Four Changes You Need To Be Aware Of In The New Food Pyramid
It has been twelve years since the United States Department of
Agriculture has updated the Food Pyramid. Most of us are
familiar with the old one. That pyramid emphasized foods you
should eat more of on the bottom of the pyramid with foods to be
eaten in smaller amounts on the top. The New Food Pyramid is an
inverse pyramid. The food groups are color coded, with the size
of the sections emphasizing the proportions of foods eaten in
each group. You will also notice a figure, climbing some steps,
on the side of the pyramid which symbolizes exercise as a part
of the total plan.
The following are four important changes in the New Food Pyramid:
1 Have at least three ounces of your grains be whole grains. On
a 2,000 calorie meal plan that would amount to one half of the
grains allotted. Some examples of whole grains are millet, wheat
, rye, whole wheat pasta and brown rice. Be careful in reading
the labels on bread. If the loaf of bread is truly whole wheat
the first ingredient on the label should be whole wheat flour.
2 There is an emphasis on nonfat and low fat in the milk and
dairy group. On a 2,000 calorie meal plan, three cups of dairy
is recommended. Dairy foods that are not sources of calcium are
not included in this group. Some examples of these would be
cream cheese, cream and butter. One cup of yogurt equals one cup
of milk. One and one half ounces of cheese equals one cup of
milk.
3 There is an emphasis on lean meats and less meat in the meat
group. A 2,000 calorie plan allotment is five and one half
ounces of meat. This would be one quarter pound lean hamburger
and one ounce of lean meat on a sandwich for the day. The old
Food Pyramid allowed two to three servings in this group.
4 There is an emphasis on exercise being needed when following
the new plan. The new plan suggests being physically active for
at least thirty minutes, on most days of the week. Sixty minutes
of exercise is suggested to prevent weight gain and sixty to
ninety minutes to lose weight.
While I feel that these changes are an improvement over the old
Food Pyramid, I have some concerns. If you visit
www.mypyramid.gov, you can input your age, gender and physical
activity level and receive a personal plan. I did this. I found
the caloric intake to be a little high. A very loose rule of
thumb for maintaining a certain weight is to take the amount of
weight that you want to maintain and multiply it by ten. A one
hundred and thirty pound maintenance is about thirteen hundred
calories a day. This does not take in activity level, however.
If you are more active you can add a few more calories and if
you are very active you may be able to increase your caloric
intake to eighteen hundred calories.
The caloric amount suggested in the individual plans, in the New
Food Pyramid, would be appropriate for growing children,
teenagers, or persons with high activity levels. So use the New
Food Pyramid only as a guide. While it would be optimum if we
could all exercise for sixty to ninety minutes a day, it is not
practical to expect that everyone will. With thirty minutes of
activity a day, you need to modify your caloric intake and if
necessary take a vitamin supplement that contains the minimum
requirements.