What are Traditional Diets and
Traditional Diet Pyramids?

The term “traditional diet” describes a pattern of eating and drinking (including foods or groups of foods and drinks) that was commonly followed in a particular culture, country, or part of the world for centuries, or even for thousands of years. Basically, traditional diets align themselves with the "old ways"—they are made up of many of the foods and drinks that our ancestors consumed.

Traditional diets have the following qualities:

1. They are identified by the foods traditionally grown, raised, produced, and/or cooked in a region or local area.
2. Their foods are minimally processed and mostly free of chemical preservatives, additives, and chemically-altered fats such as hyrodgenated fats and solvent-extracted oils.

Traditional diets offer these key benefits to today's consumers:

1. They're an excellent way to revitalize, re-learn, and enjoy centuries-old healthy food traditions.
2. They offer modern-day consumers a cultural model for healthy eating that is usually largely plant-based.

Oldways' traditional diet pyramids are consumer-friendly pictures of these diets, helping people make wise “at-a-glance” food and drink choices.

The pyramids show clearly:

1. What foods and drinks are in each diet pyramid.
2. How much of each food and drink to consume.
3. How often to eat each of the foods and drinks.

Oldways’ Traditional Diet Pyramids: Variety, Proportionality and Moderation

Oldways has been the principal promoter of the benefits of traditional diets since the early 1990s, most notably with the Traditional Mediterranean Diet Pyramid. In 1992, the US Department of Agriculture released its first Food Guide Pyramid, to help improve Americans' health by offering visual guidelines for eating a balanced diet.

While a visual approach was a strong step in the right direction, many public health authorities (and Oldways) expressed deep concern over several of this USDA pyramid’s premises, including these:

1. All fats are equal and should be consumed in minimal amounts.
2. All carbohydrates are equal and should be consumed in large amounts.
3. All protein sources are alike. 
4. The pyramid's lack of guidance for alcohol intake and exercise recommendation.

At the 1993 International Conference on the Mediterranean Diet in Cambridge, MA., Oldways, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the European Office of the World Health Organization introduced the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid as an alternative to the USDA pyramid. The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid differed from the USDA pyramid in these significant ways:

1. It emphasized the importance of type of fat, not just quantity of fat, in dietary guidelines, encouraging consumption of unsaturated fats – "healthy fats" found in fish and in plant sources such as nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil, and other plant sources – while limiting saturated fats, found mostly in animal products.
2. It differentiated between plant protein (such as from nuts and legumes) and protein from animal sources, and urged a reduction in consumption of red meat.
3. It added basic guidelines for alcohol consumption, water intake, and physical exercise.

In 1995, Oldways introduced the Asian Diet Pyramid at its International Conference on the Diets of Asia in San Francisco. This conference was a collaboration among Oldways; the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health and Environment based at Cornell University; and the Harvard School of Public Health. Click here to learn more about the Asian Diet Pyramid.
 
In 1996, Oldways introduced the Latin American Diet Pyramid at the Latin American Diet Conference in El Paso, TX. This conference was a collaboration between Oldways and Harvard School of Public Health. Click here to learn more about the Latin American Diet Pyramid.

In 1997, Oldways introduced the Vegetarian Diet Pyramid at the International Conference on the Vegetarian Diet in Austin, TX. This conference was organized by Oldways in association with Vegetarian Times magazine and the Chefs Collaborative 2000. Click here to learn more about the Vegetarian Diet Pyramid.

All four of these Oldways traditional diet pyramids have been embraced by consumers, educators, dietitians, and scientists alike, and are widely used in courses in schools and colleges, by dietitians and physicians with clients and patients, and in the food and drink industry.

The Science Supporting Traditional Diets and Traditional Diet Pyramids

Modern nutrition and medical science supports the healthfulness of these traditional eating patterns.
These pyramids reflect:

1. Consistency with patterns of other healthy populations of the world.
2. Availability of data that describes the type of food consumption patterns of the areas at that time.
3. Convergence of the dietary patterns revealed by these data and current understanding of optimal nutrition based on worldwide epidemiological studies.

At regular intervals, Oldways and top-level academic and practicing international nutrition experts review the most current nutrition and health literature to ascertain if modifications to the four Oldways diet pyramids are appropriate. For example, the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid was reviewed at a scientific conference in November 2008, and a number of adjustments were agreed upon, based on updated and scientific evidence, and a new Mediterranean pyramid was released in April of 2009. An updated version of the Latin American Diet Pyramid followed in September of 2009, and new versions of the Vegetarian and Asian pyramids are in the works.

To read about the expansive research supporting the Mediterranean diet as a health-promoting diet, please visit our Mediterranean Diet studies page.

To learn more about how to adopt the “old ways” of eating traditionally and healthfully, click here.