Americans should eat more beans, peas, and lentils and reduce their intake of red and processed meats and starchy vegetables, while continuing to limit added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
that’s the advice Released on Tuesday By the Committee of Nutrition Experts tasked with advising the U.S. government on the 2025 Dietary Guidelines that form the basis of federal food programs and policies.
However, the 20-member committee did not consider the growing role of government. ultra-processed foods He said they were linked to health problems and said there was not enough evidence to tell people to avoid them. And the group avoided updating the controversial guidelines. alcohol intakewhose analysis will be left to two external reports expected to be published soon.
Food policy expert Marion Nestle said that overall, the recommendations in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans sound familiar.
“This is similar to other dietary guidelines since 1980: eat your vegetables and reduce your intake of foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat,” Nestlé said in an email. “This statement says nothing about calorie balance, even though excess intake of calories, especially from ultra-processed foods, is the biggest challenge to Americans’ health.”
What the Scientific Committee says about healthy eating
The Nutrition Board concluded that a healthy diet for people over the age of 2 includes lots of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish, and vegetable oils that are high in unsaturated fats. .
This value is lower for red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, refined grains, and saturated fats. It may also include fat-free or low-fat dairy products, low-sodium foods, and plant-based foods.
The committee, which has met for nearly two years, focused for the first time on Americans’ dietary needs through a so-called “health equity lens,” said an obesity expert at Massachusetts General Hospital who was part of the committee. said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford. group. This means that factors such as household income, race, ethnicity, and culture should be considered when making healthy eating recommendations. This will help ensure the guidance “reflects and is inclusive of different population groups,” she said in an email.
The committee made no conclusions regarding ultra-processed foods or alcohol
Ultra-processed foods include snacks, sugary cereals, and frozen foods that make up about 60 percent of Americans’ diets.
The committee considered more than 40 studies, including one that showed a link between ultra-processed foods and the development of overweight or obesity. However, nutrition experts were concerned about the quality of the study and concluded there was too little evidence to make a recommendation.
The decision is likely to go against the views of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Potential conflict of interest Members of the Dietary Guidelines Committee vowed to crack down on ultra-processed foods that contribute to chronic disease.
The committee also did not revise its recommendations, which suggest limiting alcohol intake to no more than two drinks a day for men and no more than one drink a day for women.
In 2020, when the guidance was last updated, the government rejected the advice of scientific advisers to recommend drinking less.
Two groups, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the government agency’s committee that oversees drug abuse, plan to release a report on the effects of moderate alcohol consumption in the coming months to inform guidelines. is.
Are Americans following dietary guidelines?
The advisory committee acknowledged that most Americans’ diets do not meet current guidelines. More than half of U.S. adults have one or more chronic health conditions related to diet, and 18 million U.S. households are food insecure, according to the report.
“Chronic nutrition-related health conditions and their precursors continue to threaten health throughout the lifespan,” the report concludes. “This does not bode well for the future of America’s health.”
What happens next?
Scientific reports inform dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years. Tuesday’s recommendations now go to HHS and the Department of Agriculture, which will draft final guidance for release next year.
It will be open to the public for 60 days starting Wednesday. Comment on the guidance. HHS and USDA officials will hold a public meeting on January 16 to discuss the recommendations.
The new guidance, expected to be finalized by the incoming Trump administration, is consistent with decades of federal efforts to reduce diet-related diseases in the United States, said Peter, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. Dr. Lurie said.
“Broadly speaking, these are well-conceived recommendations that I think would be good for the incoming administration to adopt,” Lurie said.
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