MyPyramid PodCast #4 – MyPyramid Menu Planner

Brian Wansink:  Hi I’m Dr. Brain Wansink. I’m the Executive Director for USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. And I’ve got a question for you: Did you eat a balanced diet yesterday? If you’re like most people, you have no idea whether you ate a balanced diet or not. You want to think you did, but who knows. What if there was a tool that could help you determine whether you ate balanced, and what you can do to improve? We’ve got that tool. It’s called the MyPyramid Menu Planner. Let’s show you what it does.

The Menu Planner will show you how your food choices over the day add up in comparison to your daily goals. As you choose foods, the colored bars reveal where you stand with each of the food groups.

Let’s see. If I check my choices so far today, I can see that my vegetable bar is really low. So, if I’m going to plan on having some broccoli for dinner, and if I add the broccoli to my dinner, I can see right away what happens to that vegetable bar. See! That really helped me reach my goal for vegetables.

Alright! I’ve got my broccoli for tonight. 

Now you can use the MyPyramid Menu Planner for both yourself or for your family. In fact, there’s three ways you can use it. First, you can use it to determine whether you’re eating a balanced diet. Second of all, you can use it to determine what small changes you have to make for you or your family so you can eat better. The third, you can use it to determine what foods you should plan to buy when you go shopping.

Now if you’re like most people and you roll you eyes when you think about the idea of menu planning, this will make you a believer. It’s fun and it’s easy. So check out MyPyramid Menu Planner at MyPyramid.gov. 

Hey, broccoli’s on sale.

Person #1: Thank you!

Brian Wansink: Yeah, you bet.