USA Rice Meets with USDA for MyPlate Whole Grains Promotion

Published:  April 13, 2012

WASHINGTON — USA Rice Federation and grain industry groups including The Kellogg Company, General Mills, the Grain Foods Foundation, and American Bakers Association met yesterday with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion officials to plan joint activities for the MyPlate “Make Half your Grains Whole” promotion.  The promotion scheduled for September through December, will focus on showing consumers how to incorporate whole grains into all meals, preparation and cooking, and recipes. 

USA Rice also attended a USDA-hosted meeting of the MyPlate National Strategic Communications Partners, representing more than 80 food and health organizations that work together on activities to involve consumers in the MyPlate healthy eating campaign. Partners will be invited to join USDA and grain groups in promoting the grains message this fall.

USDA reported that there have been more than 1.5 billion visits to the MyPlate web page, and gave publicity results of the second message, “Enjoy your Food, But Eat Less,” and “What’s On Your Plate Day.”  They demonstrated a web-based SuperTracker tool that allows consumers to track foods, calorie intake, physical activities, and set fitness goals in which 578,000 consumers  have enrolled. 

USA Rice leverages USDA MyPlate initiatives to educate consumers about the role of rice in healthy eating.