Food Composition and Dietary Guidelines
USDA’s MyPlate food guidance system is designed to remind Americans to eat healthfully. It illustrates the five food groups using a familiar mealtime visual, a place setting.
Making Healthy Food Choices with a Healthy Plate, offers guidance that compliments the principles of the USDA 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This tool provides an easy way for individuals to make decisions about how much and what types of food to eat. There is no weighing foods, no carrying around measuring cups, and none of that expensive “special” foods needed.
To begin with, you need a basic plate. And, guess what? Over the years plates have gotten bigger, so the amount of food we eat has increased, and our waistlines have followed. To build a healthy plate, it’s important to choose the appropriate size. Plates that are 9-inches are ideal. Take a ruler and measure across your plate, if the part where you put your food is 9” across, then you’ve got the right sized plate…if not, measure your salad plate. It may be just what you are looking for. DO NOT use an oversized plate and plan on only filling it part way – you will be much more tempted to overeat. A 9” plate has been shown to help with portion control and portion control is a key to eating healthy.
Now let’s take a look at how your plate should be portioned. This is very important. Remember that ½ of the plate should be filled with non-starchy vegetables and fruits, ¼ of the plate is for lean meat or protein, and the other ¼ of the plate is for grain or starchy vegetables. Let’s review each section individually… we’ll start with the largest section of ½ plate which should be non-starchy vegetables and fruits.