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Lecture 3

Chapter 2 - Planning a Healthy Diet

Principles and Guidelines

Adequacy
Balance
Nutrient density* - a measurement of the nutrients a food provides relative to the energy it provides
Moderation

Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Adequate nutrients within energy needs
Weight management
Physical activity
Food groups to encourage
Limit fat in the diet
Carbohydrates avoid high-starch foods
Low sodium intake/high potassium intake
Alcoholic beverages in moderation
Food safety cook food properly to avoid microbial contamination

USDA Food Guide 2005

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005

These guidelines give science-based advice on food and physical activity choices for health.
http://www.mypyramid.gov/guidelines/index.html
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What is a "Healthy Diet"?
The Dietary Guidelines describe a healthy diet as one that
Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk
products;
Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
Is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.

Diet Planning Guides

Food Group Plans: diet-planning tools that sort foods of similar origin and nutrient content into groups
and then specify that people should eat a certain number of servings from each group.

Daily Food Guide (USDA) - a food group plan that assigns foods to one of five major food groups
and lists the number of servings of each that are recommended, the serving sizes, and the principal
nutrients in each group.
The five groups are:

The Daily Food Guide has been presented graphically in the form of a pyramid, the Food Guide
Pyramid

The Old Food Pyramid Was Flawed!

A recent analysis of flaws in the FDA Food Pyramid can be found on our web site: Willett &
Stampfer: Scientific American, Jan., 2003, pp. 64-71
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Criticisms of the Food Pyramid:
The pyramid does not distinguish between good fats and bad fats.

The pyramid lumps all proteins together

Potatoes are in the vegetable group

The pyramid makes no distinction between high-fat and low-fat dairy products

The pyramid treats refined carbohydrates and unrefined carbohydrates as equivalent

The New USDA Pyramid

Sample diet plans for different levels of energy intake - Table 2-2

Diet Planning Using the Daily Food Guide Table 2-6

The Willett Pyramid

Alternative pyramids:
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=1

Exchange Lists: Diet-planning tools that categorize foods by their proportions of carbohydrate, fat,
and protein.

This categorization thus is not by source, but by their energy and nutrient content.

The three groups are carbohydrate group, fat group, and protein group.

The Food Group Plan and the Exchange Lists are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they can both be
used together to optimize diet planning.

The Food Group Plan focuses on protein, vitamins, and minerals and includes all classes of
nutritious foods.
The FGP is designed to promote adequacy, balance, and variety.

The Exchange List classification is based on the energy-containing nutrients (carbohydrates, fats,
and proteins).
The focus is on control of energy and fat intake.
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Food Labels - Figure 2-9
By law, food labels appear on virtually all processed foods. Further, posters or brochures in grocery
stores provide nutrition information for fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Contents of a food label:

1.

2.

3. Nutrition facts on food labels:

a. Total food energy
b. Food energy from fat
c. Total fat
d. Saturated fat
e. Cholesterol
f. Sodium
g. Total carbohydrate
h. Dietary fiber
i. Sugar
j. Protein
k. In addition, labels must list the amounts of 4 other nutrients:

The Daily Value (Table 2-8)

Daily Values are reference values developed by the FDA (not the USDA) specifically for use on food
labels.

Calculating Personal Daily Values:

Page 57 illustrates how to calculate a Daily Value for fat, based on a 1,500-kcal intake
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Descriptive Terms (page 57)

Descriptive terms used on food labels are rigorously defined by the FDA

How descriptive terms can be confusing to the uninitiated:

% fat-free

low fat

Health Claims (Table 2-9)

Health claims on food labels are also rigorously defined by the FDA.

Such claims must be honest and balanced and must emphasize the importance of the total diet rather
than exaggerating the benefits of a particular food in disease prevention.

In particular,

(1) The nutrient or food substance must be related to a disease or health condition for which most
people (or a specific group of people such as the elderly) are at risk; and

(2) The relationship between diet and health must be clearly established by scientific evidence.

A few examples