Tag Archives: nutrition

Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Leave a reply

The USDA has a new version of Dietary Guidelines for Americans out. Sorry, TLDR, but the Harvard School of Public Health has a handy summary (along with some criticism). Basically, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will never go out of style. Sugar will never be in style again.

I think people of my generation and older are still confused about fat. The guidelines say plant-based oils are pretty much A-OK as long as you stay within your calorie limits, but still recommend “lean meats and poultry”, “low fat dairy”, and limiting saturated fat. First, I am confused whether saturated fat is bad for everyone, even those of us with low cholesterol, or whether the USDA assumes we are too stupid to understand nuances and a blanket statement like this will save lives overall (if so, they’re probably right.) Harvard also criticizes USDA for not discouraging processed meat like bacon and ham (but bacon is so good…well, better to think of it as an occasional treat like a candy bar).

Men should limit alcoholic drinks to “no more than two” and women to one (sorry, ladies). By the way, a(n imperial, 16 ounce) pint of 7% alcohol craft beer is not a drink, it is actually almost two. Whereas 1.5 ounces of 40% alcohol liquor is one drink and actually easier to control. I love those craft beers though. Oh, and don’t touch soda – it’s death in a glass.

But you can have 2-3 cups of (black) coffee a day, with no known negative effects.

You can have more salt than I thought (2300 mg/day) if you don’t have any particular risk factors.

Harvard also points out that the science behind the nutritional benefits of all that meat and dairy is not all that strong, while the science behind the environmental risks is strong, and clear, and not mentioned in these guidelines.

Well, this is the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Not the department of get your ass off the couch, go for a jog, and then eat some vegetables. We have an Environmental Protection Agency, but first of all it is not cabinet level, and second of all they don’t regulate agriculture. Nobody regulates the environmental impacts of agriculture! And the meat, sugar, corn (etc.) and food processing industries are massive, have enormously deep pockets, and use them to buy politicians who will keep it this way indefinitely.

what to eat for your own health and the planet

Leave a reply

Walter Willet, Johan Rockstrom, and others have published a long paper on what we should be eating, both for health and sustainability, and how that food ought to be produced.

Scientific targets for a healthy reference diet are based on extensive literature on foods, dietary patterns, and health outcomes. This healthy reference diet largely consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated oils, includes a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, and includes no or a low quantity of red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables.

alzheimer’s disease and insulin resistance

Leave a reply

This article in Psychology Today makes a case that there is a very strong link between insulin resistance and Alzheimer’s disease. The bad news, it says, is that the majority of the population is insulin resistant. The good news is that it is something an individual can really do something about. Basically, replace sugar and most processed foods with whole, unprocessed ones. It sounds mostly okay to me except I am really not ready to give up bread any time soon.

what to eat?

Leave a reply

New U.S. government nutrition guidelines are out. And predictably, they are being criticized by nutritionists.

This year, for example, there were notable differences between the Advisory Committee’s recommendations and the final guidelines. According to scientific evidence, individuals should reduce their consumption of red and processed meats and sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, to prevent chronic diseases. The scientific evidence for those two recommendations is “so clear, so strong,” says Willett — yet neither recommendation was included in the final guidelines…

The final guidelines also don’t include the Advisory Committee’s emphasis on sustainability of the food supply, including the need to reduce portions of beef, cited as “the single food with the greatest projected impact on the environment.”

“This is virtual proof that the USDA is not allowed to say anything negative about red meat,” says Willett. “The basic censorship of the report from the Advisory Committee is deeply troublesome.”

The report from the advisory committee is not exactly censored. It’s here, readily accessible for people who know how to find stuff on the internet.