> <<snip>>Now many dieticians and nutritionists argue that premise (Dr Atkins for one) but sadly what's available as prepackaged foods has not changed yet and will not until changes are recommended from 'acceptable official sources.'
>
SNIP

For about 90% of my lifetime to date there was a standard food groups chart in use that was promoted as being the healthy way to go. Then, 6-8 years ago, it was turned upside down and backwards and this NEW pyramid became THE healthy way to go.
I decided to ignore the new one on the basis that I had lived reasonably healthily (genetic disease aside) and it didn't make sense to me that it suddenly could change so much.

Not too much later I heard how the new pyramid evolved, and how the various "interests" all got their say in finalizing it. So things were added and measure counts were increased to satisfy all the interested parties to get them to endorse it.
I got the distinct impression that what got published was quite different than what had been originally proposed.
That only made me feel more comfortable in my choice to ignore the new one.
A concensus of doctors/dieticians is one thing, but adding in producer/marketing considerations is a whole other thing. It seems that 'acceptable official sources' FOR THE CONSUMER may now be impossible. Producers and marketing considerations now seem to be integrated into 'acceptable official sources'. So much so that the CONSUMER goes unheard, even when asking for something so simple as labelling to indicate GMO content. Even irradiation labels are under review to allow a euphamism in place of the word itself.