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Different Food Pyramids

As a visual summary of how Americans should conceptualize their food intake, the food guide pyramid has been issued by the USDA in successive guises over the decades. The most recent version, My Pyramid, has been criticized for being too abstract. Independent health groups have also devised their own versions of how a food pyramid should provide nutritional guidance.

  1. Four Basic Food Groups

    • Some food pyramids are not pyramids at all, and yet they set the tone for the pyramids that would later emerge by consolidating foods into groups. As early as the late 1800s, the USDA has been publishing dietary recommendations for the nation. Over time, food groupings changed from five to seven, and eventually to four. In 1956, the USDA established four basic food groups in their "Essentials of an Adequate Diet." In this scheme, milk, meat, fruits and vegetables, and grains constituted the building blocks of nutrition. Suggested servings specified two or more cups of milk, two or more 2- to 3-oz. servings of meat and four or more servings of bread or cereal.

    Food Guide Pyramid

    • As food guidelines evolved, the "original" food guide pyramid emerged in 1992 to help consumers put the guidelines to use. The visual layout of the pyramid was designed to illustrate several concepts, namely, variety, in which different food groups occupied different sections of the pyramid (such as the Milk, Yogurt & Cheese group set apart from the Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs & Nuts group on one of the upper levels of the pyramid); proportionality, where the size of the sections of the pyramid corresponded to the quantities that were recommended, supported by the numbers of servings listed for each; and moderation, as schematized by the incrementally smaller portions allotted to the tip of the pyramid, or the Fats, Sweets & Oils category.

    My Pyramid

    • With time, the static nature of the Food Guide Pyramid gave way to My Pyramid in 2005, a more interactive pyramid with colorful stripes designating grains in orange, vegetables in green, fruits in red, oils in yellow, milk in blue, and meat and beans in purple. The figure of a person climbing the pyramid sends the message that exercise is also an important part of this pyramid. Despite its visual simplicity, My Pyramid does not give serving recommendations, nor does it give examples of what types of food are representative of each color. Instead, personalized pyramids are provided at the website MyPyramid.gov.

    The Healthy Eating Pyramid

    • In response to My Pyramid as well as its predecessor, the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health developed a pyramid of its own--the Healthy Eating Pyramid, which sought to correct what it saw as flaws in the USDA pyramids. Echoing elements of the original food guide pyramid but dispensing with the serving suggestions, the Healthy Eating Pyramid reconfigures the pyramid so meat, butter and refined grains sit at the top of the pyramid. Further, dairy or calcium supplements occupy the next lower level, followed by the middle tier of beans, nuts, seeds and tofu, set apart on the same level from the adjacent "brick" of fish, poultry and eggs. The Healthy Eating Pyramid places fruits and vegetables, along with healthy oils and whole grains, on the same level, toward the bottom; at the foundation of the pyramid, are daily exercise and weight control.

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