Sustainability of the food supply is a critically important question but the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is not the appropriate place to discuss it, two Obama cabinet members said, bowing to months of criticism by food and ag groups. The decision by Health Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack overturned an initiative by the panel of experts they chose to help update the guidelines, which are the government’s advice for healthful eating. The new edition is due later this year.
Critics such as House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway said the advisory committee exceeded its authority by calling for sustainability to be a factor in recommendations about the U.S. diet. Burwell and Vilsack, who oversee the guidelines, said “we will remain within the scope of our mandate” to provide “nutritional and dietary information and guidelines for the general public…based on the preponderance of the scientific and medical knowledge.”
In a joint blog, Burwell and Vilsack said “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.”
Burwell and Vilsack are to testify today on “development of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans” before the House Agriculture Committee. Besides sustainability, there may be questions about scientific rigor behind the advisory committee’s recommendations. Cattle ranchers in particular say the panel was unduly harsh in saying Americans should eat less red and processed meat.
“The main impact of today’s announcement is to make the 2015 DGA less relevant, uselessly silent on some of the most important food guidance questions of our time,” said associate professor Parke Wilde of Tufts. In his U.S. Food Policy blog, Wilde said said Burwell and Vilsack conceded to “intense political pressure.” Wilde was among six food policy and sustainability experts who argued in the journal Science that there was no prohibition in statute against considering sustainability of food supplies.
“It’s only a matter of time,” said George Washington professor Kathleen Merrigan, one of the co-authors of the Science article. A former deputy agriculture secretary, Merrigan said “the compelling evidence around the need to adjust dietary patterns to ensure food security cannot be ignored.” The debate over the 2015 guidelines “has created strong collaborations between health and sustainability experts and these new linkages will yield great things in the long run,” she said.
Meanwhile, organizers announced formation of The Nutrition Coalition, which says the guidelines “have not reflected the most conclusive and current science available.” Its six-person science advisory board lists three members of advisory committees that worked on previous editions of the guidelines. Nina Teicholz, author of a book supporting low-carb, high-fat diets, is on the three-member governing board.
In their blog, the secretaries note “there has been some discussion” about sustainability as an element in the dietary guidelines. “Issues of the environment and sustainability are critically important and they are addressed in a number of initiatives within the administration,” they said, using the examples of USDA programs to reduce soil erosion, protect water purity and encourage renewable fuels.
“This year, we will release the 2015 edition, and though the guidelines have yet to be finalized, we know they will be similar in many key respects to those of past years. Fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains and lean meats and other proteins, and limited amounts of saturated fats, added sugars and sodium remain the building blocks of a healthy lifestyle,” said the blog.
The description differed notably on meat from the summary presented by the advisory committee in February: “The overall body of evidence … identifies that a healthy dietary pattern is higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in alcohol (among adults); lower in red and processed meat; and low in sugar-sweetened foods and drinks and refined grain.”
The North American Meat Institute, a meat industry group, Burwell and Vilsack “highlighted lean meats and other proteins as building blocks of a healthy diet, which is an encouraging sign that the agencies are applying strong scientific rigor to the Dietary Guidelines development process.”