Government Food Guidelines

Nina Teicholz challenges government food guidelines as unscientific and unhealthy:

It’s no surprise that longstanding nutritional guidelines are now being challenged.

In 2013, government advice to reduce salt intake (which remains in the current report) was contradicted by an authoritative Institute of Medicine study. And several recent meta-analyses have cast serious doubt on whether saturated fats are linked to heart disease, as the dietary guidelines continue to assert.

Uncertain science should no longer guide our nutrition policy. Indeed, cutting fat and cholesterol, as Americans have conscientiously done, may have even worsened our health. In clearing our plates of meat, eggs and cheese (fat and protein), we ate more grains, pasta and starchy vegetables (carbohydrates). Over the past 50 years, we cut fat intake by 25 percent and increased carbohydrates by more than 30 percent, according to a new analysis of government data. Yet recent science has increasingly shown that a high-carb diet rich in sugar and refined grains increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease — much more so than a diet high in fat and cholesterol.

It seems to me there are a couple of issues at play here. First is the question of whether the government should be setting food guidelines. The answer is that of course it should–after all, public health is a massively important part of society. That said, government funding for this type of science is not nearly as high as it should be so it’s not surprising that the guidelines might not be based on the best science. Second, science does change. It is not static, nor will it ever be. So the idea that the government is going to create eating guidelines that will then exist for all time is a myth. Third, social and cultural factors affect science and affect society, which will continue to lead then to different standards of health and different ideologies around food production and consumption. Fourth, Teicholz calls for us to eat more meat, more eggs, and more full fat dairy products. But there is also a massive environmental cost to Americans committing to eat more meat, a cost which she evidently considers irrelevant. It is indeed relevant and must be part of the conversation about food consumption. That doesn’t mean I’m thrilled with the eating habits of modern Americans, but people aren’t downing bags of Cheetos for lunch because the government has discouraged the consumption of fats.