The Food Pyramid
Many guidelines and suggestions are made to advise and inform individuals regarding the components that should comprise their daily nutritional intake. One of the most commonly used one in society today is ‘The Food Guide Pyramid (or FGP)’. This pyramid provides an outline on the specific types and amounts of food that should be eaten on a daily basis.
The (FGP) pyramid was first created and released by the United States Department of Agriculture. It took almost two decades to devise and advises on food choices that meet nutritional needs, promotes health, supports an active life and also reduce the chance of chronic diseases.
A brief summary of the guidelines is as follows:
- Vary the food consumed: It is not possible for the body to extract all the required nutrients from any single food item or group. For this reason it is advised that food from all the groups are eaten.
- Diet should be low in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.
- Sugars, salt and sodium should all be consumed in moderation.
- Do not exceed daily recommendations regarding alcohol consumption.
- Balance these dietary suggestions with a good degree of physical exercise and activity.
As can be viewed from (figure 1) the pyramid is split into six groups over 4 tiers.
Bottom Tier - The foundation of the pyramid is made up of foods high in carbohydrates such as bread, rice, pasta and cereal. It is suggested that these foods can be consumed in generous amounts on a daily basis.
Next Tier Up – Consists of the fruit and vegetable food groups. These are also foods that can be consumed in a generous manner.
Penultimate Tier – Guidelines suggest that the foods contained within this tier are consumed within moderation and not as freely as the two previous tiers. The food groups contained within this tier are the dairy products (milk, yogurt and cheese) and meat, fish, poultry, dry beans, eggs and nuts.
Top tier – The top tier contains foods that are considered to be made up of empty calories. These are foods that are high in energy (calories) but provide no other real nutrients, vitamins or minerals. As a result these foods should be consumed on a restricted basis. Included in this tier are fats, oils, sweets, sauces, deep fried foods and other foods that are high fat based.
The following table highlights the suggested daily intake of each group and what constitutes one serving:
| Food Group | Portion Size |
|---|---|
| Bread and Cereal (6-11 Servings per day) | |
| Bread (brown or white) | 1 Slice |
| Pitta Bread | 1 Small |
| Roll | 1 Small |
| Bagel | 1/2 |
| Cereal | 1/2 Bowl |
| Crackers | 5 Small |
| Cooked Rice or Pasta | 1/2 Cup |
| Vegetable (3-5 Servings) | |
| Potato | 1 Medium |
| Fruit (2-4 Servings) | |
| Apple | 1 Medium |
| Banana | 1/2 |
| Canned Fruit | 1/2 Cup |
| Melon | 1/2 |
| Dried Fruit | 1/4 Cup |
| Meat (2-3 Servings ) | |
| Cooked Lean Meat, Poultry or Fish | 85g |
| Egg | 1 Medium |
| Nuts | 1/3 Cup |
| Dairy (2-3 Serving) | |
| Milk | 1 Medium |
| Yogurt | 200g |
| Cheese | 60g |
The food pyramid is a useful tool to use as a guideline when establishing the foundations of a daily diet. However when the athlete uses it they should be wary of the fact that the intended audience of it is the sedentary individual, however the requirements for a footballer changes as they may require sugar based foods for energy and may also need to consume more calories than the average individual to replace those expended during exercise.
Figure 1: Image is taken from www.ndc.ie/consumer/Dairy_foods/pyramid