Goodbye Food Pyramid

I had been planing to do a post about the food pyramid and vegetarian versions of the food pyramid (if you are still interested in this, you can find one by googling vegetarian food pyramid). But yesterday the US Department of Agriculture replaced the food pyramid with something called My Plate, which is very exciting and way better! The old food pyramid was lacking in many ways, the categories were not descriptive enough, the “servings” were confusing, and the whole idea was unmanageable for the average person. Who has time to look at their plate of food and figure out how many servings of each food group is on it? Much less try to remember that through out the day so that at the other meals they can add together their servings and hopefully end the day with the right amount of everything. No one I know does this kind of planning or thinking about food. We generally think about food one or two meals at a time, which is why the new guidelines are so exciting, they are specifically for one meal at a time.

The new image of a plate with different colored areas for different types of food is easy to understand. There are easy suggestions that go along with the picture as well, such as “avoid oversized portions.” Perhaps my favorite part is that the word “meat” is gone from the picture. Instead we see the word “protein” which is a much better description of what a person should eat. Protein could be meat but it could also be soy, eggs, beans, lentils, peas, nuts, grains such as couscous or brown rice, or seeds.

I love the other suggestions that are included in the new My Plate. “Drink water instead of sugary drinks.” And there are warnings about the amount of fat and sodium in foods. “Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals - and choose the foods with lower numbers.” Could they make it any more clear or easy to follow?

It gets better because there is a new website to go along with My Plate, choosemyplate.gov. On the site you can see the new plate, look for info about each food group and what is included in it, and find tips, resources, and interactive tools for eating and choosing foods. If you want more specific information about how much of each type of food you should be eating everyday, the website has a daily food plan that can be costume fit to you. You need to put in some information about yourself, such as height, weight, and activity level, and you can get very specific information about what and how much you should be eating. You can even specify if you are trying to loose weight, or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. They have not yet updated the sections for kids and preschoolers, but I’m sure these will be changed soon.

The printable material on the website includes something called “Ten Tips Nutrition Education Series,” which has ten tips for each of several different aspects of my plate, such as eating, shopping, and meal planning. One of the ten tips categories is “Healthy Eating for Vegetarians.” This is a great starting place for new vegetarians or those wanting ideas on how to eat less meat.


So basically you should forget everything you thought you knew about the food pyramid and go check out chooosemyplate.gov.