I had to look this up on the internet after I saw a reporter on Fox Network Morning Show talking about this brief two sentence report that's usually two pages.
Jan. 7, 2016 -- Watch your sugar, use caution with the salt shaker, and limit those saturated fats.
That's the advice from the updated U.S. nutritional guidelines, released Thursday by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. The guidelines are published every 5 years and aim to reflect the latest science-based evidence about what we eat.
Wow, I wonder how much taxpayer money was spent generating this one sentence report. All I get out of that report is not to eat processed foods. After all, if you take those three things out of processed foods there wouldn't be much left. Processed foods are loaded with salt, it's not the salt shaker that gives you high blood pressure, it the processed foods and restaurant food. I have to believe they will revise that report pretty quick after they start getting a lot of hate mail.
"Diet is one of the most powerful tools we have to take control of our own health," Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell told reporters at a briefing Thursday. "There are many ways to stay healthy, but nutrition will always be at the foundation of good health."
While some groups like the American Medical Association praise and support the guidelines, critics say the recommendations don't go far enough -- and they've accused the government of playing politics with Americans' health.
"It really is a betrayal of science to politics," says David Katz, MD, founding director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, a federally funded program that studies how changes to lifestyle can prevent disease. "Public health, which means the lives of real people, is being thrown under the political bus."
Some of the biggest controversies centered on what wasn't in the guidelines -- a recommendation to eat less red and processed meat. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a panel of independent experts, called eating large amounts of red and processed meat "detrimental."
The guidance does recommend we eat lean meats and poultry, and it notes that eating less meat, including processed meat and processed poultry, has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease. But it doesn't offer specific instructions or limits around red and processed meats. Choices can include processed meats and processed poultry, as long as eating patterns stay within the limits for sodium, saturated fats, added sugar, and calories recommended by the new guidelines.
"The science on the link between cancer and diet is extensive," says Richard Wender, MD, chief cancer control officer for the American Cancer Society. "By omitting specific diet recommendations, such as eating less red and processed meat, these guidelines miss a critical and significant opportunity to reduce suffering and death from cancer."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest says in a statement that after the advisory committee made that recommendation, "the scientific report was attacked by the meat industry and its allies in Congress."
But the CSPI says the recommendation in the guidelines to eat less meat indicates the Agriculture and Health & Human Services departments "partially resisted the political pressure."
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association praised the guidelines, though.
"Lean beef is a wholesome, nutrient-rich food that helps us get back to the basics of healthy eating, providing many essential nutrients such as zinc, iron, protein, and B vitamins, with fewer calories than many plant-based sources of protein," says Richard Thorpe, identified as a physician and Texas cattle producer, in a statement issued by the association.
At Thursday's news briefing, officials from the agencies defended the meat guideline as it stands, saying the recommendations reflect the best evidence, although men and teen boys still eat too much meat, poultry, and eggs.
Katz doesn't agree. In a social media post, he calls the guidelines "a national embarrassment."
"This is a sad day for nutrition policy in America," he writes. "It is a sad day for public health. It is a day of shame."
Compared to the advisory committee's report, Katz says, the guidelines "represent a disgraceful replacement of specific guidance with the vaguest possible language.
"A term that recurs often, clearly intended to say something while saying next to nothing, is 'nutrient dense foods," he writes. "That replaces reference to specific foods that populate the original document. It might mean broccoli ... I guess it might even mean pepperoni. We can't tell, and that is clearly by design."
No comments:
Post a Comment