Food Pyramid and Calories
A sample menu – Healthy Weight Pyramid
This sample menu shows you how the help you plan daily meals and snacks.
The Healthy Weight Pyramid is a tool designed to help you eat a balanced, nutritious diet while achieving a healthy weight. It illustrates the types and amounts of food you need to eat every day from each of the five represented food groups.
Food Pyramid and Calories
This sample menu shows you how the Healthy Weight Pyramid can help you plan daily meals and snacks. Note that if you’re hungry, reach or more fruits and vegetables. But make sure your fruit is fresh or is canned in water or juice with the liquid poured off. Limit dried fruit and fruit juice to no more than one to two servings a day because it’s high in calories and low in volume. Regular vegetable juice is high in sodium so you may need or wish to choose a low-sodium variety.
Example of a 1,200-calorie menu
Breakfast
1 large banana
1 cup bran cereal
1 cup fat-free milk
Lunch
Tuna salad sandwich made with 1/2 cup water-packed tuna, 1 tablespoon low-calorie mayonnaise, 1/2 teaspoon curry powder, chopped celery as desired, leaf lettuce and 2 slices whole-grain toast.
2 cups raw baby carrots, jicama and bell pepper strips.
1 medium apple
Food and Nutrition
Dinner
Cod with lemon and capers
3/4 cup steamed green beans
1/2 cup sliced beans
Salad made with 1 cup bibb, Boston, butterhead or leaf lettuce, 1/ 2 cup cherry tomatoes, a splash of balsamic vinegar and 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 Nectarine
Sparkling water with lemon
