September 13, 2023 — The 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee just finished an afternoon of taking public comments at its third meeting. They are well on their way to producing a scientific report that might guide the guidance when it emerges in time for the dawn of 2025. Right now, it does seem like everyone is ultra-worried about what […]
June 7, 2023 — Overheated rhetoric in nutrition is nothing new. But the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) set a high bar yesterday. In a press release, the organization rang alarm bells, saying that “big dairy” is on its way to “making school meals less healthy by allowing whole milk.” Oh my. Is the persistent fear of […]
May 21, 2023 — Let’s get right to the point. This point is that it’s always best to stick with the truth. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is definitely the best choice. So we’re disappointed in you, WHO. We love you and hated to see you telling a fib this week when you issued a news bulletin, saying […]
March 9, 2023 — More and more, dietary health guidance points us to consider whole foods and how they fit into the overall pattern of our eating. Advice that divides individual foods or nutrients between good and bad labels is not so helpful because context matters. And yet, advice to avoid saturated fat remains ubiquitous. Perhaps such a broad […]
January 20, 2023 — USDA yesterday appointed 20 nationally recognized nutrition and public health experts to serve on the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. We find good reason for cheers about these appointments – not just because these are some brilliant people – but also because we see them bringing diverse thinking on dietary guidance to this process. Diverse […]
June 15, 2022 — The ASN Nutrition Live 2022 virtual meeting started with a feisty debate yesterday. The architect of the NOVA system for identifying ultra-processed foods – Carlos Monteiro – made the case for his magnum opus. Then, in this debate he faced off with nutrition professor Arne Astrup, who made the case that relying on the NOVA […]
April 16, 2022 — Yesterday, the USDA opened up the process for the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They invited us all to comment on the questions they will pose to a scientific advisory committee. Then they’ll appoint that committee and put it to work on producing a report. The report goes into the sausage grinder of policy making. […]
April 8, 2022 — We are in the midst of a great reformulation of food products. A little more than a decade ago, Robert Lustig stirred everyone up with his bold claim that sugar is toxic. So added sugar took over the role of dietary bad boy in place of fat. In 2015, U.S. dietary guidelines started recommending a […]
February 16, 2022 — Should we have better signposts in dietary guidelines to help people avoid ultra-processed foods? Or should we lean into processed foods with bio-active ingredients to treat high cholesterol in people who don’t want to take statins? Admittedly, this dichotomy is a bit extreme. But it does illustrate the confusing mix of information coming at us […]
January 7, 2022 — We are stuck in an infinite loop, it seems. Yet again, we have a new report in MMWR to tell us that Americans are eating too few fruits and veggies. In fact, only one in ten meet the recommendation in the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. That’s one and a half to two cups of […]
