Should I follow USDA’s MyPlate?
Written by Isabel Vasquez, RD, LDN
Do you remember the food pyramid? That triangle-shaped depiction of how much of each type of food we should eat? Grains were way at the bottom, meaning we need the most of these, and sweets and fat were all the way at the tippy top.
While this was a helpful start to understand general nutrition recommendations, the USDA decided it wasn’t applicable enough for people to use at each meal, so in 2011, they created MyPlate.
It’s a visual of a plate, broken down into how much of each food group to portion for a well-rounded meal. Yet, our Latine meals aren’t often portioned in sections on a plate, so this may just cause more confusion or pressure to abandon your cultural foods.
Read on to learn what MyPlate is and its strengths and limitations.
What is MyPlate?
MyPlate was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in an attempt to revamp the food pyramid. It’s intended to serve as a model for a “healthy eating pattern”.
Shown below, it encourages a well-rounded diet. Specifically, it depicts recommended portions for grains, protein, fruits, vegetables, and dairy.
MyPlate Strengths
MyPlate gives a simple visual for how to structure your plate to meet your nutritional needs, as long as you’re generally “healthy”. It’s a way to ensure you’re eating a good range of food groups and as a result, getting in a variety of key nutrients.
It’s an easy frame of reference for individuals to use on their own, and for health professionals to use to educate their clients.
Compared to the food pyramid that was pretty abstract when it comes to actually putting together a meal, MyPlate gives you clear guidelines you can implement with each meal.
Plus, since there aren’t specific foods listed, you can customize each food group to meet your dietary preferences and needs.
MyPlate Limitations
There are a bunch of limitations to MyPlate, but we’re discussing three of the main ones below.
Ignores Other Cultural Eating Patterns
MyPlate shows how to structure a plate. Not a bowl or cup or other type of dish that people also enjoy meals out of.
Plus, it doesn’t demonstrate a meal where the components are all mixed together rather than clearly separated into ¼ plate sections.
This is especially limiting when it comes to cultural eating patterns. For example, our Latine meals aren’t compartmentalized like the MyPlate visual. We tend to eat dishes that are all mixed together—tacos, sancocho, pollo guisado, and enchiladas.
Most of these meals have all of the food groups present, they’re just not separately neatly. And just because there isn’t a specific portion of your plate dedicated to vegetables, for example, doesn’t mean you aren’t getting them in.
Doesn’t Include Dietary Fat
Fats are an important part of a balanced eating pattern, but they aren’t explicitly included in MyPlate. Dietary fat is important for cell function, nutrient absorption, organ protection, and hormone production.
Heart-healthy sources of fat include oils, avocado, nuts, olives, and seeds, per the American Heart Association.
These kinds of fat help lower LDL cholesterol levels (the “bad” kind) and increase HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind). This, in turn, helps reduce risk of heart disease.
The fact that dietary fat isn’t included in MyPlate may lead you to believe that fat should be avoided, but that’s not true at all. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that 20–35% of your calories come from fat!
Ignores Bodily Cues
MyPlate is prescriptive in nature. It isn’t intended to be used to honor your body’s hunger or fullness cues, or your unique cravings. On the MyPlate website, they even say, “Make every bite count,” which encourages perfectionism with eating.
There’s an implicit demonization of foods like sweets or fats, since they’re nowhere to be found on MyPlate. The food pyramid, on the other hand, did include these foods, albeit at the very top of the pyramid in the smallest section.
Being intentional about incorporating nutritional variety is beneficial for many people, but so is connecting with your internal cues for regulating eating.
Plus, it may encourage a “clean the plate” mentality or it may lead to guilt if you portion your plate differently.
Particularly for folks who are working on developing a more flexible relationship with food, this may cause more harm than help.
Final Thoughts
Remember that you don’t make or break your health in one day. And you don’t make or break your health with nutrition alone. While MyPlate may be a helpful visual for some people to incorporate nutritional variety, it’s quite limiting and overly prescriptive for many people.
Plus, it’s hard to utilize for dishes where all of the food groups are mixed together or served in a bowl. That doesn’t mean the dish isn’t worth eating, it’s just one example of MyPlate’s limitations.
So, if you want to work on eating a variety of food groups, rather than focusing on portioning a plate exactly in line with MyPlate, try remembering all of the food groups and ensuring you’re including most if not all of them at most meals.
For education on how to ADD nutrition to your favorite Latine cultural dishes, make peace with food, and focus on your health without dieting, join our nutrition library for just $27/month.
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