The eighth version of Dietary Guidelines for Americans was released on Thursday by the US departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.
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Healthy shifts in eating can reduce obesity and prevent chronic diseases including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, the report said.
The federal nutritional recommendations, revised every five years, are the first ever with a limit on added sugar – no more than 10 percent of daily calories, or one can of soda for the average adult. It had been no more than 300 milligrams a day, which is about two eggs.
According to the committee, a Freedom of Information Act request they filed “revealed a money trail from the American Egg Board to universities where DGAC members were employed and persistent industry pressure to weaken cholesterol limits”, the nonprofit wrote in a statement. However, with the guidelines, the government hopes to help Americans make the right choices to build healthy eating patterns that will let them reap benefits over time.
The habit that might prove hardest to break for Americans, however, relates to new U.S. Dietary Guidelines on sugar.
The CDC report goes on to point out that the large majority of Americans are not going to be able to limit their calories to just 10% from sugar or fat, especially if they are going to manage to eat sufficient fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Males age 14 to 70 tend to consume more than the recommended amount of meat, eggs, and poultry, while women tend to hew more closely to the recommended amounts, data included in the government’s guidelines found.
After what seems like a nonstop holiday splurge, most folks are loading up on more fruits and vegetables and less on refined sugars and processed foods. “This is the first time that the dietary guidelines have recognized that and have limited them appropriately”, UCSF Pediatric Endocrinologist Robert Lustig, M.D. said.
The new guidelines ditch the long-held belief that you should limit cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams a day, in light of evidence that dietary cholesterol is not what makes LDL cholesterol rise.
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Most Americans also consume too much sodium. It emphasizes the importance of adjusting eating patterns to lower the risk for chronic diseases and achieve better health. Plus, it’s a misconception that dietary cholesterol affects blood cholesterol levels-study after study has disproved this, as Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., author of The Great Cholesterol Myth told us in High Cholesterol Foods Are Off The Dietery Hit List. So basically, sugary foods are high in calories and potential health consequences-and low in nutrition.
