Yeah to some, nay to many. Can you see which are good/bad changes?
Specific guidance include:
- Prioritizing Protein: While previous Dietary Guidelines have demonized protein in favor of carbohydrates, these guidelines reflect gold standard science by prioritizing high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods in every meal. This includes a variety of animal sources, including eggs, poultry, seafood, and red meat, in addition to plant-sourced protein foods such as beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and soy.
- Avoiding highly processed foods: For the first time, the Dietary Guidelines call out the dangers of certain highly processed foods – a common-sense and vital public health point. The guidance calls to “avoid highly processed packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat, or other foods that are salty or sweet” and “avoid sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, fruit drinks, and energy drinks.”
- Avoiding added sugars: While previous Dietary Guidelines did not take a hard line against added sugar (especially for children), this guidance says, “no amount of added sugars or non-nutritive sweeteners is recommended or considered part of a healthy or nutritious diet” and calls on parents to completely avoid added sugar for children aged four and under.
- Ending the War on Healthy Fats: The guidance calls for receiving the bulk of fat from whole food sources, such as meats, poultry, eggs, omega 3–rich seafood, nuts, seeds, full-fat dairy, olives, and avocados. When cooking with or adding fats to meals, the guidelines call for using the most nutrient-dense natural options with essential fatty acids, such as olive oil.
- Heralding whole grains and avoiding refined carbohydrates: This guidance takes a firm stand to “prioritize fiber-rich whole grains” and “significantly reduce the consumption of highly processed, refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, ready-to-eat or packaged breakfast options, flour tortillas, and crackers.”
- Including diets lower in carbohydrates to manage chronic disease: The guidance makes the science-based and common-sense recommendation that individuals with certain chronic diseases may experience improved health outcomes when following a lower carbohydrate diet.
Considering that only 1-3% of Americans identify as vegan, and about 4% of Americans identify as vegetarian (which includes vegans), we do not have much political pull in contributing our excellent lifestyle results to these guidelines. There are mixed results here, more veggies, less ultra processed foods… but so much saturated fats, not enough unprocessed carbs & fiber.
Choose wisely and to thine ownself be true.