What are the six categories of a balanced diet?

The six categories of balanced diet we often refer to are the general classification adjusted by the domestic nutrition community based on the dietary structure of domestic residents and with reference to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents". They are cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, animal foods, soybeans and nuts, milk and dairy products, plus pure energy/flavoring foods such as cooking oil, salt, and added sugar.

In fact, there are no globally unified hard standards for food classification. Nutrition societies in different regions will adjust the classification logic according to the dietary preferences of local residents: for example, dietary guidelines in some European and American regions will classify soybeans and beans into the cereal and potato category, merge milk and dairy products into animal foods, and then separate empty-calorie foods such as added sugar and alcohol into a separate category. The six major categories of core nutrients finally come up with the same coverage logic, so there is no need to get too entangled in the details of the classification differences.

To be honest, when I prepare home-cooked meals for friends around me, I don’t go out of my way to pick out category nouns. I just consciously put several categories into each meal: for example, family meals made on weekends, steamed quinoa rice and roasted sweet potatoes are cereal potatoes, stir-fried broccoli, cold bitter chrysanthemums, and oranges after meals. They are fruits and vegetables. The fried salmon and boiled shrimp are animal foods. The chopped almonds sprinkled on the salad and the small dish of boiled edamame are soy nuts. The small cup of sugar-free yogurt after the meal is dairy products. The olive oil in stir-fry and a little salt and light soy sauce in salads belong to the last category.

Many people will think that the last category is not considered "food that requires a balanced intake". After all, they usually call for salt control, oil control, and sugar control. In fact, it is precisely because the hidden intake of this type of food is too easy to exceed the standard, so it is specially marked out as a reminder - if you look at a cup of iced milk tea bought casually in the summer, there are more than 30 grams of added sugar alone, which directly exceeds the recommended intake of added sugar for a whole day. If it is not included in the classification, many people will not realize how many empty calories they have eaten without nutrition.