reshape your plate series – part 2 – reshaping your plate

Last time I talked about the history of food guides and what have changed over the years. Then we talked about the food pyramid now and why it really doesn’t work. Finally, introduced you to the Plate Method. I forgot to mention that this isn’t any idea from me or my professors, it is from some Swedish nutritionists (Margit Eliasson, Brita Karlstrom, and Birgitta Melin; and Bengt Vessby, MD). Since the 1980’s when they made this method it has been revamped. I got my information from http://www.fmdrl.org/ the Family Medicine Digital Resource Library, from my class, and from the University of Utah.

So a brief overview, the plate method has three parts which facilitate better learning and understanding

1. Reshape your plate
2. Serving sizes
3. Food choices

I wanted to go into the first layer – Reshaping your plate

The main advantage of the first later is that the Plate method shows the proper plate distribution and it emphasizes food groups and relative ratios.

Where things go doesn’t really matter, but it is a good rule to follow. Sometimes you may find that your milk in cheese melted on your veggies; however, in many cases, it won’t (and SHOULDN’T) be near enough cheese for your daily serving on milk. In our family I just use a bit of rationality when I am planning and making my meals. I think you are smart enough to realize if your extra cheese pizza has a full serving of milk on it :)

This layer is pretty simple. It just shows the relationship of foods to one another in what we are supposed to be eating. It is a new concept for most, and even restaurants don’t serve meals like this! Next time we will talk about serving sizes.