Minneapolis Greens hit big with spoof

If you look up the website for the new U.S. Department of Agriculture food pyramid and find advice that corn syrup is a good source of grain, you may have stumbled upon a parody created by Minneapolis web designers Stephen Eisenmenger and Molly Nutting.

On a whim, the couple decided to buy up two addresses strikingly similar to that of the USDA site. Before even posting content, the website had 50,000 hits its first night up.

While www.mypyramid.gov is the address for the newly launched USDA site, www.mypyramid.org will take you to the spoof, whose graphics and design at first appears identical to the original.

While the official website took the government, along with its PR firm, Porter Novelli, four years and $2.5 million dollars to create, Nutting and Eisenmenger finished it in less than a day’s time, attributing their speed to quick cutting and pasting.

“I’m shocked that they would spend $2.5 million on their campaign and not even cover all their bases in domains,” said Nutting. “As web designers, we always make sure we have our domains covered.”

The parody isn’t just for laughs, however. The government’s famous food pyramid has come under fire for a number of reasons. It recommends servings of dairy products every day, although much of the world’s population is lactose-intolerant. Vegetarians object to the inclusion of meat, for reasons that include greater damage to the environment.

“Our main intent is to represent the USDA more truthfully than they represent themselves,” said Eisenmenger. “When you have the idea that we need to keep the food industry profitable as a starting point you really limit the effect you can have on the public’s well being.”

Nutting and Eisenmenger see a conflict of interest in the fact that the same agency responsible for promoting U.S. agribusiness is telling Americans how to eat. While the original website features the heading “United States Department of Agriculture,” the site’s doppelganger reads “United States Department of Agribusiness.”

Some critics have also referred to the USDA’s pyramid as the “McPyramid,” since Porter Novelli, who created the site, has also done similar projects for both McDonald’s and the Snack Food Association.

“It really wasn’t surprising at all to learn that they had done marketing for McDonald’s,” Nutting said. “No, I'm not surprised USDA hired a firm with ties to industry -- USDA itself is staffed with former food industry insiders, and many people who probably plan to get industry jobs in the future.”

As a critique on the official website’s lack of warning towards eating refined and processed foods, the site’s parody reads: “Make half your grains highly refined (or processed). Highly refined grains ease the digestion process by bypassing the pesky nutrient and fiber-absorption step.”

“They’ll tell you that some foods are high in cholesterol, but they won’t actually advise you to stop or cut back on eating them,” Eisenmenger said. “They won’t say eat less red meat, or eat fewer refined foods. They made sure to offend as few industries as possible.”

Eisenmenger and Nutting aren’t the only locals criticizing the USDA website. The Minneapolis based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy issued a press release stating that the site’s recommendations for servings of fish would give someone 20 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended amount of mercury.

Mypyramid.org also parodies the USDA’s advice on exercise, recommending video games and channel-changing as adequate exertion. Eisenmenger sees the exercise aspect of the government site as merely a way to justify what he sees as being a recommended overindulgence in calories, suggested only to create greater demand for certain industries.

Since the site went up last month, it has received over 3 million hits and garnered national media coverage. Even Marion Nestle, author of “Food Politics,” which both Nutting and Eisenmenger cite as an inspiration for the site, wrote the couple to thank them for their creation.

Nutting also sees the concerns of the agriculture industries held as a priority over the health concerns of the general public.

“These dietary guidelines that the USDA puts out dictate what is put out in school lunches and in our prisons.” she said. “They have to conform to these standards or they don’t get funding, and to have your industry included as a requirement is highly profitable.”

The couple also sees the website as catering not only towards certain industries but also to a wealthy audience. While both sites offer a technical help section, for moments when the sites become bogged down with users, the advice on each site differs a bit. The USDA site will inform you: “If you are having technical difficulties, please refer to our technology requirements to ensure your system meets the minimum requirements.”

The parody on the other hand will advise you in a somewhat different manner.
“If you are having technical difficulties, it’s probably because you do not have new and/or expensive enough equipment. If that’s the case, then you are probably not in our target demographic and lack the financial means to have a significant impact on the Agribusiness economy anyways.”

This isn’t the first time this Minneapolis couple has embarked on a politically-motivated project; Eisenmenger and Nutting actually met while doing campaign work for the Green Party. Nutting sees a direct correlation between the concerns of the Green Party and the concerns their spoof addresses.

“There’s a correlation in terms of the value systems that believe the choices people make have an impact, not only on their personal health, but the health of the planet, and everybody who shares it,” she said.