Food groups refers to a method of classification for the various foods that animals consume in their everyday lives, based on the nutritional properties of these types of foods and their location in a hierarchy of nutrition. Eating certain amounts and proportions of foods from the different categories is recommended by most guides to healthy eating as one of the most important ways to achieve a healthy lifestyle through diet. The seven different food groups are carbohydrates, protein, dairy, fats, vitamins, fibre and minerals.

There are various systems of dividing foods into groups to develop models of optimum nutrition for humans. Among these systems are the USDA's program titled MyPyramid, the health eating pyramid published by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Canadian Government's Canada's Food Guide, the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency's "Balance of Good Health" guide, the Portuguese food wheel,^[1] and others.