Ditch The Pyramid, It's All About The Plate

It’s official, the notorious food pyramid that has been the point of reference of healthy eating for the last two decades has been officially ditched by the Obama administration.
But don’t worry, they have replaced it with a simple, plate-shaped symbol, sliced into wedges each representing one of the basic food groups and it’s half-filled with fruits and veggies.

The plate/pie

The plate (that looks like a typical pie chart) is meant to give to U.S. consumers a quick and easy remainder of the what should be the basics of an healthy diet. Hence, it serves the same purposes of the old-fashioned pyramid.
The plate/pie consists of five colored sections, for fruits and vegetables, grains, protein, dairy and (unfortunately) fat and sugary food.
Reality is that there will be really few nutritionists that will mourn the passing of the pyramid, which, while instantly recognized by millions of American school kids, parents and consumers, was lately derided by nutritionists as too confusing and deeply flawed because it did not distinguish clearly between healthy foods like whole grains and fish and less healthy choices like refined carbs (such as white bread) and bacon.
I recently saw a version of the pyramid on a cereal box and I noticed it was so streamlined and stripped of information that I bet 99% of people who saw that will get nothing from it.

The administration agenda

Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, recently said in an interview on the New York Times that: “It’s going to be hard not to do better than the current pyramid, which basically conveys no useful information”.
The pie was designed to underscore the current administration’s crusade against obesity, which is being led by the first lady, Michelle Obama.
“We need to get consumers’ attention,” said Robert C. Post, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. “we need consumers to say, ‘I need to be a little more concerned about what I choose to build a healthy day’s diet.’”
“The reality is that very few of us eat like what has been suggested” in government guidelines for healthy eating, Dr. Kessler said. “There’s a world of difference between what’s being served and what’s on that plate.” He called the plate a major improvement over the pyramid. “It conveys the message simply in a way that we all can understand,” he said. “The agency would use the plate to get across several basic nutritional messages, including urging consumers to eat smaller portions, switch to low-fat or fat-free milk and drink water instead of sugary drinks.”
The food pyramid has a long and tangled history. Its original version showed a hierarchy of foods, with those that made up the largest portions of a recommended diet, like grains, fruit and vegetables, closest to the wide base. Foods that were to be eaten in smaller quantities, like dairy and meat, were closer to the pyramid’s tapering top. But the pyramid’s original release was held back over complaints from the meat and dairy industry that their products were being stigmatized.

Considerations

All in all the pyramid was given some general good guidelines but it was a bit confusing, fruits were above grains; there was a differentiation between different kinds of meat (lean and red) but none when it came to fish (in order to distinguish between small and big fish and their mercury content).
The pie is still pretty generic but it stresses one point pretty strongly: your everyday diet should be made at least by 50% of fruits and veggies.
Print some copies of the pie and hang them in a places where you can see it everyday, such as the wall in front of you at the office, the fridge at home, etc.
That alone will help remind you of the percentages of your daily intake and the more you’ll look at it, the more the chances are that you’ll be on the right path.
As the Romans used to say centuries ago: “Repetita Iuvant” or, in other words, “Repeating Helps!”

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