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The much awaited Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 been recently released by the USDA. The guidelines encourage Americans to eat fewer calories, to be more active and to make wiser food choices.

Among the key recommendations, the guidelines call for Americans to :

• Engage in 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day to maintain weight and 90 minutes to sustain weight loss
• Consume five and half cups of fruits and vegetables per day , based on a 2000 calorie intake
• Eat three or more ounce-equivalents of whole grain products, with half of grains from whole grains
• Consume three cups of fat free or low fat milk products
• Limit saturated fats and transfats and
• Keep total fat intake to between 20% -35 % of calories

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

The USDA has created an online dietary and physical activity assessment tool that can help individuals determine which foods and what amounts are appropriate for them based on their age, gender and level of physical activity. MyPyramid Tracker (www.mypyramidtracker.gov) translates the principles of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 into user friendly format. The Food Calories/Energies Balance feature automatically calculates energy balance by subtracting the energy expensed during physical activity from caloric intake. The tool is designed to help users:

• Make smart choices from every food group
• Find a balance between food and physical activity and
• Get the most nutrition from daily caloric intake

The complete Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 can be accessed at: www.healthierus,gov/dietaryguidelines

So what do these recommendations mean to the common person?

The people from the Indian subcontinent are blessed with an excellent eating pattern which we have been following for centuries.

In order to follow the new guidelines all we need to do is focus more on eating our basic foods. These include roti, rice, vegetables, milk, yogurt and fruit.

Indians have always eaten whole grains as chapatti/roti and rice. We consume whole beans as dals and vegetables both raw and cooked. Salads are normally eaten with lemon juice, salt and pepper - avoid the salad dressing and the total fat intake will decrease.

Fruit is normally eaten raw, which is the healthiest way to eat as we do not add any sugar or fat, for eg apple pie has both sugar and fat.

Meat in the Indian diet is normally not consumed in every meal. Processed meats like sausages, salami are not a part of our desi diet. The amount / portion size of non vegetarian food is often limited.

Watch the fried foods and methai/sweets and it is easy to follow a healthy food pattern.

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