USDA: Eat LESS

Fruits and Vegetables Should Cover Half Your Plate

Overweight and obesity have already been a problem in our country for several decades.  So it may seem like a no-brainer that our country’s dietary guidelines would, you know, urge us to cut back on the calories.  Unfortunately, this has not been the case.  Typically, government guidelines have skirted the issue, urging us to consume “more lean meats” and “more whole grains”, “more fruits and vegetables” (more, more, more!).  This is because of the huge political clout of food industries that are not to keep on the government telling people to eat less of their products.

But guess what? It looks like change is possible.  Dietary guidelines posted today DO finally urge us to EAT LESS!

And what’s more, they have specified what a plate of food should look like (to those individuals who still eat food off plates on a regular basis, but I digress).  The guidelines indicate that fruits and vegetables should cover half a plate at any given meal. This visual indication is really important, because it indicates not only that we should be eating “more” of these foods, but gives a clear idea of what proportion.

Americans may not follow these guidelines very closely, whatever they are, but at least now we have a policy in place that gives more clear direction towards a real-food-based, health promoting diet.

NYTimes: Dietary Guidelines Urge Less Soda and Smaller Meals

USDA Releases New Dietary Guidelines

News From DC

New USDA Dietary Guidelines For Americans have been released today.  Per U.S. law, these guidelines are revised and re-released every five years.  For the next month, the USDA will be vetting comments on the guidelines in advance of the release of the final document.

Unfortunately this means that for the next month food industry lawyers/scientists/lobbyists will be figuring out how to warp, discredit, or water down many of the recommendations.  (In the past they have generally succeeded at this.  For a thorough documentation of how this process works, and how incredibly political this document is, please read Marion Nestle’s Food Politics.)

The report is absolutely huge, but the sections I’ve looked at do look promising with respect to what the panel recommends.  For one thing, the focus on the need to prevent obesity and overweight is clear  (USA Today’s article on the guidelines is headlined  “Obesity is century’s greatest public health threat.”)

In order to address the obesity issue from a preventative standpoint, the panel recommends a “total diet” approach to eating, which they define as the following: