by Janet on January 31, 2011
At last. The much-anticipated 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans have been released. They’re a bit late (as you tell by the 2010 moniker) but they’re here. And now the real work begins — translating this policy into practice.
In reality, the nutrition advice is not all that different from the last version 5 years ago. Obesity is a bigger deal in 2010, and that was reflected by the first-ever emphasis on eating less. Surprisingly, we’ve not had such a straightforward mandate. Now, 4 of the 23 key recommendations are related to balancing calories to manage weight.
“Discretionary calories,” a term from the 2005 guidelines that was never fully understood has morphed into “solid fats and added sugars,” which is probably another equally confusing concept. This twosome (dubbed SoFAS) is the biggest source of nonessential calories in the American diet — or foods that offer very little nutritionally besides calories.
Solid fats (major sources of saturated and trans fats) supply 19% of our total calories, with grain-based desserts as the biggest contributor — from butter, shortening and hydrogenated stick margarine. Heavily-marbled meats are also major suppliers of solid fats. Added sugars currently supply 16% of our total calories, and no surprise, the biggest contributors are soda, energy drinks and sports drinks.
USDAgov on flickr.com
Keep in mind, what was announced today was the policy document from USDA and HHS. This is intended to provide the scientific rationale to drive federal nutrition policy, including food and menu labeling, improving school foods and public health promotion. What will be really meaningful is the consumer education initiative, which will be launched in the spring (an update of MyPyramid, which could be a pyramid or something new entirely). Even so, I was glad to see that the committee spent time trying to boil down the 95-page report into some consumer take-home messages:
Balancing Calories
- Enjoy your food, but eat less
- Avoid oversized portions
Foods to Increase
- Make half your plate fruits and vegetables
- Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk
Foods to Reduce
- Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread and frozen meals — and choose the foods with lower numbers
- Drink water instead of sugary drinks
How great to see “enjoyment” even be part of the equation. Sometimes that’s overlooked. But I think that’s so important to emphasize. You can still eat healthy and enjoy the food you eat. Nutritious can be delicious. How great would it be if the press conference today featured actual food — instead of the stark stage where Secretaries Vilsack and Sibelius gave their speeches to unveil the new guidelines.
USDAgov on flickr.com
After all, we eat food, not nutrients. Probably the greatest advice of all was the call to action to make half your plate fruits and vegetables. That’s a strong, actionable message. That’s what we need. We need to translate the science into small action steps that can truly change the way America eats.
So bottom line, the new guidelines say we need to eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lowfat dairy and seafood. We need to consume more calcium, vitamin D, potassium and dietary fiber – nutrients of concern in American diets. And the same time, we must reduce salt, solid fats, added sugar and refined grains. That’s a tall order.
This can all be overwhelming. Even Secretary Vilsack admitted he hadn’t read the guidelines until he got the job with the USDA. Hello, I wish you would have kept that to yourself. How do we expect the public to take notice if you didn’t view them worthy until you were paid to help revise them?
I totally applaud the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Now we need to offer solutions to help the public make them real. That comes down to helping people know what to pack for lunch and put on the plate at dinner. We need to better arm the public with specific solutions to make these guidelines a reality.
Keeping it real and making it enjoyable is a good place to start.
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2010 Dietary Guidelines,
Dietary Guidelines for Americans,
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by Janet on November 9, 2009
Every five years the government assigns a group of experts to scour the latest scientific evidence to help form the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These experts convened in Washington , DC last week and the meeting was made public via a webinar. This was the fourth meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. I wrote about the previous meetings in posts titled Debating Our Diets and What Should Americans Eat.
The recommendations are expected to be finalized in late spring or early summer. Then they’ll be translated into an updated food pyramid and will guide policymakers, nutrition educators, school lunch professionals and health providers. So they’re a big deal.
It’s hard to say where the committee will end up, but here are some of the major points that I took away from the two-day meeting.
- Obesity is public health enemy number one. No surprise, the group spent a lot of time talking about the country’s obesity epidemic. They reviewed the latest evidence and basically concluded that…it’s the calories, stupid. It’s not about manipulating carbs, fats or protein. The impact of the glycemic index and glycemic load was also dismissed. It all comes down to total calories and dietary patterns.
- Spend your calories wisely. The concept of nutrient density or eating more nutrient-rich foods was widely embraced. That means eating foods that are rich in nutrients yet contain the lowest calories as possible. It’s about considering “nutrients per calorie” or getting the biggest nutritional bang for your calorie buck. To illustrate this concept, the committee reviewed a dietary model or a theoretical calculation that showed if someone followed the guidelines but ate foods at the higher end of fat and sugar, they would consume 2,400 calories. If someone chose the same types of foods but selected more nutrient-rich options that were lower in fat and sugar (such as fat free milk instead of whole, or broth-based soups instead of creamy) they would consume 2,000 calories. This is a “gap” of 400 calories between the “typical” and the “ideal.” It’s where we need to move people to help them lower total calories but maximize nutrient intake.
- Nutrients of concern. Even with our widening waistlines, we’re still falling short of several essential nutrients. It’s like we’re overfed, but undernourished. The importance of eating nutrient-rich foods was underscored by research presented on the nutritional inadequacies in the American diet. The “nutrients of concern” for children and adults are calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, potassium and dietary fiber. For specific population groups, including seniors and women of childbearing age, the shortfall nutrients include vitamin B-12, folate, choline, iron and phosphorus.
- Praise for a plant-based diet. The committee spent a lot of time discussing the merits of a more plant-based diet. In fact, the group received a flood of public comments (most of the 750 comments submitted) about vegetarian/vegan eating. While I don’t think we’ll see the Dietary Guidelines actually recommend a meat-free diet, I do expect there will be a greater emphasis on plant-based foods. The committee said it’s important that Americans shift to a diet with fewer animal-based foods to a diet more focused on plant foods. One committee member hoped Americans would begin eating meat 2-3 times per week instead of 2-3 times per day. Expect to see the flexitarian approach gain even wider recognition.
- Variety of vegetables. There was a lot of talk about realigning vegetable subgroups. Currently there are 5 subgroups: dark green, orange, starchy (potatoes) legumes (beans) and other. The committee discussed ways to better categorize vegetables, including defining “other” and adding a red/orange group that includes tomatoes (since tomatoes are a big contributor to overall vegetable intake). They also talked about ways to reinforce the importance of eating a wide variety of vegetables, including the concept of choosing the deeper, darker ones most often — such as kale instead of iceberg lettuce.
- Cut the salt. All eyes are on sodium as the next dietary evil. In fact, sodium may be the new “trans fat.” We now consume an average of 3,400 mg of sodium per day, yet we should keep our intake to less than 2,300 mg per day. There’s been a lot of speculation about lowering daily sodium recommendations, but the group said it’s going to be tough for Americans to eat less sodium because of the current food supply. That’s why they discussed the goal of incrementally reducing sodium from 2,300 mg to 1,500 mg in a stepwise fashion. They also talked about linking sodium to calories instead of the same blanket recommendations for everyone. That means people with higher calorie needs would have a slightly higher upper limit of sodium compared to those with lower calorie needs. This concept of anchoring specific nutrient intake levels to calories was a frequent theme (including fiber recommendations).
Two more meetings are planned before the release of the scientific report in late spring or early summer 2010. I’ll keep you posted. Sure, it’s easy to be cynical about the government guidelines and question if the average joe consumer is even aware of them. But at least there is a systematic, evidence-based process of evaluating scientific research. The guidelines are not simply a point of view — they’re based on peer-reviewed research. So I can certainly support that.
Tagged as:
2010 Dietary Guidelines,
Dietary Guidelines for Americans,
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food pyramid,
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Sodium
As promised, wanted to give you an update on some of the discussions last week from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. This panel is 
is charged with developing the revised guidelines that will be issued next year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I appreciated all of the comments from my earlier post, and I understand some of the cynicism. But I will remain optimistic. The group has emphasized many times that they’re using an evidence-based system to draft the report, so the strongest science should win out. Let’s hope.
But I agree with many of you that people are confused. In fact, that’s being discussed at the meetings. Patricia Crawford from the University of California, Berkeley, told the committee that the public understands the recommendations for fruits and vegetables, but that’s about it. She said they can’t translate what they’re supposed to do with the information given. What’s needed, she said, is a “national set of benchmarks and standards.”
Who knows what will be in the final report, but here are a few highlights from the discussions:
- Eat whole foods. Rather than focusing on individual nutrients, the committee talked about the need to emphasize whole foods. After all, people eat foods, not nutrients. Research suggests many Americans are confused by the Dietary Guidelines, which they find too complicated and too focused on nutrients, rather than specific foods.
- Positive nutrition. Instead of focusing on what NOT to eat, a more
effective approach may be to advise Americans on what to eat more of — such as fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains. So it’s about foods to encourage, rather than discourage.
- Figuring out fat. The committee debated the merits of eliminating a limit on total fat and instead focusing on reducing just the unhealthy type — saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.
- Cut the salt. Sodium was heavily discussed and there’s some indication that it may be the next trans fat. Most Americans have trouble keeping sodium under the current recommended daily limit of 2,300 mg and now there’s talk of potentially lowering it to 1,500 mg per day — or at least the “rationale” for doing so was presented. There was some discussion of the benefits of increasing potassium to offset our high-sodium diets.
- New view of food groups. We grew up with the “Basic Four” and now MyPyramid identifies five food groups. What’s the best way to categorize foods? Besides the individual groups, there was a lot of talk about identifying the best or most nutrient-rich choices within each food category.
- It’s the calories, stupid. The committee talked about bringing the attention back to calories. Popular weight loss plans all achieve about the same weight loss results — so it’s about eating less, not following a particular diet. Cutting calories was the main ingredient for successful weight loss.
- Economics of eating. A huge part of the discussion involved eating well on a budget. Adam Drewnowski suggested that we look at obesity as an economic issue first — food costs affect diet quality and appear to significantly increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Andrea Carlson showed how it’s possible for a family of four to meet the Dietary Guidelines for $137 per week by using USDA’s thrifty food plan.
- Nutritional gatekeepers. Brian Wansink encouraged the group to target the nutritional gatekeepers — women who make 72% of the food decisions for their families, whether they eat at home or at a restaurant.
I’ll report back after the 4th committee meeting in the fall. In the meantime, I welcome your comments.
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Dietary Guidelines for Americans
by Janet on April 28, 2009
Some of the country’s top experts have been assembled to help figure this out. During the next two days, a panel of scientists, nutritionists, epidemiologists and physicians will be meeting in Washington, DC to review the best scientific evidence to help craft the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This is the third meeting of the 13-member committee and I’ll be reporting back on some of the discussions during this public hearing.
photo credit: bigstockphoto.com
In the meantime, here’s what Adam Drewnowksi, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, told the Washington Post. He’s one of the experts that will be addressing the panel this week.
- “My hope is that they will at least take the economics of nutrition into account, really think through about real foods for real people. Dietary choices are economic decisions, like everything else…. I’d like to see a focus on affordable, nutrient-rich foods by category. They do exist; not everything nutritious is expensive. For instance, with vegetables the focus has been on fresh salad greens. But there are cheaper vegetables that provide a whole range of nutrients: cabbage, carrots, potatoes….We need to advise people what those foods are, where you can get them and how to cook them. It’s a diet for a new Depression. Foods we’ve always know are good and nutritious — and inexpensive. ”
- “Unless we aid the public in identifying foods that are nutrient-rich and affordable — and are enjoyable in the mainstream of the American diet — none of this will work….When we want to change the population’s diet for the better, everybody says stop eating oils, sugar, and go with leafy greens. That’s dramatic. Instead, nudge your diet toward foods that are more rich in nutrients of interest.”
- “You have to know something about nutrition — and you have to know how to cook. It takes a bit of time, but not an inordinate amount. In addition to time, though, it takes some education, cooking skills, culinary culture and infrastructure: pots, pans, a stove. For a lot of people, those things are slipping out of reach…. Eating well is a matter of knowledge, money and time. Some people are zero for three.”
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