My Plate (new "pyramid")

++This is the new icon for the USA's food guidance system.  It replaces My Pyramid, which came out a few years ago.  The rationale is that you would fill your plate at each meal (or your average for a whole day) with foods from each group in the proportions suggested by the segments on the plate and in the drinking glass.
  The relative amount of food in each group (and the color of the segment representing it) is the same as in My Pyramid.  The reason for the change is that this is easier to visualize and use.  The triangle shape of the pyramids (My Pyramid and its predecessors) isn't like anything in most people's kitchens, so it was hard for many people to transfer the image to what they were doing in real life.  My Pyramid also did not label the segments.
  When My Plate was released a few days ago, a new web site was also launched, choosemyplate.gov.  Now, if you go to mypyramid.gov, you are likely to get an error message saying Page not found.  The pages linked to it are still in the process of being updated, but in the new web site, you can find links to most of the pages that were in the old one. For example, on the right side of the page, you can click on Personal Food Plan and it will still send you to a page where you can fill in your age, weight, gender, and whether or not you are pretty active, and then it will lead you to a page that spells out how much food you should eat in a day from each group, based on an estimated calorie requirement.  
  Both the old guidance system and this new one were published in hopes that it would help people with weight control without sacrificing nutrition.  Unfortunately, you can cheat. Cooking methods and add-ons can make a big impact on calories without much impact on nutrients.  For a common example, consider the calories in a plain baked potato.  Now, consider what happens if you fry the potato, or mash it with butter and milk, or add gravy, butter, sour cream, etc.  You may have added a tiny bit of nutrition with the milk, but, of course, you've added a lot of "empty" calories with the other changes you made to that simple potato. 
     Bottom line:    Let My Plate work for you.