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Food Guide Pyramid  

Definition

  • The food guide pyramid is a graphic device developed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as an educational tool to illustrate the relative proportion of foods types recommended to compose a healthy diet. The USDA has been issuing dietary recommendations for Americans since 1894, and the best-known food guide pyramid (hereafter “the traditional food pyramid”) was developed in 1992 and is still used on food packaging and some official Web sites, including that of the National Agricultural Library of the USDA. The traditional food pyramid was a revision of the “four basic food groups” which had been used in USDA educational materials since 1956: the groups, and recommended minimum servings per day, were meats, poultry, fish, legumes, eggs, and nuts (two servings); dairy products (two servings); grains (four servings); and fruits and vegetables (four servings). [Source: Encyclopedia of Obesity; Food Guide Pyramid]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/Food_Guide_Pyramid

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