In case anyone was wondering why the new food pyramid saved its most prominent real estate (top left corner) for meat and dairy.

Wonder. No. More.

"(I)t looks very much like these guidelines
were purchased by the beef and dairy industries.
The committee is filled with people
like J. Thomas Brenna,
who has been funded by the National Cattlemen's Beef
and the Texas Beef Council,
among many other conflicts,
or Don Layman, who complains that, in his career,
he was never able to obtain funding from the NIH.
So he took it from the Beef Board,
the National Dairy Council,
Kraft, Nestle, and many others.
And so they put beef and dairy
at the top of the pyramid."