food guide colors

The Rainbow of Colors

These specifics include brightly colored vertical stripes, each representing one of six food groups:
Grains (orange -- and the widest stripe),
Vegetables (green),
Fruits (red),
Oils (yellow -- and the thinnest stripe),
Milk -- including most foods made from milk (blue),
Meat & beans (purple).


The stripes are also engineered to be wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, ostensibly to drive home the idea that not all foods within that group are of the same value.

"The idea is to make us aware of not only food groups, but choices within those groups," says Nonas, who points out that an apple pie and an apple might fall within the same food group but not have equal nutritional value.