What Does Healthy Eating Look Like?
August 19, 2011, By Brandon Duncan 0 comments
When I was little, we had what my parents called ‘the complimentary spoonful.’ It didn’t matter if they knew I didn’t like a certain vegetable or side dish; I had to eat at least one spoonful of it. After choking down those ‘compliments’ through the years, I used encouragement and let my kids choose their sides. At least they got some additional health benefit, even if was just corn or carrots at every meal.
For years, we have had tools from the US Department of Agriculture that told us how to achieve a balanced diet—the Food Pyramid, distributed by the USDA beginning in 1992. It told us how many servings we should consume every day from the five basic food groups, but it wasn't easy to follow. Unless you sat down and did the research, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
In 2005, they tried to update the pyramid, attempting to add the healthy lifestyle message (in the form of walking up the steps). It still did not show us what we needed to know.
Recently, the government listened to the question that we were all asking: “What does a healthy plate look like?”
NEXT: My Plate
