Will 2025 Dietary Guidelines “Punt” on Ultra-Processed Foods?
God bless the people who put their time into the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. It fits the textbook definition of a thankless task. Years of work go into producing a scientifically sound set of recommendations for a new edition of dietary guidelines to emerge sometime next year. But no matter what those recommendations are, people will be unhappy. Case in point: guidelines on ultra-processed foods.
At its final meeting this week, the committee made it clear that its report will not make any new recommendations about ultra-processed foods. Said committee member Deanna Hoelscher:
“I think until we get a better definition for what we mean as ‘ultra-processed foods,’ it’s going to be difficult to look at this.”
The righteous pursuers of this scourge foisted upon us by big food will not be happy.
Not Going Away
So this is not an issue that will fade easily, as another committee member, Deirdre Tobias, said:
“Ultra-processed foods are not going to be an issue that goes away. I think in the next five years, research is going to explode. In five years, hopefully this isn’t sort of punted again.”
Nope. The quest to define bad foods is eternal. Religions pursue this quest and so do the folks who pour over associations between self-reported dietary behaviors and health outcomes. For years, the culprit was dietary fat. Then it was sugar and carbs – especially sugar-sweetened beverages.
The committee noted that sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is down. But unfortunately, that is not solving our dietary problems. In fact, as we have been pointing out for a while, sugar consumption is down. Despite this, prevalence of obesity and its complications remain high. So we need a new dietary villain and ultra-processed foods fit the role for now.
Point the Finger Somewhere Else
Embedded in the current passion to pursue ultra-processed foods is a certain amount of righteous passion and finger-pointing. That’s fine until the finger points at us. Scolding people about their terrible diets is not terribly effective. So the thought is that guidelines on ultra-processed foods can put the blame on the big bad food industry. Consumers are hapless victims in this framework.
As appealing as this construct is, this scientific advisory committee has to have evidence for their recommendations. And right now, the evidence is not sufficient to condemn ultra-processed foods as the cause of all our dietary woes.
Click here and here for more on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee meeting this week. For further perspective, click here and here.
Still Life with Apples and Pomegranates, painting by Gustave Courbet / WikiArt
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October 23, 2024
October 23, 2024 at 7:20 am, Michael Jones said:
I’d have much more confidence in the guidelines if there were clearer transparency regarding financial relationships with the major food manufacturers. My patients find it harder and harder to get actual “food”, rather than man-constructed, manufactured, “Ikea” food.
October 23, 2024 at 12:04 pm, Ted said:
My understanding of the vetting process for conflicts of interest is that it is quite rigorous. But people who don’t like the guidelines are quick to attack the people who produce them as craven pawns of industry. In my experience, everyone has strong feelings about food and nutrition. Objectivity is hard to find.
October 24, 2024 at 8:57 am, David Brown said:
In my view, the problem is groupthink. For decades academia and government agencies have promoted anti-saturated fat dogma. And the food supply has been configured and reconfigured accordingly. Researchers at Ateneo de Manila University recently published an article entitled ‘The Lipid-Heart Hypothesis and the Keys Equation Defined the Dietary Guidelines but Ignored the Impact of Trans-Fat and High Linoleic Acid Consumption’. https://www.asiaresearchnews.com/content/new-study-rewrites-decades-medical-misunderstanding-saturated-fat-and-heart-disease
The government agency responsible for updating the Guidelines is finding itself under increasing pressure to correct the saturated fat mistake. In May bureaucrats in the agency published an article accusing their critics of promoting misinformation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38522617/