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Belgium's new food pyramid encourages fruit & veg but warns against meat
Belgium has introduced a new food pyramid that flips the old version on its head.
Courtesy of Vlaams Instituut Gezond Leven
Water, fruits, vegetables, tofu, and noodles get top billing—and steak sits at the bottom of the graphic.
Bacon, pepperoni, and other deli meats don’t make it onto the pyramid at all; instead they’ve been relegated to a small circle, sentenced to sit next to soft drinks, cookies, pizza, and French fries. Belgians have been advised to eat those foods, “as little as possible.”
It’s a noteworthy move for the Flemish Institute of Healthy Life, which released the graphic Sept. 19. Since 2015, the global meat industry has been pushing back against a World Health Organization announcement that classified processed meats as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Belgian policymakers appear ready to maintain a staunch defense for their decision.
“We want to make it clear that we don’t need these products,” a representative of the institute told Flanders Today. “We don’t forbid them, but they should be rather an exception than the rule.”