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 You are here: Home / MyPyramid for Pregnancy & Breastfeeding / Foods to Choose Often
MyPyramid for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding


Foods to choose often Divider

Follow your MyPyramid Plan for Moms and eat the amount it recommends for each food group. Choose the foods listed below often. They are the best sources of some nutrients you need when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.*

Grain Group
  • Fortified ready-to-eat cereals
  • Fortified cooked cereals
  • Wheat germ
Grain Group

Vegetable Group (choose fresh, frozen, canned, or dried)
  • Carrots
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Pumpkin
  • Spinach
  • Cooked greens (such as kale, collards, turnip greens, and beet greens)
  • Winter squash
  • Tomatoes and tomato sauces
  • Red sweet pepper
Vegetables Groups

Fruit Group (choose fresh, frozen, canned, or dried)
  • Cantaloupe
  • Honeydew melon
  • Mangoes
  • Prunes or prune juice
  • Bananas
  • Apricots
  • Oranges and orange juice
  • Red or pink grapefruit
  • Avocado
Fruit Groups

Milk Group
  • Fat-free or low-fat yogurt
  • Fat-free milk (skim milk)
  • Low-fat milk (1% milk)
Milk Group

Meat & Beans Group
  • Cooked dry beans and peas (such as pinto beans, soybeans, white beans, lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas)
  • Nuts and seeds (such as sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, peanuts, and peanut butter)
  • Lean beef, lamb, and pork
  • Shrimp, clams, oysters, and crab
  • Halibut, cod, rainbow trout, herring, sardines, rockfish, and yellowfin tuna

    NOTE: Avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish when you are pregnant or breastfeeding. They contain high levels of mercury. Click here for more information about the safety of eating fish during pregnancy.
Meat and Bean Group

Divider

* The foods on this list are the best sources of one or more of the following nutrients: vitamin A, vitamin E, potassium, and iron. Food sources of these nutrients are included because when choosing a typical mix of food choices in each food group, the intake patterns may not meet dietary standards for pregnant and/or breastfeeding women for these nutrients.

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Last Modified: February 06, 2009 12:39 PM

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