Food Guide Pyramid
The Food Guide Pyramid, broken up into five food groups, is a generalguide of what kinds of foods we should eat. To stay healthy, we need to eat a variety of foods in the right amounts (called “servings ” ) from each of the food groups. (See http: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic /Fpyr/pyramid.html for examples of food servings from each group.) The exact foods we choose to eat from each group are up to us!At the small tip of the Food Guide Pyramid we see fats, oils, and sweets (like salad dressings, butter, margarine, sugar, soda, and candy).
These foods do not give us many nutrients but do give us a lot of calories that we do not need, so we should not eat very much of these. Next, we see two major food groups mostly from animals: (1) milk, yogurt, cheese; and (2) meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts. We need to eat these foods to get our protein, calcium, iron, and zinc. from grains—breads, cereals, rice, and pasta. These foods give us carbohydrates, which give us energy as well as more vitamins, minerals, and fiber, so it is important to eat a lot of these foods every day. Next, we see foods that come from plants—fruits and vegetables. We need to eat a lot of these foods to get our vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
