This pyramid is based on two distinct historical periods of the culinary evolution of the peoples of Latin America.
The first period describes the dietary traditions of regions inhabited primarily by three high cultures of aboriginal Latin Americans: the Aztec, the Inca, and the Maya. The second period describes the dietary traditions that emerged following the arrival of Columbus, at about 1500, to the present time. The dietary patterns followed today by the people of Latin America find their roots in both of these historical culinary patterns.
The selection of these peoples and of these time periods as a basis for the design follows from these considerations:
A consistency with patterns of other healthy population groups of the world;
Availability of data describing the character of food consumption patterns of the areas at that time; and
The convergence of the dietary patterns revealed by these data and our current understanding of optimal nutrition based on world-wide epidemiological studies and clinical trials.
Variations of these diets have traditionally existed in other parts of Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the southern edge United States. For the purposes of this research, the aforementioned regions are considered as part of Latin America. They are closely related to traditional areas of maize, potato, peanut, and dry bean cultivation in the Latin American region.
Given these carefully defined parameters of geography and time, the phrase traditional Latin American diet is used here as a shorthand for those traditional diets of these regions and peoples during two specific time periods that are historically associated with good health.
The design of the Latin American Diet Pyramid is not based solely on either the weight or the percentage of energy (calories) that foods account for in the diet, but on a blend of these that is meant to give relative proportions and a general sense of frequency of servings, as well as an indication of which foods to favour in a healthy Latin American-style diet.
A food pyramid is a representation of the optimal number of servings to be eaten each day from each of the basic food groups. The first pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974. The 1992 pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was called the "Food Guide Pyramid" or "Eating Right Pyramid". It was updated in 2005 to "MyPyramid", and then it was replaced by "MyPlate" in 2011.
The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.
A fad diet is a diet that becomes popular for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements. There is no single definition of what is a fad diet. The term fad diet encompasses a variety of diets with different approaches and evidence bases, and thus different outcomes, advantages, and disadvantages.
Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein, as well as low carbohydrate foods.
The Mediterranean diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of people who live near the Mediterranean Sea. When initially formulated in the 1960s, it drew on the cuisines of Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Spain. In decades since, it has also incorporated other Mediterranean cuisines, such as those in the Levant and North Africa.
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, created on December 1, 1994, to improve the health and well-being of Americans by establishing national dietary guidelines based on the best science available. CNPP promotes dietary guidance by linking scientific research to the nutritional needs of the American public through the function of USDA's Nutrition Evidence Library, which it created and manages.
A diabetic diet is a diet that is used by people with diabetes mellitus or high blood sugar to minimize symptoms and dangerous complications of long-term elevations in blood sugar.
The DASH diet is a dietary pattern promoted by the U.S.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to prevent and control hypertension. The DASH diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods. It includes meat, fish, poultry, nuts, and beans, and is limited in sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, red meat, and added fats. In addition to its effect on blood pressure, it is designed to be a well-balanced approach to eating for the general public. DASH is recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a healthy eating plan. The DASH diet is one of three healthy diets recommended in the 2015–2020 US Dietary Guidelines, which also include the Mediterranean diet and a vegetarian diet. The AHA considers the DASH diet "specific and well-documented across age, sex and ethnically diverse groups."
The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid is a nutrition guide that was developed by the Oldways Preservation Trust, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the World Health Organization in 1993. It summarizes the Mediterranean Diet pattern of eating, suggesting the types and frequency of foods that should be enjoyed every day.
The Whole Grain Stamp was created by the Whole Grains Council and a panel of scientific and culinary advisors in January 2005 as a visual marker to signal products that contain dietarily-significant amounts of whole grains. The Stamp features a stylized sheaf of grain on a golden-yellow background with a black border.
Vegetarian Diet Pyramid is a nutrition guide that represents a traditional healthy vegetarian diet. Variations of this traditional healthy vegetarian diet exist throughout the world, particularly in parts of North America, Europe, South America and, most notably, Asia. Given these carefully defined parameters, the phrase "Traditional Vegetarian Diet" is used here to represent the healthy traditional ovo-lacto vegetarian diets of these regions and peoples. A pyramid was created by Oldways Preservation Trust in 1998 with scientific research from Cornell and Harvard University and specific reference to the healthy patterns of eating demonstrated by the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.
The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, conventionally-raised animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are healthy or who are at risk for chronic disease but do not currently have chronic disease. The Guidelines are published every five years by the US Department of Agriculture, together with the US Department of Health and Human Services. Notably, the most recent ninth edition for 2020–2025 includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months. In addition to the Dietary Guidelines per se, there additional tools for assessing diet and nutrition, including the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) which can be used to assess the quality of a given selection of foods in the context of the Dietary Guidelines. Also provided are additional explanations regarding customization of the Guidelines to individual eating preferences, application of the Guidelines during pregnancy and infancy, the USDA Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review, information about the Nutrition Communicators Network and the MyPlate initiative, information from the National Academies about redesigning the process by which the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are created, and information about dietary guidelines from other nations.
Obesity in Mexico is a relatively recent phenomenon, having been widespread since the 1980s with the introduction of processed food into much of the Mexican food market. Prior to that, dietary issues were limited to under and malnutrition, which is still a problem in various parts of the country. Following trends already ongoing in other parts of the world, Mexicans have been foregoing the traditional Mexican diet high in whole grains, fruits, legumes and vegetables in favor of a diet with more animal products and processed foods. It has seen dietary energy intake and rates of overweight and obese people rise with seven out of ten at least overweight and a third clinically obese.
MyPlate is the current nutrition guide published by the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, and serves as a recommendation based off the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It replaced the USDA's MyPyramid guide on June 2, 2011, ending 19 years of USDA food pyramid diagrams. MyPlate is displayed on food packaging and used in nutrition education in the United States. The graphic depicts a place setting with a plate and glass divided into five food groups that are recommended parts of a healthy diet. This dietary recommendation combines an organized amount of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. It is designed as a guideline for Americans to base their plate around in order to make the educated food choices. ChooseMyPlate.gov shows individuals the variety of these 5 subgroups based off of their activity levels and personal characteristics.
Preventive nutrition is a branch of nutrition science with the goal of preventing or delaying or reducing the impacts of disease and disease-related complications. It is concerned with a high level of personal well-being, disease prevention, and diagnosis of recurring health problems or symptoms of discomfort which are often precursors to health issues. Preventive nutrition may assist in prolonging the onset of non-communicable diseases and may allow adults to experience more "healthy living years" later in life. The need for preventive nutrition continues to grow as the overweight and obese population numbers steadily rise within the childhood to adult populous, as the numbers have increased over the last 40 years. To educate the public about preventive nutrition, each social structure has its own way to communicate what preventive nutrition is within its own society, this is done through either a public health forum, government programs and policies or nutritional education. In the United States, preventive nutrition is taught to the public through the use of the food pyramid or MyPlate initiatives.
Soul food is a kind of African American cuisine that encompasses a variety of fried, roasted, and boiled food dishes consisting of chicken and pork meats, sweet potatoes, corn, leafy greens and other vegetables. Soul food has long been embedded in African American culture, but pushes towards healthy eating habits, for both physical and mental health, have adapted soul food cuisine to fit within health trends. This article will describe modifications of traditional soul food within health trends, including soul food with low carb, soul food with low sugar, soul food with low fat, soul food for vegan and soul food in gluten-free.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
