Healthy diet basics - food pyramid

You probably noticed that the days of four basic food groups - fruits, veggies, meat and diary – are over. These days health diet includes wide variety of foods - whole grains, seeds and nuts, fish and even oils. We get even more options for healthy diet if add cultural, religious and personal preferences.

Any healthy diet plan can be presented as a pyramid. Pyramid summarizes different groups of foods that form the basics of a healthy diet.

Food pyramid plan

Food Pyramids help us to choose foods right. Foods that we should eat most form the base of pyramid, and foods we better consume in smaller quantities are presented at the top of pyramid.

The most known and popular in America is Food Guide Pyramid, established in 1992 by USDA. After several years it has been developed into MyPyramid, that provides more personalized diet plans depending on your age, sex and the intense of physical activity.

There are also other pyramids. These are Asian Diet Pyramid, Latin American, Mediterranean Diet Pyramids, the Vegetarian Diet Pyramid and Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramids.

Basic principles of all diet pyramids

You will definitely benefit from following any diet pyramid, but most of them have common basic principles and stress the following:

• Consume more fruits, veggies and whole grains
• Avoid taking saturated fat, trans fats and cholesterol
• Reduce sweets and salt
• Drink alcohol in moderation
• Control size of your portions and overall number of calories you intake
• Make sure you are physically active on a daily basis

In food pyramids all foods are divided into categories. You should consume foods from different categories because there is no food that can provide your body with all the nutrients that your body needs.

How to use a food pyramid

You can test if your diet matches any of these diet pyramids. Keep a food diary for some days and then check how much of your foods come from different levels of the pyramid. If you see you consume much of foods from the top, gently shift your diet plan towards eating more fruits, veggies and whole grains and reduce sweets.

Here’s advice how to let you stay on track:

• Choose range of foods from each major nutrient group. This ensures that you get all of the calories, protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber you need. Choosing a broad scope of foods helps make your meals and snacks more diversified.
• Make your diet plan more specific according to your preferences. Grains may include not only a piece of white bread. In can also be rice, whole-wheat pasta, cornmeal muffins or popcorn.
• Mix foods from each major group how you like. You may combine tortillas (grains) with beans (beans group). If allowed to mix one group with another, your choices become endless.
• Choose your snacks and meals wisely. Try selecting most nutrient rich foods from each food group. If you have to cut foods from one group, replace them with other food that contains nutrients found in banned food.

Be creative and go for a good taste! You can eat well and eat healthy because eating tasty and eating healthy are compatible

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