Nutritional Assessment of the Healthy Eating Plate as Graphic Tool from Food Dietary Guidelines

TL;DR

This study evaluates the AESAN/Harvard Healthy Eating Plate as a dietary tool and finds it often fails to meet nutritional requirements for adults.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel evaluation of the AESAN/Harvard Plate's effectiveness in meeting nutritional standards through empirical analysis of food combinations.

Findings

The AESAN/Harvard Plate graphic tool showed significant variability in ingredient quantities and dish sizes.

Over 50% of dishes based on the tool failed to meet nutritional requirements for key nutrients like energy, fiber, and vitamins.

The study recommends caution in using the AESAN/Harvard Plate for nutritional education or clinical settings.

Abstract

The AESAN (Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition) Healthy Eating Plate is the current graphic tool from food dietary guidelines for nutritional education followed by experts, based on the Harvard Plate. The aim of this research was to determine whether the AESAN/Harvard Plate graphic tool meets the reference intakes appropriate for the study population. Sixty participants served themselves dishes of six sizes following the AESAN/Harvard graphic tool to create various food combinations. They were analysed for variability, plate size bias, and nutritional adequacy for the adult study population. Next, 63 dishes were made up based on the served foods from the university canteen, using those that fitted into the groups proposed by the AESAN plate graphic tool from dietary guidelines. Their nutritional values were calculated based on technical specifications and/or formulation, as well as for 67,392 possible ingredient combinations. Great variability was found in the quantity of ingredients served to compose the dishes and the dish sizes. Moreover, energy, carbohydrates, fiber, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron (for women of childbearing age), zinc, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B9, and E did not meet nutritional requirements for lunch in over 50% of the dishes based on the AESAN/Harvard graphic tool. Therefore, a great deal of caution is recommended regarding its use either as a nutritional education tool or in clinical settings.

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