The food pyramid has been seriously challenged and doesn't work for many people. Some people should not eat fats sparingly, and if they do eat fats sparingly, when they need more fats, they get unwell, including diabetic. Read body typing books...not blood typing...basically 4 types..one is great on vegetarian, one is great on "balanced diet", one needs more lean proteins, and one needs heavier proteins and fats. The ones who get into trouble are the ones who need the heavier proteins and fats but social pressure keeps them from merely eating what they need..think Eskimos etc...

So most of advice out there works for the vegetarians..I stopped eating meat and I feel so great (if I did I wouldn't feel anything at all because I would be in a coma)...and for the balanced dieters..and perhaps a bone is thrown to the light proteiners...the last group, and I am in it...are given bad advice..so our situations deteriorate. The only thing that kept me from getting worse, and I am pretty badly damaged from metabolic syndrome etc..is knowing enough biology to not totally believe them when they said if you eat too much meat your bones will leach calcium etc. Others have not been so lucky.

You absolutely can not just read medical journals on this because they are not behind the 8 ball and some medical professionals give very bad advice..as in their patients don't get better or get worse. You have to read what biochemists, and anthropologists and experimental psychologists and sociobiologists and others have to say as well and it is pretty much converging on a new, or maybe not new, because people knew it in the past, approach to diet that will correct some of the craziness of the last few decades...so one diet of course does not fit all...look at what your ancestors ate, and if they are all from one part of the world, and they were healthy, lean toward what they ate...mg