By Sara
Dietary recommendations to focus on plants are increasingly found around the world. As the negative effects of consuming a diet mainly made up of animal products and highly processed “foods” have become known, more recommendations are promoting a plant-predominate or exclusively whole food, plant-based diet.
The 2021 USDA Dietary Guidelines arguably fell flat by not making any changes of significance this year. You may be wondering why this should matter to you. The dietary guidelines are meant to reflect the current body of nutrition science. They provide evidence-based food and beverage recommendations for Americans, with a goal of promoting health and preventing chronic disease.
“The American Medical Association put out a statement that “people should view recommendations with caution”.”
These guidelines have an impact on the nutrition of Americans in a few different ways:
- Forms the basis of federal nutrition policy and programs
- Guidance for local, state, and national health promotion and disease prevention initiatives
- Impacts various organizations and industries, such as the food and beverage industry
These guidelines were introduced in 1980, and are reviewed and updated every 5 years. Interestingly, in the years since the USDA has been issuing dietary guidelines, Americans’ health has gotten steadily worse. Since the food lobby has such influence, a better idea is scrapping the dietary guidelines brought forth by the USDA. Instead, trust the guidance of a registered dietician who has sound enough knowledge to advise a primarily or fully plant-based diet for health.
Recommendations to reduce sugar intake to less than 6% of total intake and alcohol intake to 1 drink daily were ignored by the USDA. These guidelines remain unchanged and sugar intake is still recommended to be less than 10% of diet and alcohol recommended to be limited to 2 drinks/day– despite the evidence that these oppose overall health.
Additionally, at least 3 servings of dairy products daily are recommended. This doesn’t factor in that the risk of prostate cancer increased by 141% (Yang, 2015), and breast cancer increased by 80% (Fraser, 2020) with these levels of dairy.
Most people do not process dairy well, especially people of color. Even the American Medical Association put out a statement that “people should view recommendations with caution”, due to racial disparities.
Avoiding dairy products altogether is what the evidence recommends. There is no nutrient from dairy that cannot be obtained from sources that do not cause disease. Again, dietary recommendations to focus on plants are recommended by more and more physicians who are paying attention to the data.
“Lean” meat and seafood consumption are promoted in the guidelines. At the same time it states “Keep dietary cholesterol as low as possible”. However, we know that red and processed meat cause cancer, making them detrimental to health (Wolk, 2017). “Keeping cholesterol levels as low as possible” is achieved by avoiding saturated fats, which come mainly from meats, dairy, and eggs.
Did you know that somewhere between 95 to 97% of Americans do not consume the minimum recommended fiber intake? This is just the minimum recommended fiber intake, we’re not even talking about the optimal amount of fiber to consume!
For adult women, we’re talking in the neighborhood of 21-26 grams of fiber daily.
Food lobbyists have access to change dietary recommendations to benefit their industries. Obviously they represent their own interests and not those of the American public. The evidence points to a primarily or completely plant-based diet being the eating pattern that is most healthy for the majority of people.
As you can see, the USDA is not the entity to follow for nutritional guidelines. Many other countries have updated their nutritional guidelines to be in line with the evidence. The U.S. is very slowly following suit. This pace needs to be more urgent, as our life expectancy is falling while chronic illness is rising.
I, for one, will be continuing a whole food plant-based diet for optimum nutrition and to best support my body as I get older. Reducing my risk of developing a chronic health condition is a strong motivator. I have grand plans for how I wish to enjoy my retirement, which do not include frequent trips to the doctor’s office, and prescriptions that seem to multiply.
If we focus our diets on whole plant foods as much as possible we can largely avoid the detriments of the standard American diet. Concentrating on how to preserve health is one of the largest shortcomings of the American healthcare system today. Here’s to hoping the next set of dietary guidelines to focus on plants and their benefits.
How about you my friend? Are you happy with your current nutritional status or are you open to improvement? Will you be following the evidence and eating a plant-based diet? What are your most motivating factors in deciding what you will eat?
If you are interested in learning more about how to make the switch, check out the following:
The Secrets to Start a Plant-Based Diet with Ease
Top 5 Reasons to use Meal Prepping When New to a Plant-Based Lifestyle
Dietary Lifestyle Change: A Powerful Tool for Your Toolbox
References:
Gary E Fraser, Karen Jaceldo-Siegl, Michael Orlich, Andrew Mashchak, Rawiwan Sirirat, Synnove Knutsen, Dairy, soy, and risk of breast cancer: those confounded milks, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 49, Issue 5, October 2020, Pages 1526–1537, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyaa007
