What Are the Three Main Parts of MyPlate? A Guide to Healthy Portioning

October 17, 2025 •

5 min read

The USDA replaced the more complex Food Pyramid with MyPlate in 2011 to offer a simpler, visual approach to balanced eating, a move that made portion guidance more intuitive. The new model focuses on what are the three main parts of MyPlate, visually structuring each meal for optimal nutrition.

Quick Summary

MyPlate's visual guide to healthy eating is organized around three main plate sections and an accompanying dairy portion. Half the plate is for fruits and vegetables, with the remaining half split evenly between grains and protein, ensuring balance.

Key Points

Balanced Portions: Half your plate should consist of fruits and vegetables, emphasizing variety for comprehensive nutrients.
Whole Grains First: Dedicate one-quarter of your plate to grains, prioritizing whole grains like brown rice and whole-wheat bread over refined ones.
Diverse Protein: Fill the remaining quarter of your plate with a variety of lean protein sources, including both animal and plant-based options.
Side of Dairy: Complement your meal with a serving of low-fat or fat-free dairy, or a fortified soy alternative, for essential calcium and vitamin D.
Visual Simplicity: MyPlate is an intuitive visual tool, making healthy eating guidelines easy to understand and apply to your daily meals.
Flexibility: The MyPlate principle can be adapted to mixed dishes and international cuisines, not just traditional plate-based meals.
Resource-Rich: MyPlate.gov offers additional tools, recipes, and resources to help you build and maintain healthy eating habits.

The MyPlate model is the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) current nutrition guide, designed to simplify the process of building healthy, balanced meals. This easy-to-understand visual aid organizes food into five major groups, showing you how to portion them correctly on your plate. While it features five total food groups, the model can be most easily understood by focusing on the three main divisions of the plate itself: half for fruits and vegetables, one-quarter for grains, and one-quarter for protein. A separate dairy component accompanies the plate.

The Foundation: Half Your Plate with Fruits and Vegetables

This is arguably the most visually striking and important part of the MyPlate model. The recommendation to fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables is a core principle of healthy eating. This emphasis ensures a high intake of essential vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber, while typically keeping calorie count lower than other food groups. The guide encourages variety and color, as different colors of fruits and vegetables provide a unique range of nutrients.

Fruits and Vegetables: Examples and Benefits

Vary Your Veggies: Including different types of vegetables, such as dark green, red and orange, starchy, and legumes, provides a wider array of nutrients. Think of incorporating leafy greens like spinach, vibrant carrots, and broccoli into your meals. Leftovers can be repurposed into soups or stews.
Focus on Whole Fruits: Choosing whole fruits like apples, berries, and bananas is recommended over 100% fruit juice, as whole fruits offer more fiber and help you feel fuller longer. Whole fruits can be easily added to breakfast cereal, oatmeal, or pancakes.
Nutritional Impact: High fiber content aids in digestion and weight management, while a variety of vitamins and antioxidants helps protect the body from disease.

The Structure: One-Quarter Grains

Occupying one-quarter of the plate, the grains section is a primary source of energy, B vitamins, and magnesium. A key MyPlate message is to "Make at least half your grains whole grains". Whole grains are less processed than refined grains and retain more fiber and nutrients.

Choosing Whole Grains

Identifying Whole Grains: Look for products listing a "whole grain" as the first ingredient, such as whole-wheat bread or brown rice.
Healthy Grain Examples: Incorporate brown rice into stir-fries, use whole-wheat pasta for dinner, or enjoy a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Air-popped popcorn is also considered a healthy whole-grain snack.
Role in Diet: Grains provide carbohydrates for energy and fiber, which contributes to digestive health and helps manage weight.

The Building Blocks: One-Quarter Protein

Protein foods, found in the final quarter of the plate, are crucial for building and repairing body tissues, including muscles and bones. This group includes a wide array of options, both animal and plant-based, encouraging variety in your routine.

Diverse Protein Sources

Animal Protein: Choose lean meats, poultry without skin, seafood, and eggs. MyPlate suggests incorporating seafood twice a week for healthy fats.
Plant-Based Protein: Beans, peas, nuts, seeds, and tofu are excellent plant-based options. Consider trying beans or tofu in a stir-fry or using plant-based options for taco night.
Nutrient Contribution: Besides protein, this group supplies iron, zinc, and B vitamins, which are vital for overall health.

The Accompaniment: The Dairy Portion

Though not on the plate itself, the dairy group is represented by a separate cup alongside it. This portion emphasizes the importance of calcium, potassium, vitamin D, and protein, which are essential for strong bones and teeth.

Dairy Choices and Alternatives

Healthy Dairy Options: Opt for low-fat or fat-free versions of milk, yogurt, and cheese to limit saturated fat intake.
Alternatives for Intolerance: For individuals with lactose intolerance or a dairy allergy, fortified soy milk and other plant-based milks and yogurts are acceptable alternatives.

Comparing MyPlate to the Old Food Pyramid

To fully appreciate the simplicity of MyPlate, it is helpful to compare it with its predecessor, the Food Pyramid.


Feature	MyPlate	Food Pyramid (1992)
Visual Design	A simple plate with four sections and a side cup.	A multi-level pyramid with horizontal bands.
Portion Emphasis	Visually represents portion sizes on a plate, making half dedicated to fruits and vegetables.	Relied on a numerical system of servings per food group, which was less intuitive.
Focus	Prioritizes fruits and vegetables, suggesting they fill the largest space.	Emphasized grains at the pyramid's base, which some misinterpreted as a priority for all grains, including refined types.
Clarity	Very simple and easy to understand at a glance, requiring little explanation.	Found to be confusing by many people due to the abstract, multi-level design.
Exercise Component	Does not have a dedicated icon for physical activity, though MyPlate resources encourage it.	Included a running figure to represent physical activity.

Beyond the Plate: Making MyPlate Your Habit

Applying the MyPlate principle isn't just for traditional dinner settings. For mixed meals like sandwiches, salads, or stews, the core idea is to mentally deconstruct the dish into its component parts. For a salad, make sure half of the ingredients are vegetables and fruits, a quarter is a lean protein source, and another quarter is a whole grain. This mindful approach allows for flexibility while staying on track with healthy eating guidelines.

To make healthy eating easier, MyPlate also provides a wealth of free tips and resources on its official website. They offer quizzes, apps, and recipes to help you build healthy and budget-friendly meals. Implementing these principles step-by-step is a great way to improve your eating habits over time.

For more resources and personalized plans, the official MyPlate website is an excellent source: MyPlate.gov

Conclusion

Understanding what are the three main parts of MyPlate provides a powerful and practical framework for planning balanced meals. By dedicating half your plate to fruits and vegetables, a quarter to whole grains, and a quarter to lean protein, you are taking a significant step toward a healthier diet. Paired with a daily serving of low-fat dairy, this visual guide makes it simple to ensure you are getting a variety of essential nutrients in appropriate proportions. It is a user-friendly and highly effective tool for making mindful food choices every day.

Frequently Asked Questions

The main difference is MyPlate's visual simplicity. It presents portion sizes on a familiar plate setting, dedicating half to fruits and vegetables, which is a more direct and intuitive guide than the multi-level, numerical system of servings used by the old Food Pyramid.

MyPlate emphasizes varying your fruit and vegetable intake, encouraging a range of colors and types. This ensures you get a broader spectrum of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, as different varieties offer different nutritional benefits.

For mixed dishes, use the MyPlate principle as a guide by mentally deconstructing the ingredients. For example, ensure that roughly half the volume of a casserole comes from vegetables, a quarter from a whole grain, and a quarter from a lean protein.

The separate dairy cup highlights the importance of the dairy food group, which provides calcium, protein, and vitamin D for bone health. The visual separation reminds people to include dairy or fortified alternatives as an accompaniment to their meal.

Yes, MyPlate's principles are flexible and can be adapted for various dietary patterns. For vegetarians and vegans, the protein group includes plant-based sources like beans, peas, nuts, and soy products, and dairy can be substituted with fortified plant-based alternatives.

By visually guiding you to fill half your plate with lower-calorie, high-fiber fruits and vegetables and emphasizing lean proteins and whole grains, MyPlate naturally promotes proper portioning. This approach helps increase satiety while managing calorie intake.

While it's ideal to build meals with as many food groups as possible, it's not necessary for every single meal to be perfectly balanced. The goal is to balance your food intake over the course of a day or week. You can make up for any missing food groups in a later meal or snack.

Yes, the MyPlate website features the 'MyPlate Plan' tool, which provides personalized eating plans based on your age, sex, height, weight, and physical activity level. These plans specify the recommended amount from each food group.