food pyramid
4
3.9
- noun
- /fuːd ˈpɪrəmɪd/
- Specialized
:
pirámide alimentaria
- The food pyramid illustrates the various levels of energy flow in an ecosystem, from producers to top predators.
Examples
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Scientists often use the food pyramid to explain how energy is transferred through different stages of the food chain.
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In biology class, we learned about the food pyramid, which shows the hierarchy of organisms in different ecosystems.
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Once again, this looks like the food pyramid.
Blog text (18) -
Figure 3 shows a similar food pyramid with English and Arabic language text.
Academic text (2002) -
So the food pyramid basically was built by huge influences from food companies pushing products.
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I love many different kinds of foods all over the food pyramid and am very healthy because of it.
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As a result, the USDA created the food pyramid.
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These cultural food pyramids vary in the arrangement and types of foods shown in the Fruit Group and Vegetable Group.
Academic text (2002) -
The "food pyramid" stressed the greater importance of fruits and vegetables and whole grains over meat, milk, sugar, and fats.
Academic text (2004) -
A "food pyramid" model was adopted in 1991, attempting to reflect the benefits of reducing fat and saturated fat and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
Academic text (2004)
How Complex
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense of a pyramid-shaped diagram relating to food or levels of food (producers up to predators) is directly inferable from combining 'food' (what is eaten/energy source) with 'pyramid' (a triangular/hierarchical shape). This is a compositional, cross-linguistically common naming pattern for diagrams, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would understand the general meaning even if they lack detailed ecological terminology.
Etymology
The noun food pyramid comes from a simple picture shaped like a pyramid that shows how food moves from many plants and small animals at the wide bottom to few big animals at the narrow top. So the picture shows the 'levels' in an ecosystem and explains why 'top predators' are rarer.