WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The traditional food pyramid -- a relatively useless government chart depicting a healthy diet -- was scrapped and replaced on Thursday by Michele Obama’s plate-shaped chart, which GOP leaders derided as completely useless and dangerous. They called the Obama Food Plate a “travesty” and “a potential death blow to the nation’s vital fast food industry, which is already under attack by a growing number of states that are dictating what restaurants can and can’t sell.”

Forcing Americans to make different dietary choices, conservatives said, would destroy one of the last vestiges of free enterprise in the nation’s emerging socialist system. So to stress the importance of consumer choice and capitalism, GOP leaders today released a conservative version of the food chart, which “more accurately reflects the true diets and values of American families, and the businesses they depend on.”

The White House argued that the new Food Plate will help consumers make “healthier choices” by providing simpler and more appropriate food groupings, along with recommendations for portion control, increasing one’s daily intake of fruits and vegetables, redefining what grains should be consumed, and cutting out numerous dairy products.

“The Obama chart certainly isn’t what I expected to see,” Rick Santorum allegedly told an aide on his 2012 Republican presidential exploratory committee. “I just assumed it would be a plate full of fried chicken, watermelon, and grits.”

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