Most people are familiar with the idea of four food groups and the food guide pyramid. These are tools to help you figure out what you should be eating. However, it can still be hard to figure out just how much you should be eating from each of these food groups. This is especially true when you take into consideration the different pyramids and healthy eating guides produced by different organizations, each with slightly different recommendations.
Basic Food Groups
The original four food groups were the fruits and vegetables group, the breads and cereals group, the milk and milk products group and the meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and beans group. The 2005 MyPyramid design has stripes for each of the groups that are used, and includes grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, fats and meat and beans, totaling six different groups. Other healthy eating food diagrams include even more groups. For example, the Harvard School of Public Health Healthy Eating Pyramid splits the grains into whole grains and refined grains, the fats into butter and healthy fats and oils and separates out the red meat from the fish, poultry, nuts and beans.
Different Recommendations
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPyramid, Harvard School of Public Health's Healthy Eating Pyramid and the Sears Food Guide Wheel are three examples of visuals used to recommend healthy proportions from food groups. Each has a slightly different take on which proportions are the best. However, all recommend that your diet be based on whole grains and fruits and vegetables, with sweets and unhealthy fats only consumed in minimal amounts. One of the areas where there is a big difference in recommendations is fats. The Healthy Eating Pyramid puts unsaturated fats near the bottom of the pyramid, while the MyPyramid recommendations keep these fats in the same group as saturated fats and recommends limiting all fats.
Choosing Foods Within Food Groups
Proportions of foods from the different food groups is not the only factor to consider, since most of the food groups contain some foods that are healthier and others that are not so healthy. MyPyramid tries to make this clear by having bands that narrow at the top, showing that most of your foods from a particular group should be chosen from the healthier options in that group, while the Sears Food Guide Wheel and the Healthy Eating Pyramid split out the healthier options from the less healthy options and place them in separate groups. All recommend whole grains over refined grains, unsaturated fats over saturated fats, fish and poultry over red meat and low-fat dairy over full-fat dairy.
Other Considerations
The Harvard School of Public Health Healthy Eating Pyramid aims to provide a general idea of proportions and which foods are healthiest in one diagram.
You can get the MyPyramid recommendations tailored just to you by visiting the MyPyramid website, which is why this diagram is a bit simpler than some of the other healthy eating diagrams. Instead of servings, you will get recommendations in ounces and cups, making it easy to figure out just how much you should be eating from the different groups.
The Sears Food Guide Wheel adds more information beside just proportions, including how often you should eat from the different groups, since some things should be eaten daily, others only a few times a week and some only rarely according to their recommendations.
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