The food guide pyramid, informally known as the food pyramid, and formally titled the Improved American Food Guide Pyramid is a historical nutrition guide published in 1992 by the USDA to replace the earlier food groups classification system. The food guide pyramid suggested optimal nutrition guidelines for each food category, per day, using a mnemonic graphic of a pyramid with horizontal dividing lines, to represent suggested percentages of the daily diet for each food group. The food guide pyramid was superseded by the current USDA nutrition advisory program titled "MyPyramid" in April 2005.

Healthy meals start with smart choices in the grocery store. Good nutrition is a challenge if you don't have the right ingredients in your kitchen, but who has time to read all the food labels and figure out which items are the most nutritious?

The National Cancer Institute, in its booklet Diet, Nutrition, & Cancer Prevention: A Guide to Food Choices, states that 35 percent of cancer deaths may be related to diet.

It's the one recommendation in almost every diet plan, every guide to nutrition, every fitness book. But as much as it's preached, most people still don't eat enough fruits and vegetables every day.

Despite myths, snacking can actually be a good way to maintain a healthy weight; it's better to eat less at a time more often throughout the day, says Linda McLachlan, RD, CDN, a New Jersey dietitian with Nutrition Matters, LLC. However, your choice of munchies can prove to be your downfall. Check out which foods work great as diet snacks.

Most people have heard about "The Food Pyramid". It's a government created guideline for "healthy eating" each day, it's sort of a general nutrition guide for the country - but the truth is that it's still an unsatisfactory guideline for people who want to lose weight. It's important to remember that the Food Pyramid was not created for weight loss