From Fiona Haynes,
Your Guide to Low Fat Cooking.
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We have two tools at our disposal for figuring out what kinds of food to eat and how much of a particular food to eat: the food guidance system, also known as the Food Pyramid, or MyPyramid, and nutrition facts labels. These are valuable tools in our quest to eat low fat, offering us the means to measure our actual intake of various foods against what we should be eating.

The first of these tools is the USDA Food Pyramid, known as MyPyramid, which debuted in April 2005, reflecting the government's revised dietary guidelines published in January 2005.

MyPyramid is a visual illustration of suggested healthy eating habits and physical activity. Like its predecessor, the Food Guide Pyramid, MyPyramid combines the government’s dietary guidelines and recommended allowances into six food groups. But instead of illustrating the number of servings based on a one-size-fits-all 2,000 calorie intake, the MyPyramid symbol itself shows six vertical color bands, each representing varying proportions of the pyramid. These colors represent the food groups.

• Orange for grains
• Green for vegetables
• Red for fruits
• Yellow for oils
• Blue for milk
• Purple for meat and beans

For specific servings of a given food group, we are encouraged to create our own, personal pyramid online, hence the name "MyPyramid." By keying in certain data, we can find out how much we should eat from each food group based on our age, sex and level of activity. Surprisingly, we are not asked about our height or weight.

The new dietary guidelines on which MyPyramid is based, promoted fruits and vegetables and whole grains. At the 2,000 calorie level, here's what the guidelines would suggest.

• Fruit Group should provide 4 daily servings, or 2 cups.
• Vegetable Group should provide 5 servings, or 2.5 cups.
• Grain Group should provide 6 ounce-equivalents (1 ounce-equivalent means 1 serving), half of which should be whole grains.
• Meat and Beans Group should provide 5.5 ounce-equivalents or servings.
• Milk Group should provide 3 cups/servings.
• Oils should provide 24g or 6 teaspoons.
• Discretionary Calories: These are the remaining amount of calories in each calorie level after nutrient-dense foods have been chosen. Up to 267 calories can be consumed in solid fats or added sugars if the other requirements have been met.

MyPyramid does not spell this out because 2,000 calories is not appropriate for everyone. Instead, the color bands represent a visual clue about what proportion of our diet these foods should form.

How helpful is this? In acknowledging that a blanket statement on number of servings per food group simply doesn't work for everyone, the government is encouraging us to take responsibility, urging us to go online and customize MyPyramid. This is all very well for those of us who have Internet access and who are motivated to do so, but hard for those who don't, and who need this advice most. Either way, making sense of food labels will become increasingly important.