Here are 12 things we learned about MyPlate after working with it all week. We read through the pages of the USDA choosemyplate.gov site, performed makeovers on over 8 meals, and created a comprehensive MyPlate PowerPoint presentation that has over 70 slides. We like the new plate quite a lot and were amazed that it even works with fast food.

We love to play with MyPlate. This post reviews a few ways that we tested MyPlate's applications in the real world. We moved a McDonald's value meal out of the bag and onto a plate, which offers a better sense of portions and proportions. When we brought it into alignment with MyPlate's messages, the meal went from over 900 calories to just over 300 calories. Voila!

The focus for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines is to battle our obesity epidemic. Obesity is crippling us as a nation financially and it is impeding the progress of students, workers and families. Here is the morning transcript of the introduction as well as links for more.

The research keeps going in one direction in our opinion. That is, the data is consistently showing that diet and exercise are so important for better health to avoid the debilitating chronic illnesses that keep most Americans from enjoying their golden years and causing a huge amount of money spent on healthcare dollars every year.

Reducing salt intake by a mere 1200mg/day (or by less than 1/3) would save as many lives over the next 10 years as if all American smokers quit tomorrow for good.

For 100 calories of carrots, apples, grapes, oranges, celery, berries and a banana you get to eat a larger portion than with cookies.