VegPyramid: a proposal for a Vegetarian Food Guide for Italian people

Abstract

Vegetarian diets exclude any kind of meat. The vegan subtype also eliminates other animal products like eggs and dairy products. This classification, inspired by an exclusion principle, does not precisely describe the vegetarian dietetic pattern, better characterised by its “positive” content. Factors affecting the composition and the nutritional adequacy of a plant-based diet are, in fact, the variety and the degree of transformation of plant food, and the presence and the relative amount of indirect animal food. On the basis of these considerations, it can be very useful to classify the foods consumed in the context of a vegetarian diet into groups and transform the nutritional recommendations into a Food Guide, an easy tool to employ both for nutrition professionals and for vegetarian subjects. Our proposal for guidelines for Italian vegetarians, VegPyramid, allows the simplification of the planning of menus for vegetarian people, indicating the kind and the relative amounts of food to consume.