MyPlate
What do you think of MyPlate, the government's new visual aid to get us to eat a healthier diet? Personally, I think it's an improvement over the pyramid and it's probably a good start to teach kids about healthy eating habits. Unfortunately, most people don't really understand portion size and this new icon doesn't really deal with that issue. First of all, there is nothing about what size the plate should be and nothing to show what a true portion size is or how many servings you should have per day of each food group.
Back in the 1960's plate sizes used to be 9 inches in diameter. Today plates can be up to 12 inches across. So when we fill our plates with healthy food today, there can be as much as 1100 calories of extra food. Just eating healthy food is not the only thing we need to be doing to improve our health, we also need to trim our waists. Plate sizes really matter, just look at the two plates below. They each have the exact same amount of food on them.
Back in the 1960's plate sizes used to be 9 inches in diameter. Today plates can be up to 12 inches across. So when we fill our plates with healthy food today, there can be as much as 1100 calories of extra food. Just eating healthy food is not the only thing we need to be doing to improve our health, we also need to trim our waists. Plate sizes really matter, just look at the two plates below. They each have the exact same amount of food on them.
9 inch plate
This 9 inch plate looks full with 3 ounces of chicken, 1/2 cup of rice, 1/2 cup of grapes and 1 cup of vegetables.
11-1/2 inch plate
This 11-1/2 inch plate has a lot of empty space, so even though it has the exact same food as the 9 inch plate it doesn't look like as much food.
We compensate for the extra plate size by putting more food on our plate to fill it up. I don't think its just coincidence that our waistlines have grown along with our plate sizes. Just to let you know how difficult finding a 9 inch plate was, it took me 1-1/2 weeks checking resale shops. I finally found 1 plate on the bottom of a stack on the bottom shelf. You might want to try eating from a salad plate for awhile to get a better idea of what the portions should look like. Most salad plates are between 8 inches and 8-1/2 inches in diameter. For more information on MyPlate visit the governments website and be sure to check back here for more tips on portion sizes.
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/foodgroups/index.html
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/foodgroups/index.html
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