Dietary Guidelines: Progressing from Pyramid to Plate

The pyramid has been replaced by the plate. Thursday, June 2, 2011, the First Lady unveiled the federal government’s new food icon, MyPlate, to serve as a reminder to help consumers make healthier food choices.

Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture: “For Americans to lead happy, productive lives, it helps to stay healthy, active, and fit. It’s really pretty simple. Choose a healthier plate, and balance it with exercise. It all comes down to the choices we make. That’s why I’m excited to introduce to you USDA’s new food icon, MyPlate—a simple reminder to make healthy food choices. MyPlate symbolizes mealtime and the food groups:  fruits, grains, vegetables, protein, and dairy. A healthy plate for every meal, and what we eat matters. Overweight and obesity rates are at dangerously high levels, and the Obama administration has worked to support Americans who want to improve their health and nutrition. MyPlate is a departure from the food pyramid you’re used to seeing. It’s an easy-to-understand visual that shows how to build a healthy meal based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for all of Americans. And if you want to learn more about a healthy diet, you can visit choosemyplate.gov to get messages, tools, and how-to materials about healthy eating. This website will equip consumers with information on staying healthy, and tips on balancing calories, foods to increase, and foods to reduce. I hope you’re as excited as I am about MyPlate, and the other resources to help Americans make healthy choices at choosemyplate.gov. Next time you sit down for a meal, before you eat, think about what’s on your plate. In the months and years ahead, we hope that MyPlate becomes your plate.”

And indeed, which do you think is more helpful in terms of figuring out what to eat when you sit down at a meal. This, or this?

Nutritionists have expressed concern that Americans might equate the protein group with meat (or think that dairy doesn’t include soy milk), but the USDA defines the protein group as including beans and peas, soy products, nuts and seeds, and specifically highlights beans and peas as unique foods, as they count towards both protein and the vegetable group. It’s like a two-for-one deal.

And I don’t know if you caught it, but if you rewind, our Secretary of Agriculture appears to be saying next time you sit down for a meal, before you eat, make sure you include in your diet a centerpiece of fruit—and, random bottles of pharmaceutical drugs.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Peter Mellor.

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• US Department of Agriculture. 2011. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010.

Image thanks to Karen Green via Flickr

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