January 8, 2016

A new set of dietary guidelines was released by the Barack Obama administration today. The Health.gov website describes the new guidelines as being “grounded in the most current scientific evidence.”

See the guidelines for yourself at 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Here is why I think the Obama administration’s dietary guidelines suck:

No limit is explicitly recommended for the consumption of red meat or processed meat, despite recent reports by the World Health Organization that these foods have been strongly linked to health problems, including heart disease and cancer. Senior U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health & Human Services officials, when asked why red and processed meat limits were omitted from the 2015 guidelines, acknowledged that was the case but mentioned that some meats are higher in saturated fats than others, which is a nutrient they recommend limiting. The dietary guidelines recommend people drink alcohol moderately, which the report defines as up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men. The new guidelines no longer recommend a specific limit for dietary cholesterol, which is present in eggs and other animal products. “This change does not suggest that dietary cholesterol is no longer important to consider when building healthy eating patterns,” the report reads.

In the 2010 dietary guidelines, a key recommendation was made that Americans “consume less than 300 mg per day of dietary cholesterol,” which equals out to be less than one egg.

“The 2015-2020 guidelines does not encourage a low total fat diet, but rather a low saturated fat diet.” – Health and Human Services Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell

My thoughts on this. First, a bit of a disclaimer. I am not a doctor and I do not want to tell you what to put in your own body. What is written in this post is my opinion and my opinion alone.

If your current diet is working for you then that is great. Personally, I do not feel like it is ethical to endorse the meat farming industry. I stopped eating meat in August of 2015 and feel better than ever.

My cardiovascular endurance and overall wellbeing have skyrocketed in the past few months. I would recommend you read Vegetarianism in a Nutshell by Bruce Friedrich as supplementary material to Barack Obama’s new dietary guidelines.