An important goal of the U.S. government is to help guide adults and children to be as healthy as possible. One way to do so has been to make dietary recommendations as visual representations of nutrition guidelines. You may be familiar with the “Food Pyramid” or “MyPyramid,” but the most recent diagram is called “MyPlate.” The dietary recommendations are updated every 5 years to keep up with current research and health data. The most recent update of the Dietary Guidelines came out in 2020, and it uses an updated MyPlate visual model.
The 2020 MyPlate model, shown below, shows a plate containing the five food groups (fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains, and dairy) in a place setting [1] . It is designed to help you to visualize how much of your plate should be taken up by a particular food group.
The MyPlate image is a plate that is divided into four sections, with each section representing how much of each food group you should eat. Vegetables make up the largest section, followed by grains. Together, fruits and vegetables fill half the plate while proteins and grains fill the other half.
It may surprise you that MyPlate does not include meat as one of the 5 food groups. Instead, the category “protein” includes fish, shellfish, eggs, beans, peas, nuts, seeds, and soy products, in addition to meat.
A small blue circle on the side of the plate represents dairy. The latest USDA Guidelines include fortified soy alternatives in this category.
This simple model is designed to make it easy for consumers to see what an ideal meal should look like, without too many restrictive details. For specific food group amount recommendations, refer to the MyPlate website or the full Dietary Guidelines.
Some critics of MyPlate say it shouldn’t include dairy, which they argue is unnecessary for a healthy diet. Critics also say it is important to give information about the size of the plate and the portions because different people have very different ideas about how large a “portion” is.
The nutrition information in MyPlate is based on a set of recommendations called “Dietary Guidelines for Americans [2] . The guidelines provide detailed instructions for planning healthy meals and snacks for all ages and life stages, such as recommendations for women who are breastfeeding or for toddlers. These guidelines are fairly long, but here some key points:
The USDA Dietary Guidelines encourage Americans to use MyPlate as a tool to plan healthy meals [2] . They also outline 4 guidelines to “make every bite count”:
For more guidance, the USDA offers the MyPlate.gov website. You can use the website’s MyPlate Tools to create a personalized plan just for you. It also has other resources to help you find healthy recipes, calculate your caloric needs, work within your budget, and learn more about how to maintain a healthy diet. Alternatively, there is now a MyPlate App to help you make healthy choices on a daily basis.
MyPlate can be a helpful basic guideline for people of all ages to know how much to eat from each food group, but it’s important to also follow the additional guidelines above for healthy eating. By eating unprocessed, nutrient-dense foods and limiting sugars and saturated fats, Americans at any age can begin forming healthy eating patterns.
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