Jonell Galloway
The Americans aren’t the only ones who have a Food Pyramid!
In our 9 May 2009 post A fun, interactive guide for teaching your children good eating habits, we referred only to the American food pyramid, because the US has a pyramid specifically aimed at children. But the Swiss have a food pyramid too!
Swiss food pyramid.
The Swiss food pyramid, published on 30 July 2007, is for the general population, and has quite a different slant from the new American pyramid that came out earlier this year (literally, because the new American one is vertical, while the Swiss one is horizontal, but the content also differs).
Differences between Swiss food pyramid and US food pyramid
The Swiss food pyramid does not follow the trend in the US and other countries of decreasing intake of saturated fats. In fact, it increases fat intake from 30 to 40 percent and lowers carbohydrates from 60 to 45 percent, says Med Journal Watch, saying that mother’s milk is high in saturated fat, and “fats have been said to be harmful for the heart, but the heart takes 60 to 90 percent of its energy out of fat.” According to Paolo C. Colombani, head of the Swiss food pyramid expert group, in an article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, “the vast majority of published studies in the past fifty years have shown no adverse effects of saturated fats.”
Jonell Galloway
Is it safe to use mayonnaise in the summer?
Is it a myth that we should avoid using mayonnaise on sandwiches and in salads when they are not refrigerated and during hot months when we go on picnics and hiking?
Last July, the New York Times reported that the acidic ingredients, such as lemon and vinegar, contained in commercial mayonnaise may “actually protect against spoilage.” The August 2000 issue of Journal of Food Protection reported that lactic and citric acids served as natural preservatives by warding off bacteria.
The important safety factor for Europeans
The catch here is that these articles refer specifically to American-made commercial mayonnaises, which use pasteurized eggs and more acids than European ones. And let’s not even discuss homemade ones, for which we cannot control the safety of ingredients used, because they can vary so much.
In Switzerland and France, there is not a wealth of literature available on this subject. However, since most people prefer homemade mayonnaise to the supermarket variety, it is probably advisable to continue to avoid using mayonnaise in summer unless it is kept cool at all times. Better safe than sorry, unless you are a scientist capable of analyzing the acidity and testing that all ingredients are equivalent to those used in the U.S., or of determining the level of bacteria contained in the mayonnaise or mayonnaise-based dish before you eat it.