Ways In Which The New US Dietary Guidelines Fall Short
The US recently released their new dietary guidelines, and here’s what you need to know. There are two (2) pieces of advice that the experts on the committee recommended...but were left out of the final document (surprise, surprise).
Those 2 pieces of advice?
➔ To reduce the maximum intake of sugar to 6% (should even be less in our opinion) of calories (instead of 10%).
➔ To reduce the maximum intake of alcohol to 1 drink per day for both women and men (instead of 2 for men), we could argue 1 per week, but…ok, we’ll go with it for arguments sake…it’s a step in the right direction.
It’s too bad (we could argue almost criminal) that the recommendations that are used to guide school lunches and all federal nutrition programs choose to ignore these important issues. We say, that best practices are to see these guidelines as a rough starting point, knowing that they are speaking to the general health of an entire nation and DO NOT take into account your individual needs and/or health.
Another area where these guidelines fall short is in their recommendations for fats and oils. They still recommend vegetable oils (yes, it’s maddening) (which ARE highly processed) over saturated fats (which can naturally occur in healthy foods like coconut oil and grass-fed beef). Leave it to the arrogance of man to think it knows better than millions of years of mother nature and decades of sound nutrition science.
But for those of us who have the ability to choose our foods and make independent decisions about our diet, it’s smart for us to keep in mind what the expert committee really wanted in the guidelines: eat less sugar and drink less alcohol.
There are some sound pieces of advice in the guidelines, like…
➔ “Make every bite count” (speaking to quality, quantity [specifically for you], and to CHEWING your food! Remember we want 20-30 times per bite)
➔ Limit intake of sweetened beverages (remember you’re not doing yourself any favors with that Jamba Juice right after your workout, especially if you’re diabetic or have any kind of insulin sensitivity…..HELLO sugar dump!)
➔ Avoid added sugars entirely in children under the age of 2 (we would argue for ALL ages)
➔ Include nutrient-dense foods that include vegetables (organic where possible), fruits (organic! see dirty dozen list), grains (ancient if possible), dairy (organic & pasture raised), and proteins (organic, grass-fed [not ‘grass finished’], pasture raised)
The USDA guidelines are useful to be aware of because they influence so many nutrition programs across our country. Ideally, however, I think we need to go beyond these guidelines to truly achieve an optimal health and wellness.
Onward.
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