USDA Announces New Food Icon

First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled the federal government’s new food icon, MyPlate, to serve as a reminder to help consumers make healthier food choices. MyPlate is a new generation icon with the intent to prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and to seek more information to help them do that by going to www.ChooseMyPlate.gov. The new MyPlate icon emphasizes the fruit, vegetable, grains, protein and dairy food groups.

The MyPlate icon is available to view and download in PDF and JPG formats.

According to the 2010 US Dietary Guidelines, there are six how-to messages to guide healthy eating:

Enjoy your food, but eat less.
Avoid oversized portions.
Make half of your plate fruits and vegetables.
Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals, and choose the foods with lower numbers.
Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

According to a webmd.com interview, USDA's plan is to stress one idea at a time and first up will be the "make half of your plate fruits and vegetables" advice. We encourage the fruit and vegetable industry and health professionals to prepare to support the message by doing the following:

1. Follow Produce for Better Health Foundation on Facebook to learn about the latest USDA graphic developments and how we can continue to support this message.

2. Follow Fruits & Veggies-More Matters on Facebook or Twitter so that you can retweet appropriate consumer messages or get ideas for your own social media outreach efforts.

3. Link to America's More Matters Pledge: Fruits & Veggies . . . Today and Every Day!, and encourage consumers to pledge to eat half-the-plate as fruits and vegetables. The America's More Matters Pledge offers tools needed to follow through with the pledge, including signing up to receive a recipe of the week and weekly healthy meal ideas.

4. Link to www.FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org so that consumers can find simple-to-do and easy-to-understand tips and advice to make half of your plate fruits and vegetables including; a recipe database with over 1,000 recipes, many of which can be made in 30 minutes or less, and a video center loaded with informational and entertaining short clips that offer fruit and veggie selection and storage and preparation advice and techniques. A nutrition database is also available filled with selection, storage, and nutrition information.