The 2015 Dietary Guidelines do not explicitly urge Americans to eat less meat — as an expert panel advising the government had recommended last February, setting off furious lobbying by the meat industry. | AP Photo Meat industry wins round in war over federal nutrition advice Spoiler alert: You still need to eat your veggies.

The Obama administration released new advice Thursday about what Americans should eat to stay healthy, walking a tightrope between health and food industry groups pitted in a bitter fight over what foods the government should encourage or vilify.

In the face of furious lobbying by the meat industry, the 2015 Dietary Guidelines do not explicitly urge Americans to eat less meat — as an expert panel advising the government had recommended last February. For the first time, however, they do suggest limits on how much added sugar people should consume. And they continue to encourage people eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seafood and whole grains and say lean meat is part of a healthy diet.


“If I were the meat industry I would break out the champagne,” said Marion Nestle, a leading food politics expert and nutrition professor at New York University. “Nowhere does it say eat less meat.”

Indeed, the North American Meat Institute, the powerful trade group which represents companies like Tyson Foods Inc. and JBS S.A., issued a statement celebrating the "commonsense policy document that all Americans can use to help them make healthy food choices."

The government also backpedals from earlier advice to limit dietary cholesterol — seen as a vindication for eggs — and cracks down on the increasingly sweet food supply by urging people to get no more 10 percent of their calories from added sugars. Otherwise, the guidelines largely repeat the same health advice to a country plagued by obesity and other diet-related diseases.

The advice, updated every five years, has become a political football because of its outsized impact on how the food industry does business, and how Americans eat. The report determines the content of school meals and the aims of food assistance programs. It also informs labeling and advertising of food products by companies, and the advice given by health professionals. With billions of dollars at stake, food industry groups bristle at any potentially negative mention of their products.

But the pitched battle among politicians, scientists and special interests has been especially intense this year, almost from the moment that a government-appointed Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released a 571-page report after reviewing thousands of studies in February. That panel of independent experts is supposed to review the latest research and advise the secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services what they should include in the next update of the Dietary Guidelines.

Among the most controversial parts of the advisory report was a suggestion that Americans consider both the environmental and health impacts of the food they eat. The panel extolled the benefits of plant-based diets and suggested that local governments consider taxing unhealthy foods and sugary drinks — considered third rail issues to a more than $1 trillion food industry.

Meat producers went into high gear. “Hands Off My Hot Dog” was the rallying cry of an online petition launched last March by the Meat Institute.

Disclosures show the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association spent more than $112,000 on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2015, with the Dietary Guidelines listed among its concerns. On at least one form, the cattle group listed, “Trying to get lean beef recognized in the final health dietary patterns statement,” as a primary interest. The National Pork Producers Council spent $780,000 and the North American Meat Institute spent more than $220,000, disclosures show.

“Every state has cattle and every state has two senators,” said Nestle who served on a past Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and reviewed the 2015 guidelines. “So they are enormously powerful.”

The pressure from industry, as well as farm state lawmakers, led USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to promise furious lawmakers they would steer clear of those recommendations.

The big meat question

The meat industry also succeeded in getting officials to walk a fine line on the advisory panel’s recommendation that Americans to adopt a diet low in red and processed meat, refined grains and added sugars to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease.

“Those things should be part of, and remain part of a balanced diet, and there’s no reason to cut back,” said Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, defending animal products. “On the red meat side, there are vitamins and minerals that you can get in those that you can’t necessarily get in fruits and vegetables.”

Industry groups wanted the government to advise people to eat their products in moderation. They also wanted the guidelines to promote the role of lean meat in a healthy diet, as opposed to the footnote mention it got from the advisory panel.

The Dietary Guidelines do give a nod to lean meat and do not explicitly say that Americans should cut back on red and processed meats.

Still, there are some anti-meat caveats buried in the lengthy report. In a section labeled “About Meats And Poultry,” the government says there is “strong evidence” that a diet lower in meat and processed meat is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and “moderate evidence” that such a diet is associated with reduced risk of obesity, diabetes and some cancers, for example. And another section urges some men and teenage boys who eat too much protein to cut back on meat, eggs and poultry.

But the hedged wording of the advice on meat consumption spawned conflicting interpretations about what, exactly, the government recommends and prompted several health and environmental groups to cry foul.

“The lack of clear guidance on lowering meat consumption does a disservice to the public and our future food security,” said Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group. “The administration has clearly put the financial interests of the meat industry over the weight of the science and the health of the American people.”

The American Cancer Society also accused the government of backpedaling from "the totality of evidence available to make recommendations intended to reduce consumption of foods known to cause cancer."

“Consumers deserve the best guidance available to support them in making healthy food and beverage choices that will ultimately help reduce their cancer risk and these guidelines miss an opportunity to provide that,” said Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy affiliate of the Society.

A battle for the future of nutrition advice

Part of the reason for the cautious framing reflects the government's effort to navigate among powerful competing interests -- and to keep the process from being blown up altogether. By the final weeks of December, the battle over the advice had become so fierce that the administration was expected to rush out the publication to foil a House Republican effort that would have stripped out the more controversial recommendations. The congressional effort to thwart some of the advice was unsuccessful. But the omnibus spending package did contain $1 million for an independent review of the integrity of the entire Dietary Guidelines process — a win for a growing circle of interests who believe it’s been hijacked by politics.

That review is far less than what many in industry sought. Trade groups worked with Republicans in the House on an earlier rider that would limit recommendations to those based only on "strong" evidence, instead of the "strong" or "moderate" evidence now included, which would have eliminated some of the most controversial advice. In the end, the omnibus contained a mildly worded Senate version of the rider that will likely leave the new recommendations intact.

But the debate over what constitutes sound science in the complicated realm of human diet is likely to be revisited by the independent review.

The sugar slap down

The interest groups most unhappy with the guidelines are likely to be sugar growers and food manufacturers, as a result of the government’s new recommended limit on added sugars.

The recommendation helps the FDA move forward on a proposal to mandate added sugar labeling on the Nutrition Facts panels that consumers see on billions of products.

Michael Jacobson, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who has been tracking the Dietary Guidelines process for three decades, said the recommended limit is “a major step forward.”

Overall, Jacobson said he’s pleased with the guidelines. Even though the language on meat was weaker than he would have liked, he said there are some wins for health groups. He cited a few key sentences buried in the document that say diets with low meat consumption are healthy and that urge some men and teenage boys to cut back on meat, eggs and poultry.

“That’s bold for a bureaucracy that’s under tremendous political pressure,” he said. “The ag appropriations committee would rather just pull the plug on this whole thing.”

Chase Purdy contributed to this report.