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.
