Delayed by a spat over sustainability, the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans were issued by the government today, encouraging Americans to adopt a “healthy eating pattern” to reduce the risk of chronic disease. Half of the U.S. population has diet-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and overweight and obesity, said the new edition.
Previous editions of the guidelines, which are updated every five years, focused on food groups and nutrients. “However, people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern. The components of the eating pattern can have interactive and potentially cumulative effects on health,” says the government, describing a food pattern as an adaptable framework that allows people to eat foods they like and that fit their budgets.
The Republican-controlled Congress told the administration last year to omit any consideration of sustainability of food production in drafting the guidelines. The 1990 law establishing the guidelines limits them to dietary factors, lawmakers said. A panel of experts advising HHS and USDA had recommended that sustainability, for the first time, should be a factor. The cattle industry complained that the advisory panel was biased against red meat. Faced with language in funding bills that forbade the inclusion of sustainability, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health Secretary Sylvia Burwell told lawmakers they would limit the guidelines to dietary issues. In a blog last October, the secretaries wrote, “Because this is a matter of scope, we do not believe the 2015 DGAs [Dietary Guidelines for Americans] are the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability.”
The executive summary of the guidelines recommends consumption of a variety of nutrient-dense foods from all of the food groups. “Consume an eating pattern that is low in added sugars, saturated fasts and sodium,” say the guidelines. “Cut back on food and beverages higher in these components to amounts that fit within healthy eating patterns.”
The guidelines say a healthy eating pattern includes a variety of vegetables, fruit, grains, low- or fat-free dairy, oils, and a variety of proteins including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes, nuts, seeds and soy products. A healthy pattern limits saturated and trans fats, added sugars and sodium. Americans should consume less than 10 percent of calories per day from added sugars or saturated fats and less than 2,300 milligrams of salt.
House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway said HHS and USDA did not give lawmakers an advance look at the new guidelines. “I am eager to review the new guidelines and hopeful that I will see evidence that the various concerns raised by the committee have been addressed,” said Conaway. Former Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, now a George Washington U official tweeted the guidelines would say “sadly, no 2 sustainability.”
Ahead of the release, nutrition professor Marion Nestle and food-policy writer Tamar Haspel presented “six easy steps” of “what we think the dietary guidelines ought to say.” They included “eat more plants,” “eat less junk,” “find the joy in food,” and “learn to cook.”