To keep your body healthy and strong, you need to eat the right amount from each group but how can one know what the right amount is from each food group? The food pyramid is a guide. It shows that not all foods are equally healthy. We should eat less of some foods, and more of others.
A food pyramid or diet pyramid is a triangular diagram representing the optimal number of servings to be eaten each day from each of the basic food groups.[1] The first pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974.[2][3][4] The 1992 pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was called the "Food Guide Pyramid" or "Eating Right Pyramid". It was updated in 2005 to "MyPyramid", and then it was replaced by "MyPlate" in 2011
Swedish origin
Amid high food prices in 1972, Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare developed the idea of "basic foods" that were both cheap and nutritious, and "supplemental foods" that added nutrition missing from the basic foods. Anna-Britt Agnsäter, chief of the "test kitchen" for Kooperativa Förbundet (a cooperative Swedish retail chain), held a lecture the next year on how to illustrate these food groups. Attendee Fjalar Clemes suggested a triangle displaying basic foods at the base. Agnsäter developed the idea into the first food pyramid, which was introduced to the public in 1974 in KF's Vi magazine.[2][3][4] The pyramid was divided into basic foods at the base, including milk, cheese, margarine, bread, cereals and potato; a large section of supplemental vegetables and fruit; and an apex of supplemental meat, fish and egg. The pyramid competed with the National Board's "dietary circle," which KF saw as problematic for resembling a cake divided into seven slices, and for not indicating how much of each food should be eaten. While the Board distanced itself from the pyramid, KF continued to promote it.
Food pyramids were developed in other Scandinavian countries, as well as West Germany, Japan and Sri Lanka. The United States later developed its first food pyramid in 1992.
Food pyramid published by the WHO and FAO
The World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization, published guidelines that can effectively be represented in a food pyramid relating to objectives to prevent obesity, chronic diseases and dental caries based on meta-analysis [7][8] though they represent it as a table rather than a "pyramid". The structure is similar in some respects to the USDA food pyramid, but there are clear distinctions between types of fats, and a more dramatic distinction where carbohydrates are split on the basis of free sugars versus sugars in their natural form. Some food substances are singled out due to the impact on the target issues the "pyramid" is meant to address, while in a later revision, some recommendations are omitted since they follow automatically from other recommendations while other sub-categories are added. The reports quoted here explain that where there is no stated lower limit in the table below, there is no requirement for that nutrient in the diet.