Eating healthily: the best dietary basics for Thais

If you’ve been using the Nutrition Flag as a guide for creating healthy, balanced meals, you may need to adjust your regime.

The Department of Health said it plans to launch a new edition of the flag for Thais in 2026 in response to current trends and emerging health concerns.

The improved version will focus on smart eating, food portions that match your lifestyle and eating sustainably.

The Nutrition Flag was developed as a food guide model that explains the ‘Food-Based Dietary Guidelines’ (FBDGs) in terms of portion, quantity and variety of food required daily.

Designed in the form of a ‘hanging flag’, it serves as a visual representation of how to have an adequate diet and ensure healthy eating.

The flag is wider at the top and narrows towards the bottom to describe the types and amounts of food required.

In January 2026, the U.S. government released an updated edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The 2025-2030 guidelines recommend that people consume more protein and fat, and fewer ultra-processed foods.

Some parts of the rules have been praised. Other specific aspects have been criticized by health and nutrition experts. They said the recommendations have conflicting messages, while some aren’t practical.

The latest guidelines use an inverted pyramid, which creates a visual gradient from the most recommended foods (protein, full-fat dairy, veggies and fruits) at the top to the least recommended food group (whole grains) at the bottom.

To make sure you understand the concept of healthy eating, however, Thai PBS World asked an academic to explain what we need to include to achieve it and why it’s so important.

The expert also talked about a healthy food trend that promotes eating well and living well for a sustainable future.

Achieving a healthy diet

Assoc. Prof. Wantanee Kriengsinyos of Mahidol University’s Institute of Nutrition noted that a healthy diet can help protect against malnutrition, deficiencies, obesity and diet-related diseases. It also supports child growth and development.

According to her, a healthy diet should be made up of four main principles; adequacy, balance, moderation and variety. An adequate diet means eating foods from the five food groups in quantities appropriate for the body’s needs.

“A diet must be adequate. We need to eat a wide variety of foods, and in the right amounts in order to get all the nutrients the body needs to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. It’s very important to eat appropriate quantities which support growth and promote health.

If you don’t eat some foods or keep consuming some particular foods on a daily basis, you are likely to get too few or even too much of certain nutrients,” she said.

She recommends maintaining energy balance, noting that this is achieved when the amount of energy we get from the nutrients taken in from food and drinks equals the energy we expend during the day’s activities.

It’s also important to have an adequate balance across the three primary sources of energy; carbohydrates, protein and fats to correctly fuel the body.

“When your energy is in balance, you can maintain a healthy weight. Too much energy in or too little energy out leads to excess energy being stored as fat, while too little energy in or too much energy out leads to weight loss. And the energy balance also supports adequate growth for children,” she said.

Moderation, according to Wantanee, refers to consuming limited amounts of nutrients that harm the health, including sugars, fats, salt and sodium, while variety involves eating a diverse range of foods from within and across food groups as different foods contain different nutrients to ensure that you consume adequate amounts of all essential nutrients for health.

She urged people to make smart food choices, saying understanding the different food groups and how much of each you should include in your diet can help you create healthy eating habits.

National Food-based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs)

Formulated and mapped out by the Ministry of Health with the help of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Nutrition Institute, nutrition associations and universities, the FBDGs for Thais provide advice and principles on healthy diets for the general population.

The guidelines also serve as a tool to educate all Thais about the requirements for correct eating according to key nutrition principles to promote good eating habits and help them achieve a nutritionally balanced and healthy lifestyle.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the first FBDGs for Thais were developed in 1986. A revised version was published in 1998.

These guidelines contains nine rules:

(1) eat a daily variety of foods from each of the five food groups and maintain a proper weight;

(2) eat adequate amounts of rice or alternate carbohydrate sources;

(3) eat plenty of vegetables and fruits regularly;

(4) eat fish, lean meat, eggs, legumes and pulses regularly;

(5) drink a sufficient amount of milk every day;

(6) eat a diet containing an appropriate amount of fat;

(7) avoid sweet and salty foods;

(8) eat clean and safe foods; and

(9) avoid or reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Part of these guidelines, the Nutrition Flag, was created to provide recommendations for the amount of food required.

It has four layers:

(1) eat rice, rice products, other grains and starchy food groups in abundance (8-12 rice-serving spoons);

(2) eat plenty of vegetables (4-6 rice-serving spoons) and fruits (3-5 portions);

(3) eat meat (6-12 spoons) and milk appropriately (1-2 glasses);

(4) eat limited amounts of oil, sugar and salt.

The 1998 edition of FBDGs was then updated by the working group for the revised version. The proposed revisions passed a resolution at the FBDGs’s Board Committee Meeting on August 29, 2022.

On the surface, the most recent guidelines share a lot of similarities with the previous version. They recommend that Thais focus on brown rice and unpolished rice.

They also urge consuming nut products and eating the rainbow regularly. In addition, the updated dietary guidelines now suggest more foods with high calcium rather than low-fat milk as they did previously.

They also stress drinking enough water while refraining from sugary drinks.

In addition to the FBDGs for the general population, Thailand has guidelines for infants and young children, pregnant women and lactating women.

A good Nutrition Flag should represent the four main principles – adequacy, balance, moderation and variety, which are the foundation of any healthy diet, Wantanee noted.

The academic said the concept of the previous editions of the Thai Nutrition Flag is too broad, calling for the creation of food guides for other specific population groups, including the elderly.

“The previous versions, for example, recommend consuming 8 to 12 rice-serving spoons per day. The recommended range is too wide. It may confuse people, making it difficult for them to follow,” she said.

In her view, the recommended amounts of some foods may need to be more specific as the amount of food a person should consume daily depends on many factors, including gender, age, health status and activity levels.

Other parts may also need to be adjusted to match lifestyle changes that affect the amount of energy people need and keep up with economic conditions.

As people age, they need fewer calories to maintain weight, she noted. Although energy needs decline with age, we all still need to get enough nutrients to allow the body to function well.

“Some older adults need more protein to maintain and regain muscles. They are more prone to dehydration due to reduced thirst. They feel less thirsty so hydration really matters for them. Indeed, we should have a Nutrition Flag for the elderly and also for other groups,” she said.

Sustainable eating

Wantanee supports the sustainable eating concept, saying it can enhance people’s health, while protecting the environment.

Eating more plant-based foods can help reduce the risk of certain diseases and diminish greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Animal-based foods are more resource-intensive and environmentally impactful than plant-based foods.

She also urged buying locally grown produce and seasonal foods from farmers markets, explaining that you can get fresh food products which are rich in vitamins and minerals, while reducing your food miles.

“Shop local, buy seasonal or even grow your own. “A sustainable diet is not only good for us, but also for the planet,” she said.