Want to eat more healthfully?

Even if you're really motivated to improve your diet, it can be tough to know where to start. As you've probably noticed, there's a lot of conflicting advice available about what dietary choices are most conducive to good health.

But the USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans presents a standard and straightforward set of tips for improving your diet. Updated every five years, the Dietary Guidelines offer evidence-based advice for eating more healthfully. The Guidelines' latest version focuses on identifying foods people should add to their diets as well as foods people should limit.

The Dietary Guidelines recommend that people eat more of foods like:

• Vegetables and fruit, especially dark-green veggies like kale
• Seafood
• Proteins, like eggs, lean meat, soy products, seeds, and unsalted nuts
• Low fat dairy products like yogurt
• Whole grains, especially by choosing whole grain bread instead of white bread

Foods people should limit? The USDA suggests limiting consumption of stuff such as:

• Trans fats
• Saturated fats
• Cholesterol
• Salt
• Added sugars, especially by drinking less soda
• Alcohol

Want to learn more? Click here to visit a summary of the USDA's Dietary Guidelines on Fitness.gov.