Nutrition

Nutrition Recommendations

The purpose of nutrition recommendations is to provide people with easy-to-follow guidelines for what – and how much – to eat. Two of the most prominent nutrition guides are MyPlate and The New American Plate.

Instead of diets or complicated systems, these two dietary recommendations use the major food groups to help you build healthy meals for you and your family.

MyPlate

Replacing the MyPyramid nutrition guide in 2011, the MyPlate nutrition guide is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current standard. Using the familiar image of a place setting for a meal, it illustrates the five food groups that are the building blocks for a healthy diet. The goal of MyPlate is to teach Americans to divide their plates into four parts, filling each quarter with vegetables, fruits, grains (at least half of which are “whole”) and lean proteins — all topped off with a glass of 1-percent or nonfat milk. Learn more at www.myplate.gov.

The New American Plate

The American Institute for Cancer Research’s New American Plate is another nutrition guide. Like MyPlate, it encourages people to think about the proportions of various foods on their plates. The difference is that The New American Plate encourages a primarily plant-based diet, which may reduce the risk of cancer. Following The New American Plate, you should fill about two-thirds (or more) of your plate with vegetables, fruits, whole grains and/or beans, and about one-third (or less) of your plate with animal protein. Learn more at www.aicr.org/new-american-plate.