Dietary Guidelines Do-Over

When the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans were finally released last month, government officials said the recommendations reflected the latest and best science on food and nutrition. The guidelines – which aim to help Americans eat better and support public health efforts, such as reducing chronic disease – urge people to significantly cut back on sugar and note, for the first time, that teen boys and men should reduce their intake of “protein foods” by consuming less meat, poultry and eggs. Such advice drew praise. Still, many experts criticized the guidelines as being watered down by food-industry influence, saying they didn’t go far enough to mirror evidence-based recommendations. Here's a sampling of the advice some wish had been included: 

In place of general advice on protein consumption, many argued the new guidelines should have explicitly stated that Americans need to consume less red and processed meat, as laid out in the proposed recommendations by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. That would mean eating more plant-based protein such as nuts and beans. "Limiting intake [of red meat] to once or twice a week will avoid the large majority of the adverse health effects," says Walter Willett,​ chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, in an email. Those range from a higher incidence of heart disease and diabetes​ to cancer. “Processed red meat should be largely eliminated for optimal health.”

Though praised for highlighting healthy eating patterns, like a Mediterranean-style diet, the dietary guidelines could have gone further to name actual foods and drinks that Americans should probably consume less of, in addition to singling out “nutrients of concern” like salt, according to critics. “The guidelines, for example, say get less than 10 percent of your calories from saturated fat,” says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in the District of Columbia. “Well, for many people, that’s going to go in one ear and out the other.” She says more needs to be done to translate that and other blanket advice into practical steps to achieve goals, such as replacing butter with olive oil and other healthy oils when cooking and switching to low-fat milk.

The latest guidelines recommend reducing sugar consumption to no more than 10 percent of a person’s daily calories. But as the science increasingly reveals sugar’s myriad ill effects on health, Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, says we should cut that amount in half. “The United Kingdom​​ and many other countries have adopted only having 5 percent of your calories from added sugar,” he says, which approximates to 15 teaspoons of sugar daily, on average, for an adult​​. That’s around the amount found in a single, full-size can of regular soda.​​

The guidelines talk about meals, but Sally Findley, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, says she’d wished healthy snacks would have been covered in the latest recommendations. “I think that the guidelines should have been clearer that snacks should be nuts or fresh fruits or carrots ... and that you should stay away from the empty calorie ones," she says, from that bag of chips to french fries. For kids and adults, she notes, it's important to plan ahead. That will help prevent vending-machine-enabled dietary mishaps.

Yes, pulses, those unassuming pod-plant powerhouses (think lentils). While a vegetarian diet was not recommended in the final guidelines, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee advocated for a more plant-based diet because of the health and environmental benefits. In an email, Kelly Toups, a registered dietitian at Oldways, a Boston-based nonprofit that promotes healthy eating, says you should aim to do just that, in part, by eating more pulses – just in time to partake in the 2016 United Nations-declared International Year of Pulses. Incorporating the leguminous crops into your diet will help you beef up on plant-based protein and up your intake of essential nutrients, such as fiber, potassium and folate, Toups says. 

Though it might seem at first blush a purely altruistic exercise, making environmentally-friendly, sustainable food choices – suggested by the guidelines advisory committee but not highlighted in the final dietary recommendations – can ultimately prove healthier as well. “For example, vegetables that aren’t picked too early [and that don’t] have to be shipped across the country – they’re more nutrient-dense,” says Bob Martin, director of the Food System Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore. Eating more heart-healthy, plant-based protein in place of meat is also more energy efficient, he notes, since it means fewer crops are needed to make animal feed.