Every 5 years, two agencies in the U.S. government supposedly look over all the new science and update the Dietary Guidelines for American's. They have just released their proposal for 2010, and are asking for comments until July 15:
- 2010 Proposal for Dietary Guidelines
- Where to Submit Written Comments (large blue buttons partway down the page)
My first suggestion to the committee is simple: Let's nip "SoFAS" in the bud. Apparently the writers of the Guidelines are attempting to coin this new term, which stands for ""Solid Fats and Added Sugars". They use this term throughout the proposal, e.g. "Americans eat too many calories from SoFAS". I guess the term may be thought to have added benefit from its possible association with "Couch Potatoes" -- but really, it's hard to think of a more confusing acronym. The worst part is that it combines two ingredients which have nothing at all to do with one another, creating strange sentences such as "children consume engery-dense SoFAS, especially in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages". Are they saying that soda is high in "solid fats"? Of course the main objection is that half of a SoFA (the added sugar) is demonstrably bad for health while the other half (the fats, excluding trans fats) is not.
Next: What the new guidelines say about carbohydrates.
Photo © Olga Lyubkina
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All the power to you but I despair that you’ll make enough of a difference. I read a lot of the comments and the majority of them were critical but wanted the guidelines to include more plant based food, less meat and dairy and no fat. I guess we’ll just have to remain a voice in the background.
Regards,
Alan.
Love the pyramid. Lets add more radiated food so our bodies don’t get the nutrients they need… When we actually ate wholesome foods there was not as much obesity as there is now and it wasn’t as expensive.
But with the irradiation coming into effect, sure it saves food from spoiling, it damages the nutrient content of our foods which keeps people hungry thus causing overeating.
Soda pop may be bad for you, however aspartame is know to cause convulsions in children and is not good for you, but it is okay’d for use by our government.
Pure natural food is by far the best for all of us. Just seems nobody has figured that out, yet!