By: Nikki Nies
We Dish Nutrition is not only an advocate for nutrition, but healthy living. Some of you might be questioning where our vision of health derives from. I apologize for not making our backbone of knowledge clear, but the updated 2010 Dietary Guidelines by the USDA is a great jumping off point and provides a great guideline of nutritional knowledge.
A lot of the information that is posted on this blog is not only backed up by the USDA’s dietary guidelines, but stems from their views. You can find an array of information at choosemyplate.gov . It has information for everyone: senior citizens, college students, breastfeeding mothers, athletes, teenagers and more. It provides information for all individuals to adhere to, while individualizing information to specific age groups.
ChooseMyPlate.gov provides a great resource called SuperTracker, that allows one to track the food, physical activity and nutrients one consumes on a regular basis. It can suggest how much one should eat if one has a goal to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
MyPlate is an updated version of MyPyramid. Critics of MyPyramid said it was too complicated for the average consumer, with too many “insinuated” suggestions such as the length of the slices of the pyramid. MyPlate provides a great representation of what everyone should aim their plate to look like when sitting down to a meal.
This is a great guideline of what food groups one should aim to incorporate into their diet.
Guidelines:
- Make half of grains 100% whole grains
- Opt for fresh, whole fruit
- Choose 1% or fat free milk instead of whole milk
- Biweekly–make your protein seafood or fish, if possible
- Choose lean meats
- Try calcium fortified foods
- Aim for 5 cups of starchy veggies weekly
- Aim for 1.5 cups of beans and peas weekly
- Aim for 1.5 cups of dark green leafy vegetables weekly
- Aim for 5.5 cups of red, orange veggies weekly
These guidelines are intended to be a great reference for those wanting to head in the right direction of good eating. Making sure you’re getting all your macro and micronutrients in can sound daunting, but by listing what foods you intend to buy ahead of time can eliminate a lot of headache.
I apologize for this late post on MyPlate as its a huge influence in the premise of this blog. However, better late than never to expose people to MyPlate. Please check out Choosemyplate.gov. It’s got more resources than you could ever imagine!
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