Federal Dietary Policies Are an Unsteady Diet of Nothing - Reason.com:
"...the new federal Dietary Guidelines, which the federal government updates every several years as "an important resource to help our Nation reach its highest standard of health,"
urge all Americans to adopt a healthier diet.
What does that mean, exactly?
The definition of a healthy diet appears to be much like the date on which Easter falls: it's a moveable feast.
Cholesterol had long been painted as a villain in the federal guidelines.
No longer.
Coffee was of questionable merit.
It, too, now gets the green light.
In their place,
sugar and protein—the latter a surprise to many—have emerged as areas of concern.
Does this mean cholesterol and coffee are good, and that protein and sugar are bad?
Maybe so.
Maybe not.
It depends.
Critics have long pointed out the many, many ways
Dietary Guidelines have been wrong over the years.
Every revision and update of those guidelines is, at least in part, an admission that some or all of the previous advice was flawed.
I have little problem, at the theoretical level, with the government proposing broad dietary advice, provided a couple things.
- First, the advice must be based on sound science.
It's better to give millions of people no advice than to give them all bad advice.
- Second, the advice should recognize and embrace the fact that dietary choices are like snowflakes. No two are alike.
And the guidelines should never attempt to coerce anyone to adopt a particular diet.
But these Dietary Guidelines fail on both counts.
First, there's the issue of bad science.
The guidelines claim to be "informed by a critical, and transparent review of the scientific evidence on nutrition."
I spoke with two key critics of the federal government's development of dietary advice this week.
I'd previously written pieces on the issue that quoted Nina Teicholz, science journalist, author of The Big Fat Surprise, and board member of The Nutrition Coalition, and Edward Archer, Ph.D., a researcher and leading author on dietary science.
"Clearly there is not 'significant scientific agreement' on several key recommendations made by the [Dietary Guidelines], so it's not clear that they meet the standard that Congress requires to appropriate funds for them," says Teicholz, in an email to me this week.
Teicholz points to the fact federal dietary recommendations for salt consumption conflict with the government's own research on salt and the "significant disagreement" over the science of saturated fat, which the federal government treats as a settled matter.
"Until our national health policy is based on solid science," Teicholz tells me, "it seems questionable that it will do a better job of fighting obesity, diabetes as well as other nutrition-related diseases..."
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"According to Napolitano, issuing an executive action rather than an executive order will make it “more difficult and cumbersome” to challenge legally. The former judge defended his claim with a reference to the president’s executive orders on immigration, which were ultimately defeated in court by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), who now serves as the state’s governor.
