The New Food Pyramid was Inspired by the Stacked Logo (Allegedly)

Editors’ Note: It’s worth being clear that we don’t endorse much of what RFK Jr. pushes in the nutrition and health policy space. There are areas where rhetoric outpaces evidence. That said, policy changes should be evaluated on their merits. This update is reasonable, and it reflects decades of bipartisan data.

Or copy and paste this link to others: {{rp_refer_url}}

If you grew up in the 90s, you probably learned nutrition from a single triangle taped to a cafeteria wall.

Bread, cereal, rice, pasta at the base. Carbs were the foundation of life of course. An entire generation walked away thinking, “low-fat = healthy”.

Last week, the federal government revived the pyramid, except they flipped it, and added a new slogan, “Eat Real Food.” We would recommend checking out the website if you haven’t yet. It’s actually very well designed and information dense.    

In the new visual, protein, dairy, and healthy fats sit at the top, followed by vegetables & fruits, with whole grains below. If you’re thinking, “Wait… isn’t the Stacked logo an inverted food pyramid?” — Yes. It is, and it’s a little strange to see our vision brought to life. 

The real story is how we got here, and why the original pyramid became so controversial.

A quick history on the original food pyramid

The 1992 Food Guide Pyramid was a policy instrument.

It influenced school lunches, food marketing, and the definition of what “healthy” meant in mainstream culture for years. It was updated in 2005 (“MyPyramid”) and eventually replaced by MyPlate in 2011, partly because the pyramid had become too confusing, too easy to misinterpret, and too hard to square with evolving science.

The 1992 pyramid also reflected the nutrition mood of its era: a strong fear of fat, an emphasis on grain-based calories, and broad categories that didn’t differentiate quality (whole grains vs. refined grains; fish vs. processed meat; olive oil vs. margarine).

Where the old pyramid went wrong (and why people still argue about it)

It taught volume instead of quality: “grains” were the base. But the graphic didn’t do much to separate oats from white bread, or rice from sugar-coated cereal. In real life, the easiest way to “follow the pyramid” was often: more refined carbs, more frequently.

It quietly encouraged low-protein, low-satiety eating: the old pyramid didn’t make protein the anchor of meals. It treated it like one category among many, and most people defaulted to what was cheap, available, and aggressively marketed: refined carbs + added fats.

It helped launch the “low-fat” era: once “fat” became the villain, the market responded by engineering “low-fat” products that were often higher in sugar and refined starch. The result wasn’t a nation of leaner humans. It was a nation of more packaged food.

People forget that the pyramid is a symbol of politics: nutrition guidance is never produced in a vacuum, and the U.S. has a unique structural problem - the USDA both supports American agriculture and participates in dietary guidance.

This tension boiled over publicly in the early 90s:

A single graphic moved $100s of billions of dollars.

So what does the new pyramid actually say?

The new “Eat Real Food” pyramid is blunt:

This is actually a relatively strong representation of what a healthy diet should aim for, especially if prioritizing muscle health and healthspan.

Why you should care

We partly started Stacked Health based on the idea that modern nutrition had become inverted. It’s strange for us to see the government ship our vision into reality.

Nutrition guidance shapes what gets subsidized, manufactured, marketed, and served at scale. When the base of the pyramid is grains, entire supply chains organize around producing cheap grain calories. School lunches, hospital food, military rations, and food assistance programs follow. Over decades, this quietly trains taste preferences, normalizes low-protein meals, and pushes muscle health into the background.

If this helps people build meals around protein and plants, while minimizing processed foods, there will be long term downstream benefits where it matters most: stronger bodies, better aging, and higher quality of life.

Or copy and paste this link to others: {{rp_refer_url}}

Current Referral Count: {{rp_num_referrals}}