You've heard about it when you were in school, but you really didn't pay too much attention to it. There's been some talk about it recently but again you just didn't have the time to give your full attention to it. Now however, you have enough time on your hands, and besides your kids need help with their schoolwork so you'll need to learn all about it. What am I talking about? The Food Guide Pyramid of course.

Sometime late in the early mists of science some genius or early nutritionist stumbled across the magical fact that humans needed food to live. This same person also deduced quite rightly that some foods were more important than others. And taking things one step further, this genius saw that even from amongst these categories the foods would again be divided into sections where some of these foods should only be taken in smaller quantities.

At a guess this person probably came up with a complex table or matrix from which to describe the proper daily intake of food for a person in the course of one day. But as will happen, through some method we have instead ended up not with a table or matrix but with the Food Guide Pyramid that graces all doctors? offices these days.

Well, now you know what the food guide pyramid is, but do you know exactly what it does, and how it works? In the earlier days as little back as five years ago, the food guide pyramid was set in an orderly manner, with the foods that should be consumed most placed on the bottom, and the foods that should be eaten the least placed on the tip of the food guide pyramid.

As of 2005 however, the food guide pyramid as we know it was changed forever, and a new one was built to take its place. Essentially this new food guide pyramid tells you the same story, but it now has added components to be able to help you better understand diet and your health.

This new food guide pyramid actually has a person climbing stairs up the side of the pyramid to show that regular exercise also needs to be included in your overall healthy eating habits. And instead of the horizontal lines that we are so used to seeing, the divisions now radiate down from the tip of the food guide pyramid. What this tells us is that although some food groups are better for us than others, some foods even within a group should only be taken in moderation.

You'll also notice that this new food guide pyramid sports a dazzling array of rainbow colors as its divisional stripes, and that's just to make the sections easier to differentiate. With six colored divisions you'll go through Orange (Grains), Green (Vegetables), Red (Fruits), Yellow (Fats), Blue (Dairy), and Purple (Meats, Beans, Fish). Take a walk through this new food guide pyramid ? you might be pleasantly surprised what you find inside.