MyPyramid Plan

By: Claudia Bailey

Healthy eating is an important part of life, a person will improve their health my following daily food intake recommendations. My current eating habits are not the greatest, as I prefer to eat meats and carbohydrate type of person. My current diet contains a generous amount of meat, fruit, and grains; however I am lacking in the vegetable and milk areas of the food categories. I usually consume meats and grains at every meal and throughout the day; I eat fruit throughout the day and with my breakfast. I consume no milk unless I am eating cereal or I use it to cook. When it comes to vegetables there is only a handful that I like and it gets repetitive eating the same ones on a rotating bases, so I have a great deal of meals in which I do not consume any vegetables. I know that my current eating habits are not healthy and with my current diet I may continue to gain weight. The recommended daily food intake amounts for a women of a healthy weight, is straight forward and easy to understand. The customized food pyramid that was developed after answering a few questions, showed me numbers that I think are going to be hard to meet. It is recommended that I drink 3 cups of milk per day, but I am not a milk drinker at all. I am supposed to eat 2 cups of fruit a day. It is recommended that I eat 3 cups of vegetables and day, which is 21 cups per week. When it comes to the vegetables that are recommended it is broken down into the colors; so weekly I should eat 3 cups of dark green vegetables, 2 cups of orange vegetables, 3 cups of dried beans and peas, 6 cups of starchy vegetables, and 7 cups of other vegetables. The recommended daily intake for me when it comes to grains is 7 ounces and my daily meat intake should not exceed 6 ounces. I currently get the correct amount of fruit, meat and grains, however my diet lacks greatly with milk and vegetables. There are a lot of different things that I could and will try to do to improve my diet and daily eating habits. Vegetables are one of the food categories that I lack the most servings in and I think that should be where I start. First I need to take an inventory of the vegetables that I do eat and try to find new ways to use them. Some ways that I can add vegetables to my daily food intake by adding squash and zucchini to dishes like spaghetti and casseroles, I can add mushrooms to some of the dishes I eat on a regular basis, I could drink V-8 juice at least once and day, and lastly I can add various peppers to my dishes; I think that if I practice these adjustments on a consistent basis then I will add numerous servings of vegetables to my diet. Milk is the other food pyramid category where I do not consume the proper amount of servings; I don’t like the taste of milk so this might be a hard one. Even though I do not like the taste of milk I do like yogurt and cheese. I have thought of some ways to add more milk products to my diet; I can add a serving of yogurt to by breakfast or as a snack at some point in the day, I can add a slice of cheese to a dish that I eat during the day, or I can add a small amount of chocolate or strawberry syrup to my milk to flavor it. I currently get almost enough servings of fruit in my daily intake, however in order to ensure that I continue to get the proper servings I have committed to shopping for fresh fruit at least one a week and eat at least 2 pieces a day. When it comes to meat and beans I get the proper amount of daily servings; however I am not getting in the proper way. I do not eat any kind of beans so all of my servings in the meat and bean category come from meat. I have not been able to come up with any ideas on how I can add beans to my diet, simply because I have yet to find a bean that I like and will eat. Grains are probably my favorite part of the food pyramid. I am currently getting the appropriate amount or more in my daily diet. When it comes to grains I need to be more careful about how many I eat, because there are days where I might consume twice the recommended daily servings. I do need to start eating more whole grains and I have brainstormed some ways that I can fix that problem. To add more whole wheat to my diet I can eat my sandwiches on whole wheat bread, instead of regular bagels I can eat whole wheat bagels, buy and cook whole wheat pasta’s instead of regular. Despite the fact that I am lacking more servings in some categories than others I still need to make changes to my daily food intake to ensure that it is as healthy as possible. Within my diet I am including six different classes of nutrients and each of them have a different function to perform inside of my body. Macronutrients are required greatly by the body and they include items such as water, carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. Micronutrients are only needed by the body in small amounts and include vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrates are another type of nutrient that I consume and it gives the body energy; the body needs little carbohydrates and includes sugars, starches, and some fibers. Fiber is also a class of nutrient by itself and it is a substance that is not broken down by the digestive processes. Lipids are the class of nutrients that people usually refer to as fat and most of which do not dissolve in water. Proteins is a class that is made up of one or more intertwining chains of amino acid, proteins help regulate various things in the body such as your blood. Another one of the six classes of nutrients is vitamins and these are organic molecules that a person needs in their diet in small amounts so that they can promote and regulate their growth, reproduction and maintenance of health. Minerals are inorganic elements and are needed by a person’s body in small amounts for structure and to help regulate chemical reactions and different body processes. There are a lot of elements that a person needs to include in their diet, however if they follow the recommendations given to them by the food pyramid they should be doing pretty good. My daily food intake choices contain both nutrient-rich foods and nutrient-lacking foods.
Some of the foods in my daily diet that are lacking in nutrients are soda, white wheat breads and pastas, ice cream, cookies, and various cakes and pastries. Some of the foods that I currently incorporate into my daily diet that are nutrient-rich are seafood, chicken, carrots, bananas, and squash. I believe that my current daily food intake contains more nutrient-lacking food than nutrient-rich food. I plan to incorporate more nutrient-rich foods into my daily food intake; I will do this by adding whole wheat products to my kitchen, leaner cuts of meat, and maybe some nuts and fruits like prunes. I defiantly need to learn how to cut out some of the foods that lack nutrients that are in my current daily food intake. I need to cut out the amount of sodas that I drink, I usually eat sweets once or twice a day and I need to cut some of that out, and instead of grabbing breakfast in the mornings I need to cut up in time to cook and this will allow me to cut out the morning pastries. My diet is not as balanced between nutrient-rich foods and nutrient-lacking foods; however since I can pin point the problems I should be able to correct them so they do not continue. This assignment has helped me to understand how my diet compares to the daily recommended diet. I have some gaps in the good things that should be in a person’s diet and the gaps are filled with none nutritious foods. Now that I know where I am lacking I will be able to fix the problems. I have developed a game plan to incorporate more vegetables and milk servings into my daily food intake and hopefully it will get me to the daily recommendations.

Reference:
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. (n.d.). . Retrieved from http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/AboutUs.htm