Vegetarian Diet Pyramid is a nutrition guide that represents a traditional healthy vegetarian diet. Variations of this traditional healthy vegetarian diet exist throughout the world, particularly in parts of North America, Europe, South America and, most notably, Asia. Given these carefully defined parameters, the phrase "Traditional Vegetarian Diet" is used here to represent the healthy traditional ovo-lacto vegetarian diets of these regions and peoples. A pyramid was created by Oldways Preservation Trust in 1998 with scientific research from Cornell and Harvard University and specific reference to the healthy patterns of eating demonstrated by the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.