What's New on MyPlate.food — product updates

What we've shipped, newest first — new calculators, new languages, the MyPlate Tracker, and the guideline hubs. Tracking how the official guidelines themselves change? That's Guideline Watch.

USDA food search comes to the tracker

July 15, 2026 · MyPlan · Tracker

The MyPlate Tracker now searches 5,740 USDA foods with calories built in. Type a food, pick a household portion like "1 medium" or "2 slices," and one tap logs it with the calories already filled in. Every entry comes from USDA FoodData Central, so the number you log is the published one.

And you no longer need the number to start: Quick add now logs a food by name alone, so a blank calorie field never stops you. Fill it in later, or let the Foods tab do it for you.

Why it matters: Search 5,740 USDA foods with calories built in, or log by name alone. New in the MyPlate Tracker.

Sources: USDA FoodData Central (USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Toward a healthy weight: a second number on your plan

July 15, 2026 · Calculator

When your BMI falls outside the healthy range, the MyPlate Calculator now shows a second calorie figure beside the one that maintains your weight today: the daily target for a weight in the middle of the healthy BMI range. The original USDA MyPlate Plan offered this second number too, and we rebuilt it with the same USDA equations we use everywhere else.

It is framed to support, not to diet. Small, steady changes if the goal is to move down, gentle guidance if it is to move up, and a plain note on exactly how the number is worked out. It prints with the rest of your plan, and a clinician can drop it from a patient handout in Print options. MyPlate.food is independent and not affiliated with USDA.

Why it matters: An out-of-range BMI now gets a second calorie figure: the target for a healthy weight, beside the one that maintains today. New on the MyPlate Calculator.

For Teachers — the classroom kit on one page

July 13, 2026 · For classrooms

Teachers were already using the quizzes, printables, and recipes in class — now one page collects the whole kit: the Build-a-Day class activity with a printable assignment sheet and grading rubric, six food-group quizzes, the tip sheets, and the food diary template. Everything free, print-clean, and with no login for students.

Quizzes, tip sheets, and Build a Day now carry Share-to-Classroom and Share-to-Teams buttons — one click posts them to a class stream. The Spanish side is real, not translated filler: native Plato del Bien Comer printables and quizzes for Spanish class and ESL, at /es/para-maestros.

Why it matters: The classroom kit on one page — quizzes, printables, and the Build-a-Day activity with Share-to-Classroom buttons and no login for students.

Build a Day — pick five recipes, check your plate, no login

July 13, 2026 · New tool · For classrooms

This one started as a real class assignment: a student was sent to our recipes to find themselves a breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and dessert. Build a Day makes that assignment work the way it should — five slots, 1,072 real USDA recipes, and a live check of whether the day covers all five MyPlate food groups.

It needs no account (nothing is stored on our servers — the day lives in the browser and in the link you copy), it prints as one clean page, and the share link pastes straight into Google Classroom or Teams. In every language we speak: English, Spanish, French, Korean, and German.

Why it matters: Born from a real class assignment: build a day from five recipes and see if it covers all five food groups — no login needed.

MyPlan GLP-1 Companion — a protein floor, not a calorie ceiling

July 13, 2026 · MyPlan · GLP-1

On a GLP-1, appetite collapses and the job flips: the hard part isn't eating less, it's getting enough protein to hold onto muscle across a few small meals. The new MyPlan GLP-1 Companion tracks a protein floor you clear — not a ceiling you stay under — frames your dose week, and keeps gentle backup meals ready for the rough days.

It's free, prescriber-neutral, and has no drug to sell — with a maintenance mode for when you stop, so the pattern can outlast the medication. Every target shows its source; the deeper nutrition write-up lives in the GLP-1 guide.

Why it matters: A GLP-1 mode of MyPlan that tracks a protein floor, not a calorie ceiling — free and prescriber-neutral.

Guideline Watch — we now track how the world's dietary guidelines change

July 11, 2026 · Guideline Watch · New section

Official dietary guidance changed a lot lately: the US retired MyPlate as its federal icon in January, and Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Mexico, and South Korea all revised their guidance within the last two years. Most of those changes got almost no plain-language coverage.

Guideline Watch is our answer: a dated log of what changed in the guidelines and food rules we document — one entry per real change, a flag so you can see at a glance which country it applies to, a plain "what it means" line, and a link to every primary source. It launches with 17 entries across eight jurisdictions, plus the EAT-Lancet Commission and the ADA.

Entries with real depth get their own full-analysis page — starting with the ADA's 2026 Standards of Care and South Korea's 2025 nutrient reference values. And it has an RSS feed, if you like your updates the old way.

Why it matters: One page that answers "did the guidelines change?" — dated, sourced, and updated as it happens at Guideline Watch.

The German-speaking guidelines hub — our 8th guideline, first German-primary

July 11, 2026 · Guidelines · German

Eight new pages document the BZfE Ernährungspyramide, the DGE-Ernährungskreis and its 2024 recommendations, and the Austrian and Swiss models — all four renewed in 2024.

It includes an interactive Portionsrechner (a tap-to-fill day tracker across the 22 portion blocks) and a D-A-CH energy-requirements lookup built on the published DGE/ÖGE tables. In all five languages.

Why it matters: Our first German-primary guideline hub — explore it from the Ernährungspyramide home.

MyPlate.food spricht Deutsch — German is our fifth language

July 10, 2026 · Languages

The full site — calculators, food groups, portions, and all 1,072 recipes — now ships in German, alongside English, Spanish, Korean, and French.

New German-first pages include the BMI-Rechner and the Kalorienrechner.

Why it matters: German joins as our fifth language, top to bottom.

Share This Result — links that never change

July 10, 2026 · Calculator

Every calculator result can now be shared as a link that reopens the exact same numbers forever, even as we add new options — the snapshot travels in the link itself and never touches our servers.

Why it matters: Made for clinicians and teachers who need a result to stay put.

A calmer navigation

July 10, 2026 · UX

Dietary guidelines moved into the Learn menu as a directory, the main calculator is now simply the “MyPlate Calculator”, and the language menu shows full native names (Deutsch, Español, …).

Why it matters: Less to scan, clearer labels.

MyPlate Tracker: the plate fills as you log

July 2, 2026 · MyPlan · Tracker

The tracker is now a full dashboard section — a calorie ring, a USDA-faithful plate that fills by food group, a navigable week strip, and bottom-sheet logging.

Install it to your home screen and it works as an app. See the calorie tracker overview.

Why it matters: Logging a meal now visibly fills your plate.

Printables and quizzes, revived

June 18, 2026 · Educators

The USDA “10 Tips” series returns as 12 print-ready tip sheets — plus 14 Spanish ones, including two recovered originals — and the food-group quizzes are back with the original questions.

Why it matters: Free for classrooms.

Sixteen calculators, one methodology standard

June 15, 2026 · Calculators

Seven new tools joined — 1RM, water, FFMI, waist ratios, lean mass, and weight-loss percentage among them.

Every calculator now carries a “Formula & sources” section with the actual equations, rendered from the same code that computes your numbers.

Why it matters: More tools, and every one shows its work.

Meal plans by calorie level

June 12, 2026 · Planner

Free 7-day meal plans built entirely from the USDA recipe corpus, at every calorie level, with a weekly planner and print layouts.

Why it matters: A week of meals at your calorie target, ready to print.