US Department of Health and Human Services Releases New Dietary Guidelines
They also recommend a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise and a diet based on vegetables and whole grains.
Healthy eating patterns limit saturated and trans fats. The guidelines encourage Americans to adopt a series of recommendations to improve how they eat and to reduce obesity and prevent chronic diseases.
About half of all United States adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases relating to poor diets and physical inactivity, such as hypertension, diabetes and diet-related cancers, according to the government. That panel suggested calling for an environmentally friendly diet lower in red and processed meats and de-emphasized lean meats in its list of proteins that are part of a healthy diet.
Along with this, the guidelines have urged the nation to cut back on favored foods like sugar, red meat and salt. Created to take the confusion out of what constitutes healthy eating for consumers, the guidelines were developed by an external advisory committee that included researchers and scientists in the fields of nutrition, health and medicine, which met in public meetings from June 2013 to December 2014. There’s overwhelming evidence that too much sugar causes diabetes, heart disease and weight gain, Burwell said.
The 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans released Thursday morning ultimately left the warnings about cholesterol consumption intact. In the USA, people consume up to 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, an amount that can result in high blood pressure, according to Burwell.
And there’s good news if you like your cup of java: The guidelines mention coffee for the first time and say that “moderate coffee consumption can be incorporated into healthy eating patterns”. This year’s guidelines no longer recommend a limit for cholesterol.
While there was speculation that recommendations for maximum-advised sodium consumption would change, the dietary guidelines on that remain the same, with the recommendation that people 14 and older eat no more than 2,300 milligrams per day.
“If you just drink one can of pop a day, that’s going to be a wheelbarrow full of sugar”.
The recommendations also said Americans should limit their daily caloric intake of sugars to 10 percent, a first. From school lunch menus and public nutrition programs to food labels and medical research grants, these standards will inform dozens of government health programs and policies.