Eating The Right Foods

If you are thinking that I am including foods among the categories of this blog because of the title of this article, I say, no I’m not. I am fond of foods but it is beyond my competence to write about how they are cooked much less about how nutritious they are. I have a voracious appetite especially in my younger days but today, I have to be choosy with my food intake or I will run into trouble with my essential hypertension.

Eating the right foods must be the concern of everybody who can afford them. Sad to say, others may have to take whatever their small money can buy but that’s another story. The parents of young children make sure that they eat the right ones so that they will grow healthy and strong while the oldies are careful not to eat foods that their bodies do not need. For all of us, nutrition guide is very important but have you noticed how the authorities have changed how we call them through the years.

I have lived long enough to hear the different terminologies that the so-called experts used to describe the right foods that we must eat. From 1943 to 1956, the nutrition guide was known as the Basic 7 food groups which was changed to Basic Four food groups from 1956 to 1992. Food Guide Pyramid was how it was called from 1992 to 2005 and the guide’s name was changed to simply MyPyramid from 2005 until lately, June 2, 2011 to be exact, when it will now be known as MyPlate.

As I said above, I am not a food expert so instead of describing the various terminologies mentioned above, I suggest that you click the links to them for details. For MyPlate, which was just recently introduced, I wish to briefly describe it as the current nutrition guide depicting a plate and glass divided into five food groups representing thirty (30%) percent grains, thirty (30%) percent vegetables, twenty (20%) percent fruits and twenty (20%) percent protein, accompanied by a smaller circle representing dairy, such as a glass of low-fat/nonfat milk or a yogurt cup. You may click the image on this blog post to know more about MyPlate.

By the way, all of the food terminologies on this article originated from US agencies.  We are, anyway, using the American convention in calling our foods and for our nutrition guides. In the old days, Filipinos were called Brown Americans though not to the liking of many of us including me.