The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee — that’s the stable of government bureaucrats that’s supposed to tell all of us morons in the general public what to eat — has a record that’s less dependable than a flip-flopping career politician.
Rather than getting sound advice about healthy eating, Americans have become accustomed to getting a steady diet of misleading, confusing, politically correct and downright incorrect information from our supposed betters in Washington.
Of course, it isn’t just the government-paid health scolds — the nutrition industry and the medical field are fraught with confusion. Just last week, the World Health Organization warned that red wine is now bad for you — after years of being told a nightly imbibe is just what the doctor ordered.
But don’t despair, oenophiles. Give the food-and-beverage tsk-tskers a few years and the grape will be back on the list of things guaranteed to keep you alive to a ripe old age.
Taxpayers should know they’re paying for this bad advice. And it doesn’t come cheap.
The US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is made up of personnel from three separate federal agencies mandated by Congress to review the latest nutritional — and, this year, environmental-impact — information every five years to determine how little Johnnie and Susie should eat in order to live a good, healthy and environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
Well, that’s what it’s supposed to do. But in reality, it provides Americans with a one-size-fits-almost-no-one roadmap of soon-to-be-outdated information. Which is pretty much business as usual for Uncle Sam.
It isn’t all bad. There’s some commonsense information in the 559-page document — avoid trans fats, limit sugar, be sure to eat a variety of fruits, vegetables and lean protein and “focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount” when considering one’s food decisions.
This is good advice, but it’s the type of information that should make even the most dedicated liberal statist sit up and say, “We needed the government to tell us that?”
The troubling part isn’t the banality of the guidance, it’s the mistakes the committee has made in its decades of existence, which for years have misled people into eating precisely the wrong things or missing out on things they love — like eggs, meat, certain fats and coffee (all of which were on Saint Nutritionist’s bad list for many years).
Today, eggs are back en vogue and cholesterol — a nutrient that a decade ago was scarier than ISIS — is casually dismissed by the committee as “no longer a nutrient of concern.” How calmly they backed off decades of bad information with nary a word of apology for all those Egg Beaters I choked down.
One might easily dismiss these guidelines as a dinosaur to which no one pays any attention. Yet these guidelines aren’t ignored by other federal agencies.
In fact, the Dietary Guidelines determine how billions of dollars of food stamps are allocated to millions of American citizens who live at or under the poverty line. (Of note: These are the very people who have the highest rates of obesity and might actually benefit from good and reliable health information.)
The guidelines also regulate how school feeding programs (don’t forget, that’s breakfast, lunch and dinner now!) are managed and how our military men and women eat at home and abroad.
This year, there are several changes to the guidelines (though thankfully, due to a last-minute intervention by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, there won’t be any lectures about how your love of gas-station beef sticks is warming the planet). The changes include less worry about saturated fats, coffee, skipping meals and advice on limiting salt and added sugars.
This will all likely change next week — but enjoy this advice while you can!
Americans should be aware of the capricious nature of these guidelines and go elsewhere for information. Talk to your doctor, or a nutritionist.
Or talk to your mom, who always knows best and likely never stopped feeding you scrambled eggs.
Julie Gunlock is a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.