Officials Roll Out New Food Pyramid

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is unveiling its proposed new food pyramid today, attempting to help in the battle of the bulge by tailoring recommendations to individual lifestyles.

The USDA is asking for input from both ordinary Americans and nutrition experts before it issues a final version, expected sometime next year. The proposed food pyramid recommendations suggest not only how many servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats are needed for a healthy diet, but also how much you should be eating based on your age and lifestyle. If you are a 45-year-old who walks “a little” — for example, a mile and half to 3 miles a day at a leisurely pace, a 2,000-calorie diet is recommended, while the same-age woman who is a true couch potato should cut back to 1,800 calories. But the “it’s-lunch-so-I’m-on-the-treadmill” 45-year-old woman can bump up her intake to 2,200 calories. For example, the new food pyramid includes a category-by-category breakdown for 12 different diets, ranging from 1,000 to 3,200 calories as well as a separate chart to determine which calorie intake is recommended for your particular lifestyle. According to the lifestyle chart, only very active teenage boys should consume 3,200 calories, while active teenage girls — meaning exercise that is the equivalent to walking 3 to 4 miles daily at a brisk pace — can consume 2,400 calories. One change that is getting positive reviews is a move to make the food pyramid more user-friendly by moving away from the nebulous “serving” designation to more precise cup or ounce designations. Samantha Heller, MS, RD, senior clinical nutritionist at NYU Medical Center in New York, tells WebMD that this is a significant improvement. “Frankly, most people don’t know what it means when you say two or three servings. For example, I tell my patients that a half an English muffin is one serving of grain, so if we are recommending six servings of grain each day, that means they have five servings left. If they eat the whole English muffin, they have four servings left,” she says. In the proposed food pyramid, servings are defined as cups or ounces, and in some cases even more specific details are given. For example: One egg equals one ounce of meat, poultry, or fish, and each of these is the equivalent of one serving. A cup of yogurt, an ounce and a half of natural cheese, or two ounces of processed cheese each count as one serving of milk. Two servings of grains translate to one cup of cooked rice, pasta, or cooked cereal, two slices of bread, two small muffins, or two cups of flaked cereal. An 1,800-calorie diet should include a cup and a half of fruit (this includes fruit juice), two cups of vegetables, three and a half cups of grain (half of which should be whole grains), five ounces of meat, and two or three cups of milk. “I think we need innovative approaches. It might be time to think outside the triangle,” she says. For example, Lichtenstein says that she and others are turning attention to other ways, such as the partitioned plate, to guide people as to appropriate serving size. Agreeing with this point, Heller says, “A good, simple guide is to construct your plate so that two-thirds of the plate is given over to vegetables — mostly dark green or deep yellow vegetables, not starchy vegetables. (Source: USDA. Alice Lichtenstein, DSc, director, Cardiovascular Nutrition Research Program, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston; spokeswoman, ADA. Samantha Heller, MS, RD, senior clinical nutritionist, NYU Medical Center, New York: WebMD Health: 11th Sept 2003)