Outrage surrounding the proposed U.S. Dietary Guidelines hit the floor of Congress today as pols peppered top government officials with criticisms.
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The guidelines for 2015 are still being considered, but the administration doesn’t believe they are “the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability”, according to a blog post from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
The revised federal nutrition guidelines won’t be released until the end of the year, but we already know one thing that won’t be included in the recommendations that inform public health policy and programs across the country: sustainability.
The Cabinet secretaries said the guidelines have stayed generally consistent over the years, recommending consumption of fruits and vegetables, grains, dairy, lean meats and seafood while encouraging Americans to limit saturated fats, sugars and sodium.
The North American Meat Institute said it “applauded” the agencies for focusing the dietary guidelines on nutrition.
While the guidelines always have been subject to intense lobbying by food industries, this year’s version has set off unprecedented political debate, fueled by Republican criticism that the Obama administration has gone too far in telling people what to eat.
Earlier this year, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee – a federally appointed panel of nutritionists created in 1983 to help draft the guidelines – decided for the first time this year to factor in environmental sustainability in its recommendations.
The timing of the announcement, though, tells us plenty about why Vilsack and Burwell chose to ignore an expert panel that their agencies have traditionally listened closely to when drafting their pyramid- and plate-themed guidelines.
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommendations led to a dramatic decrease in whole milk sales.
During the advisory report process, meat groups became concerned when there were a few contradictory statements on the inclusion of lean meat in a healthy diet. “Given the public’s skepticism we should maybe reconsider why we are doing this”.
This comes as a relief to meat companies, which were opposed to the use of sustainability for DGAs after the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released a report that suggested consuming less red and processed meats could be beneficial for the health of both people and the environment.
But the point Burwell and Vilsack consistently drove home with not an insignificant amount of patience was that science evolves – and the recommendations have to change with it.
“As long as we keep bogged down in very narrowly focused issues that detract from the bigger picture, we won’t make any headway and that would really be unfortunate” when millions are suffering from preventable diseases”, Millen told The Post. “People may be losing confidence in the guidelines”, Peterson warned.
Those who support inclusion of sustainability stressed that health concerns should still restrict Americans’ meat consumption.
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The coalition boasts as a board member Nina Teicholz, an author who challenges the anti-meat and dairy orthodoxy of recent dietary standards and advocates for more animal fats in our diets.
