Big improvements to Australia’s food pyramid, some of the changes are:

• Vegetables and legumes, and fruit now make up the largest foundation layer of the pyramid!
• Quinoa and oats are featured in the whole grains section!
• There is no margarine!!  Healthy fats like olive oil and almonds feature instead.
• No added sugar and salt, and no allowance for junk food or reduced fat spreads in the sometimes section as there was in past versions of the pyramid.
• Herbs and spices are now included.

Of course everyone has individual dietary requirements and this is not mentioned at all, and if you follow a paleo diet you won’t agree with the grains section.  However this is just a guideline, and it’s a lot better than what we had in the past.  To summarise, eat a mostly plant based diet, loads of green veggies, herbs and spices to flavour with small amounts of meat, legumes, nuts, seeds and grains and dairy if you wish.  It seems everyone agrees, for good health, just eat real food!  Leave the processed packaged stuff in the supermarket!

For more information – http://nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/healthy-eating-pyramid