1. Introduction

There was a large wall chart, and the third-grade teacher was pointing to it as she taught me and my elementary school classmates our first lesson in nutrition.

There were four big pictures on the chart. One picture showed a cow surrounded by milk, butter, and cheese. Another picture had steaks, porkchops, and sausages piled high, with a few beans sprinkled around the different meats. At the bottom of the chart was a picture of loaves of bread and a bowl of cereal. Finally in the other corner of the poster was a head of lettuce, apples, oranges, and a yellow squash.

The teacher was pointing to each picture. "Now to grow up healthy and strong," she said, "you must eat different foods every day. You need milk and meat and bread and some vegetables or fruit at every meal." She pointed to the picture of the cow, and then to the steak (I didn't know at that time that the steak had come from the cow!) and then to the bowl of cereal and the yellow squash.

It sounded good to my eight-year-old ears. All you had to do to eat right and be healthy is just to remember to eat four types of food at every meal. It was logical and so neatly explained by that big food chart that had been supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Twelve years later after following such a diet, I knew my third-grade teacher had lied to me. I wasn't healthy or strong or well. I studied nutrition on my own, and discovered the real truth about diet and well-being—the truth that had been so carefully hidden from me and is still denied children in school today.

The Basic Four Food Group diet that was so vividly illustrated on that chart is still the most popular diet and nutrition plan in this country today. And it is dangerously incorrect.