a balanced plate

 

Earlier this month, I spoke with our local Fox 6 Wake up team about the USDA's new My Plate.  You can find the tv spot and my post for Get Active Today's blog below.  As I've continued to talk with folks about My Plate and its emphasis on fruits and vegetables, I've heard concerns people have about eating locally and healthfully year round.  The worry is that dairy and meat and grains may be the only local foods available during the winter months in places like Wisconsin. 

 

It is true that this is the time of year when its seems easiest to pile your plate high with fresh fruits and vegetables as more and more produce comes into its own in our local farms and gardens.  But this is also the time of year to be thinking about the long. cold nights of winter.  By "putting by" ripe veggies in the summer, either by canning, drying, or freezing, we can eat locally and promote health all year round. Local, seasonal, just picked, ripe produce grown in healthy soil tends to be packed with a lot more nutrients than the industrially produced produce flown in from all over the world that line our winter market shelves.  Buying extra asparagus, strawberries, green beans, kale, collards, spinach and so on picked at the peak of flavor and ripeness in these early months of summer and quick freezing them preserves a lot of their nutrient value for later on when the only fresh, local produce we can find is what keeps in a root cellar (onions, potatoes, winter squash, etc...)  Later on in the summer, we can look forward to other "good freezers" like tomatoes, peppers, summer squash... Check out this site that has helped me with a windfall harvest, many a time, for instructions on how to preserve almost anything: Pick Your Own.

 

  

USDA Food guides have been around since 1894 and the newest version, in my opinion, represents a major improvement over the past hundred plus years.  While the recommendations remain the same, in accordance with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, as the My Pyramid…the real success of My Plate is that it is easy to understand. Dietitians, such as myself, and other health educators have been using the Plate Method for nutrition education for years because people find it easier to visualize a healthy eating pattern when looking at a meal plate versus a food “pyramid.”  

Vegetables are the real winners in this new My Plate model as they are given the largest area of space on the plate.  Fruits win too. Basically, we are meant to pile our plates up with fruits and vegetables, leaving a quarter of the plate for whole grains and a quarter for protein foods like meat, fish, chicken, eggs, beans, nuts, and seeds.  Dairy is shown on the side and people who drink milk are encouraged to choose low fat options.  

This is a great time of year to start eating more produce as our farmer’s markets are getting into full swing.  Just last night I piled my plate high with a green lettuce, asparagus and radish salad, and served it with an herb-feta-omelet with whole wheat bread...yum! To find a farmer’s market in your neighborhood you can use the Get Active Today Farmer’s Market tools http://www.getactivetoday.com/fitness-nutrition/5/FarmersMarkets.aspx and be sure to check out the Farm Fresh Atlas of South Eastern Wisconsin.http://www.farmfreshatlas.org/southeast/

Here are the key take home messages from www.choosemyplate.gov:

Balancing Calories  

● Enjoy your food, but eat less.  

● Avoid oversized portions.    

Foods to Increase  

● Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.  

● Make at least half your grains whole grains.  

● Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.    

Foods to Reduce  

● Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals ― and choose the foods with lower numbers.  

● Drink water instead of sugary drinks.