Food ‘plate’ makes eating well easier to swallow

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new food plate plan to encourage healthy eating is certainly easier to swallow than the old food pyramid schema, says Heli Roy, LSU AgCenter nutritionist.

The plan, dubbed MyPlate, is for one meal and replaces MyPyramid, which had an intricate guide for a whole day’s consumption.

“The pyramid plan had too much information. People saw all that food per day and thought they couldn’t eat that much – when, in fact, they could,” Roy said. “In MyPlate people can focus on one meal at a time.”

In the MyPlate logo a fourth of the bigger circle is fruit; another fourth, vegetables. The other half of the circle is divided between a food high in protein, such as meat or beans, and a grain product, such as rice or pasta.

The MyPlate logo is colorful for a reason.

“People need to think color when they plan a meal,” Roy said. “There should be lots of color, which you get from fruits and vegetables.”

The USDA has made it easy for people to learn about the new recommendations at www.choosemyplate.gov.