Twitter_Pyramid2 (1)It’s been a great week in the world of nutrition. The new Healthy Eating Pyramid was released by Nutrition Australia and we love the finished product.

The Healthy Eating Pyramid has been an iconic part of the nutrition industry for over 30 years. I remember being taught it in health classes at high school. It’s a simplistic, straightforward tool that clearly shows the proportions each food group should contribute to a healthy, balanced diet. It has always been a helpful tool for giving general, not individual, nutrition advice.

healthy eating pyramid

Source – Nutrition Australia

The science of nutrition is a highly dynamic beast and I have to be honest, 15 years was a long time to wait to get an update. A lot has changed in nutrition in the past 15 years. I completed my first degree just over 10 years ago and the face of the industry has developed dramatically even over that time. Nutritional science rarely definitively answers a question, it merely gradually adds pieces of the puzzle together. It may still be a while yet till we work out further detail, but I think we’re finally starting to see what the end product might look like. In saying that, it’s better late than never.

Why a new pyramid?

The Australian Dietary Guidelines were reviewed and re-released in 2013. They contained some major changes, one of which was the focus on whole foods, rather than individual nutrients. This principle is one that we at The Healthy Eating Hub wholehearted agree with. We eat foods and not individual nutrients in isolation, so it makes sense for healthy eating recommendations to be built on this context.

It was this review of the dietary guidelines that sparked a review of the pyramid as well and for the first time in 15 years we have a brand new tool that sums up general health eating advice in one simple image.

Nutrition Australia have also highlighted in their accompany notes that in the current climate of fad diets and conflicting nutrition advice a re-vamped pyramid would do wonders for summing up the current body of scientific evidence is an easy to understand pictorial.

Whats new?

healthy eating pyramid

Source – Nutrition Australia

healthy eating pyramid

Source – Nutrition Australia

The pyramid has some notable changes.

The major change is the division of the pyramid into separate food groups. Earlier versions of the pyramid separated food into 3 layers: ‘Eat Most’, ‘Eat Moderately’ and ‘Eat in Small amounts’. The new version now separates it into 4 layers and each layer or segment covers a specific food group and represents what proportion of your total diet should come from each group. The bottom layer is unprocessed plant foods – vegetables, legumes and fruit – as current evidence suggest that 70% of our diet should come from these foods.

Other changes include strengthening the ‘limit added sugars’ message and making the top layer of the pyramid specific to include healthy fats rather than limiting all dietary fats.

healthy eating pyramid

Main take home message

Through all of this scientific research we must be able to articulate a take home message, something that we can apply to our lives straight away. The new pyramid does this by simplifying the evidence and encouraging us to focus on a few key points. These are:

  • to make the majority of our diet plant based from whole vegetables, fruit and legumes,
  • to moderately include dairy, meat, seafood and eggs,
  • include a small serve of healthy fats and oils is important each day, and
  • limit added sugar and salt.

Here’s some of The Healthy Eating Hub‘s tips to apply the new Healthy Eating Pyramid advice to your diet each and every day:

  1. Fill up half a dinner plate of vegetables at as many meals as you possibly can. RecipeChicken with Potato, Avocado & a Garden Salad
  2. Try adding legumes (beans, lentils chickpeas) to your meals 3-4 times per week. RecipeHerbed Chicken and Chick Pea Salad
  3. Spread your toast with avocado, use extra-virgin olive oil when cooking and snack on raw nuts and seeds in between meals. RecipeHomemade Chips with Guacamole
  4. Choose plain, natural style yoghurt and plain milk over sweetened convectional style yoghurts and flavoured milks: RecipeYoghurt Parfait
  5. Eat whole, unprocessed meat, chicken and seafood instead of nuggets, sausages, rissoles, schnitzel, salami, bacon and other meat products. RecipeChicken Dippers
  6. Swap all sweet drinks (soft-drink, cordial, fruit juice) for water. Recipe: Infused Water Jugs

For more information about the pyramid and how it was developed visit Nutrition Australia’s website.

If you’d like further help with your nutrition please click below: