Every ten years an updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans is released to help Americans improve their overall eating patterns.

The underlying messages throughout the last 10 years were simplification of basic guidelines to follow and focus on for a lifelong of healthy eating.

In a world where all kinds of fad diets exist, the key to good heath and nutrition have always been and always will be balancing choices we eat with activity to obtain and maintain a safe weight and healthy lifestyle.

The recommended basic dietary guidelines for Americans are, at its core, focused on health promotion and disease prevention.

1. Follow a healthy eating pattern at every life stage.

• From birth through adulthood, follow a healthy dietary pattern to meet nutrient needs, maintain a safe body weight and reduce the risk of chronic diseases.

2. Customize and enjoy nutrient-dense food and beverage choices to reflect personal preferences, cultural traditions, and budgetary considerations.

• A healthy dietary pattern can be customized to individual needs and preferences, while celebrating and including diverse food cultures

3. Focus on meeting food group needs with nutrient-dense foods and beverages and stay within calorie limits.

• Nutrient dense foods provide vitamins, minerals and other health-promoting components and have no or little added sugars, saturated fats or sodium.  Calorie limits and recommendations can assist in meeting and maintaining safe weight levels.

4. Limit foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium, and limit alcoholic beverages

• Every dietary pattern has room for a treat, but high sugar, high fat, high sodium foods and alcoholic beverages should be just that – a treat – don’t let them get to the threat stage where they derail or negatively impact your wellness goals and overall health.

What does all this mean for you and menu choices?

Healthy eating patterns contain a variety of foods – colorful fruits and vegetables, grains, hopefully whole grain options, dairy products that are lower fat, a variety of proteins, including seafood, eggs, legumes, and healthy oils. Recommended portions will vary based on age, sex and activity levels.

• Grains

Aim for 4-9 servings of grains per day (depending on age and activity), focusing whole grain options of cereals, breads, rice, ancient grains (like spelt, barley, oats, sorghum) or quinoa, buckwheat or pasta. Grains, along with fruits and vegetables represent the carbohydrate portion of your diet.  In general, 45-65% of your daily calorie intake should be from carbohydrates, your body’s preferred source of fuel.

• Vegetables 

Vegetables should be a delicious combination of dark-green varieties like broccoli, kale and spinach, orange vegetable like carrots and sweet potatoes, other vegetables like cabbages, asparagus, green beans, etc. and dry beans and peas (an excellent non-meat protein).

• Fruits  

This includes all fresh, frozen, canned, dried fruits and fruit juices. Go easy on juices as they often contain large amounts of fruit sugar (and don’t contain any of the important fiber of fresh fruits!).

• Milk/Dairy Products – Sources of Calcium and Vitamin D

Milk and dairy products are the best natural sources of calcium. Most milk should be fat-free or low-fat and fortified with vitamin D. Cream cheese, cream, and butter have little to no calcium and are not part of this group.

Those that are lactose intolerant can get calcium from fortified orange juice, or dairy free options so plentiful on the market today.  Check out the calcium amounts – minimum ideal intake of calcium is 1300 mg/day.

• Protein Rich Foods 

Meat, fish, poultry, eggs and beans are great sources of protein. When choosing meat, it is ideal to choose low-fat or lean cuts most often.

The most healthy and nutritious way to cook meat is baking, broiling or grilling. Frying should be kept to a minimum because of the fat it adds to your food.  Meat free options, such as legumes, tofu (soy), or meat alternatives (such as Beyond Meat or Impossible Meat) all contain quality protein options if you are looking for a meat substitute.   Ketogenic diets focus on high intakes of protein and fat, and very small amounts of healthy carbohydrates.  While these diets have been shown to help lose weight (and bring down blood glucose levels), they are hard to maintain and success rates of maintaining this weight loss are low.

• Fats

Fats play an important role in healthy eating. But keep total fat intake at 20-35% of all calories and keep saturated fats at less than 10%.

Unsaturated fats (liquid at room temperature), are considered beneficial as they improve blood cholesterol levels, ease inflammation, and play a number of beneficial roles in the body.  These are found in foods from plants, such as vegetable oils, olive oil, avocado, nut oils and seeds. Read more about all kinds of fats, including important Omega 3 fats (found in foods like salmon) here.

The updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans has information on eating, based on science, for every aspect of living – from babies at 6 months just starting to eat table foods through the elderly, and including nutrition information for during and after pregnancy and other phases of life. There is information on food basics such as nutrients of concern such as fiber, Vitamin D and Calcium, Sodium and even information on caffeine and alcohol.

Each stage of life is distinct and has unique needs that affect health and disease risk. Early food preferences influence food and beverage choices later. And the science has evolved to focus on the importance of a healthy dietary pattern over time. The science also shows it’s never too late to start and maintain a healthy dietary pattern, which can yield health benefits in the short term and cumulatively over years.