Dietary Guidelines

What are dietary guidelines?

Nutrition is something which everybody wants to have a first hand knowledge of. Why does one need nutrition advice? It is to help people choose the right kind of foods for meeting the calorie requirements (supplying energy) and thereby to prevent the deficiencies caused due to nutrition. It was during the Great Depression of 1930s that people really had little money for buying food.

It was important to be aware of the right kind of diet plan with the little resources that they had. The USDA had come out with a meal set of all kinds of families and kept in mind that they were affordable within the stringent incomes that they had.

This is where the importance of dietary guidelines could be realized. There were dietary guidelines for food which were also developed by the USDA, helping people to opt for healthful diets.

Difference between food guides and dietary guidelines

Selecting a healthy diet is very much essential – one needs to know how many servings of grains to eat and so on. For instance, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that Americans opts for a wide variety of grains daily, specifically whole grains.

The 2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans

1. Aim for Fitness

• Aim for a healthy weight
• Be physically active every day to build a strong foundation
• The Food Pyramid should be a guide to your food choices
• Opt for grains every day, specially whole grains
• Eat fruits and vegetables daily
• Keep food safe to eat

2. Choose Sensibly

• Choose a diet which has low content of fat and cholesterol. Moderate fat would also do.
• Opt for beverages and foods to moderating the intake of sugar
• Put in less salt while preparing foods
• Drink alcoholic beverages in moderation

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