it actually says—because 75% of the criticism I’ve seen comes from people who didn’t read the actual guidelines.

What the New Food Pyramid Actually Says

Carter: The pyramid is sort of pointed—it’s focused on you. I’d almost like it to say “human-based outcomes” as a first principle. Human-based outcomes. You’ve got to get the food signal programming you. Your body is programmed to be healthy when it gets the right signals

Ellen: Here’s what’s getting lost in all the clip art debates. If you go to realfood.gov, you can download three PDF documents with the specifics. This is what it actually says.

The Great Divide: Who’s Cheering, Who’s Screaming

Ellen: So here’s what people are saying. I pulled together a lot on this.

Supportive voices:

* AMA president said these guidelines affirm that food is medicine

* Dr. Huberman publicly praised the pyramid on X (publicly on X, publicly on X—sorry, my brain is doing things today)

* Our friend Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian from Tufts noted that both low-fat and whole dairy are linked to lower cardiovascular disease

* National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA):

* “Pleased” with nearly doubled protein recommendations

* Kim Brackett: “Beef provides high amounts of protein plus nine other essential nutrients like iron and B vitamins”

National Pork Producers Council:

* Rob Brenneman: “America’s pork producers appreciate the 2025 Dietary Guidelines putti