There have been many food guides, some with 2 or 3 food groups, others with as many as 13. The two guides most commonly used in Japan for their simplicity are called "The Three Color Food Groups" and "The Basic Six". According to the authors' inspection of these two applied to poor and good diet menus, 1. simple dietary scores unaccompanied by careful inspection and interpretation of individual diets are generally unreliable as estimates of the nutritional adequacy of a diet, 2. both require more detailed directions for their use. As the authors could find no adequate food guide at this time, an experimental food guide was invented. The authors are studying continuously to refine the experimental food guide.