LIES the USDA TELLS

That Keep Doctors Busy and Bountiful

Good nutrition is straightforward and simple, but in America pressure from the food industry makes it almost impossible for any public official to state the plain truth. Public nutrition policy is dictated by the political process, which is now heavily dictated by a corporate agenda to maximize profits.

The primary agency responsible for American food policy is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was created in 1862 as a regulatory agency to ensure an adequate and safe food supply for the American public. The agency also took on the role of providing dietary advice to the public. From the start, the government had conflicting priorities.

How can you protect public health on one hand and protect the interests of the food industry on the other? !is opposition alone has led to decades of confusing and economically charged dietary advice. As far back as 1917, when the USDA released its first dietary recommendations and launched the food-group format, it ignored research that Americans were eating too much, especially too much fat and sugar, because food manufacturers wanted to encourage the public to eat more.

 It wasn’t until the 1970s, when senators like George McGovern started to speak about the connection between overeating—especially fats, sugar, salt and cholesterol—and chronic disease that the USDA began advising people to restrict these foods in their diets with the Dietary Goals of 1977. With this new advice came strong objections from the meat, dairy and sugar industries.

The food industry’s greatest allies are in Congress. It’s the job of these politicians to protect the interests of their states, which includes not only the citizens but also the corporations and industries that live there. So, a senator from Texas will support the cattle industry. A senator from Wisconsin is going to fight for dairy by not allowing any wording into government guidelines that will negatively effect the dairy industry. Politicians, together with skilled, well-paid lobbyists, control legislation and nutritional information put out by the government. 

In 1977 when senators from meat-producing states such as Texas, Nebraska and Kansas saw the new dietary guidelines, they worked quickly—with the help of lobbyists for the National Cattleman’s Association, among others—to amend the national dietary recommendations, removing any mention of decreasing the amount of meat in one’s diet for optimal health.

This back and forth between the USDA, politicians and corporations continues to shape the public’s awareness about what to eat. In 1991, the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services created the first ever Food Guide Pyramid in an attempt to provide accurate guidelines about what to eat for optimal nutrition. Immediately, the meat and dairy industries blocked publication because they claimed it stigmatized their products. Marion Nestle, professor and former chair of the Department of Nutrition at New York University, chronicled the saga in her pioneering book, Food Politics: How the Food Industry influences Nutrition and Health. 

The meat and dairy industries were upset because the Food Guide Pyramid placed their products in a category labeled “eat less.” The USDA then withdrew the guide. It took more than a year to create a pyramid that was acceptable to the two industries. And that, my friends, is how our “politically correct” Food Guide Pyramid was created.

Let’s take a moment to examine the pyramid that shaped American attitudes about health, diet and nutrition for the past 20 years. The USDA designed the pyramid in hierarchical form to indicate the importance and recommended quantity of each food group. 

The broad foundation is carbohydrates, including bread, cereal, rice and pasta. Next up is a slightly narrower band of fruits and vegetables, then a smaller layer of protein-rich foods, including meat and dairy. The very top has a small section of fats, oils and sweets. (Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.S. Department of Health and Human)

Do you find anything odd about this picture? Anything you might question or disagree with? Almost everyone I meet has numerous issues with this pyramid. Even the experts who put it together must have known something Services was wrong here. Let’s face it; the 1991 USDA Food Pyramid is a political document, not a scientific one. It encourages people to eat a lot of everything.

This advice certainly helps the food industry and the senators protecting their financial interests. The medical profession, registered dietitians, insurance companies, politicians and bureaucrats all advocated this Food Guide Pyramid from 1991 to 2005. The guidelines influenced government nutrition programs, food labeling and food promotion. 

Certified nutritionists used this as their foundation for working with clients, as did the makers of school lunch programs. These recommendations were the foundation of America’s outlook on health, diet and nutrition for a time period that had a substantial increase in obesity and diet-related health concerns.

In 2001, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine won a lawsuit, on the topic of the USDA’s ties to the food industry. PCRM objected to the over-promotion of meat and dairy products by the government because of the prevalence of diet-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. PCRM showed that the majority of the committee that reviews and updates the federal dietary guidelines had strong financial ties to the meat, dairy or egg industries.

“Having advisers tied to the meat or dairy industries is as inappropriate as letting tobacco companies decide our standards for air quality,” Dr. Neal Barnard, president of PCRM, said. The verdict found that the USDA had violated federal law by withholding documents that revealed a strong bias by the committee. PCRM’s victory was a huge embarrassment to the USDA, especially because the government ruled against itself, which very rarely happens.

"CHIT CHAT WON'T BURN FAT"