Four Changes
You Need to be Aware of in the New Food
Pyramid by:
Constance
Weygandt
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.
