Government Releases New Dietary Guidelines

It also suggests Americans to consume no more than 10 percent of calories per day from foods and beverages with added sugars and those that have trans fat and saturated fat like butter and whole milk. The nutrition recommendations serve to provide the American public, policymakers and health professionals with the information they need to make healthy choices in their daily living, including moderate alcohol consumption.

Eating less red meat is linked to a lower risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as a lower risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer, the guidelines say. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a panel of independent experts, called eating large amounts of red and processed meat “detrimental”.

The new guidelines – which recommend eating less added sugar and meat – lack the earlier 300-milligram limit, but they still contain warnings about the health risks of a high-cholesterol diet.

While senior administration officials on Thursday denied bowing to pressure from the food industry, Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager with the advocacy group Friends of the Earth, said in a statement that the new guidelines ignored strong scientific evidence on the need to eat less meat for health, food security and environmental reasons. Dr. Daniel Rader, a researcher at Penn Medicine’s Cardiovascular Institute, said overall he thinks the guidelines are reasonable.

While lean meats are still a suggested source of protein, teen boys and adult men should reduce their meat intake and eat more vegetables.

Doctors and some consumer groups hailed the guidelines as an important step forward in a nation where more than one-third of adults – almost 79 million people – are obese.

The dietary guidelines for sodium on that remain the same, with the recommendation that people 14 and older eat no more than 2,300mg. per day.

They also recommend a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise and a diet based on vegetables and whole grains. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that even without salt added at the dinner table, the vast majority of Americans consume sodium well above the recommended limit. Processed sugar has been limited to 5 grams while salt has been limited to 2,300 milligrams per day.

First, the latest guidelines are notable for a recommendation that was actually left on the cutting room floor: Eating a more environmentally-sustainable diet.

The updated recommendations also remove the limit on dietary cholesterol.

“More needs to be done to align the official Dietary Guidelines, and federal food and agriculture policies across the board, with what we know to be good for public health and the environment”.

For the first time, the government put a limit on sugar-no more than 10 percent of your daily calories.