Make My Plate has healthy meal ideas

Looking to create a balanced, healthy meal but don't know where to start? Head over to Make My Plate. This interactive website allows you to not only drag and drop pictures of the food you want on your plate, it also provides nutritional information, including calories, fats, carbohydrates, cholesterol and protein for each item.

Users (you must register) can browse plates created by other members or the site's experts, as well as edit and customize those plates to their own taste. Depending on the privacy settings you select, an expert may review your plates and offer advice on how to make them healthier or less caloric.

Most everyday items can be found on the food selector, as well as such categories as meat substitutes, fast food and restaurants. Another nice feature is a daily food diary for each user. Although we couldn't determine the site creator's country of origin, we suspect it's not the United States, as a picture of McDonald's French fries is called "chips."

Keep in mind that the site is marked Beta, and some features do not seem to work as yet, including tabs for recipes and menus on the user profile page. And we wish a help file had been included to clear up questions we had. But considering that it's free and contains no advertising, it's a place worth checking out.

SITE makemyplate.co

DESCRIPTION A site to assist you in preparing healthy meals

TARGET AUDIENCE Anyone interested in nutritious eating

BOTTOM LINE A picture perfect place to plan your plate