If there’s only one thing conservatives are good at, it’s refusing to acknowledge which century they’re living in. The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans superficially seems like something from a 1950s commercial.
There’s quite a lot of spin about this diet, and criticism hasn’t been hard to find.
There’s also very conspicuously nothing noticeably new about it. It could have been mostly AI-written, and it’s very conventional in its overall message. It’s not drastic. The phraseology is conventional, and you’d expect to get much the same verbiage in any diet video on YouTube.
That said, it’s a checklist of pretty typical dietary advice. Most of it is OK at that level, and there’s no emphasis on Frankenfoods, etc. This information is pointed straight at Mr and Ms Barely Literate American. It also includes the long-overdue advice to “eat real food”. Doesn’t say “fresh”, though.
The main bones of contention are an increase in animal protein and “healthy fats”.
I’m not going to go nuts about that. Fat-soluble vitamins aren’t exactly news. Humans are omnivores and need protein. Americans can, do, and will eat anything theoretically food-like, whatever it might or might not be, and they don’t have much choice. Actual food would be a step up. The least dangerous foods are foods that are identifiable as being actual foods.
The diet recommends specific levels of fats and animal-based protein. When was the last time you saw anything like that? If you’re under 60, maybe never.
The argument here is that it’s weighted against decades of nutritional advice emphasizing vegetable sources and getting people away from the horror-level processed meats.
It’s way too easy to nitpick your way through this document. The Make America Healthy Again “movement” is an administration platform. The critique is that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is essentially a PR exercise.
What seems to be left out of the document is the core issue of the quality of American food. Every meal is a chemistry lesson. I’m amazed anyone has ever survived eating an American pop tart. You’d have to be living under a fossil not to know the saga of eternal condemnation of the truly berserk levels of American food processing.
America is the epitome of fast food, “whatever” levels of sugars, and similar mystic events in a bucket that genuinely horrify non-Americans. American mainstream coffee and chocolate are notorious for inexcusably being neither. If you want the real stuff, it’s expensive.
As far as I can see, Dietary Guidelines for Americans is more than a bit too innocuous. There’s no sense of urgency on the personal level or proactive long-term benefits. It doesn’t actually say in so many words that “good food is a way to avoid hideous health issues”.
It does say “The United States is in a health emergency” and specifically mentions unhealthy fats and additives. I almost missed that myself. It’s in the blurb at the top of the sheet.
If you want to make America healthy again, at least make it clear that food is your primary health issue.
Postscript: Another statistic in dazzling 2-point font appears in the blurb: Nearly one in three American adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 has prediabetes. That is nothing less than catastrophic. Think that, really, finally, after all these decades, focusing on diet might finally happen?
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
