Beebleblog

Well, should we eat like an Egyptian? No, not exactly but there is a good way to measure your daily intake using a very simple shape that will remind you of Egypt. You can see in fig.1 why it is called The Pyramid and it is this shape that allows us to plan what goes on our plate throughout the day.

The pyramid is broken down into 6 sections. Starting from the lowest to the highest, we will cover what each level contains.

The Lowest Level

This makes up the bulk of your daily diet and consists of bread, cereal, rice and pasta. The Food Pyramid requires you to have 6-11 servings of this group. You may ask what is considered a serving for this type of food. A good question and they are as follows:

•    Bread – 1 slice
•    Cereal – 1 ounce (dry)
•    Rice – ½ a cup
•    Pasta – ½ a cup (cooked)

2nd Level

On this level you have 2 groups. The first group is vegetables and the second group is fruit. For the vegetable group you are expected to have 3-5 servings per day and in the fruit group you are required to have 2-4 servings per day. Their serving quantity is as follows:

Vegetables

•    Cooked or chopped vegetables – ½ a cup
•    Leafy vegetables – 1 cup
•    Vegetable Juice - ¾ cup

Fruit

•    Apple, Banana, Orange – 1 medium size
•    Chopped, cooked or canned fruit – ½ a cup
•    Fruit Juice – ¾ of a cup
•    Dried Fruit – ¼ of a cup

3rd Level

There are two groups again on this level and as you can tell they are in smaller quantities than the previous level. The first group is made up of products like milk, yoghurt and cheese and the second group is the protein group consisting of produce like meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, egg and nuts. Both these groups require 2-3 servings daily and their serving sizes are as follows:

Dairy etc.

•    Milk or yoghurt – 1 cup
•    Natural Cheese – 1 ½ ounces
•    Cottage cheese – 2 cups

Meat etc.

•    Cooked lean meat, fish or poultry – 2-3 ounces
•    Eggs – 2-3
•    Cooked dry beans – 1 ½ cups
•    Nuts – 1 cup

Top level

This group is right at the top and is the smallest of the groups and therefore should be the smallest of the food groups we consume. I expect a lot of our own personal pyramids maybe a little more top heavy than this one. Anyway the top group consists of all the naughty foods like chocolate, crisps, fries and anything that is fatty, oily or sweet. There are not even measurement guides for this group of food and so the advice is to use sparingly. The good ones of us out there will have a flat top to our pyramids as we won’t go near that group. These people are a minority and there is nothing wrong with treating ourselves. However it has to stay that way: a treat and not a regular part of our daily intake.

Summary

This pyramid is a good guide to how much we should be consuming daily. There are always going to be exceptions and people who disagree with the pyramid. That said, I do believe that it is a very good guide and one that we, in general, should follow.

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