The candles are officially blown for the USDA MyPlate food guide that just celebrated a birthday June 2. This colorful guide has taken mostly positive reviews since being introduced to Americans last year. 

The MyPlate daily food guide replaced the MyPyramid daily food guide. This pyramid has been captured on billboards, and advertisements. Kids are familiar with the MyPyramid triangle of foods being displayed at school in the cafeteria or on their favorite cereal boxes. Now, USDA encourages everyone to get to know the MyPlate to eat healthy foods each day.

Daily food guides have been in American food history for more than 100 years. The very first dietary guide published by Dr. Wilbur Olin was a farmers’ bulletin in 1894. Next came the family dietary guides, “Food for Young Children” and “How to Select Food” created in the 1920s and 1930s. 

In the 1940s, one of the first colorful illustrated guides, “A Guide to Good Eating (Basic Seven)” displayed seven food groups. The last 19 years two variations of a food pyramid guide have been produced. The first, “Food Guide Pyramid” was developed in 1992 and the last “MyPyramid” was constructed in 2005.

The MyPlate raves are about the colorful presentation, and a simple icon of a plate.  There are five food groups and colors represented on the MyPlate: dairy (blue), vegetables (green), fruits (red), grains (orange) and protein (purple) group.   Each group has dietary messages intended for the general healthy public. Serving sizes for food groups are based on age, sex, and level of physical activity.

The MyPlate site, www.choosemyplate.gov contains helpful nutrition information on healthy foods, recipes, and meal plans. Also, the site has a “Supertracker” created last year to plan and analyze diet and exercise need for an individual.

The health messages are simple and easy to remember. The dairy group encourages choosing low fat dairy foods and milk with (1 percent) milk fat. Low fat dairy is recommended for most people, except those under age 2 or those in need of extra calories. The vegetable group and fruit group promote eating a half a plate of produce. Also, to select 100 percent real fruit or vegetable juice without added sugars. Added sugars are the sugar not naturally occurring in the food item added through processing.

The grains group persuades the consumption of half of the grains servings in whole grains. Whole grains are foods that contain the entire wheat grain kernel, including the endosperm, bran and germ together.

At the grocery store, this means to choose foods, such as pasta, bread, rolls and cereals made with 100 percent whole grains. Lastly, protein group promotes selecting a variety of protein-rich foods from animal and plant sources, such as lean meats, eggs, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds.

The MyPlate message is a simple presentation of many helpful tips to choose nutritious foods for the entire family. Now my wish for all is to consume a healthy MyPlate every day, so that you may live longer with better health and wellness.

For further information on Happy Birthday MyPlate, contact the Limestone County SNAP-Ed Coordinator, D.D. Adams, M.S., R.L.D., weekdays at 256-232 3200.