2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans: What’s New?

Every five years, the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) reviews copious amounts of the latest health and nutrition research, endorsing recommendations to the USDA and US Department of Health and Human Services, which ultimately become The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).

The 2010 DGA were amended to create the 2015 DGA released this month.

Here’s The Scoop on the Changes for 2015:
For the first time, the government recommends limits on sugar to be less than 10% of your daily calories.

Sugar consumption in the US has soared over the past 30 years in tandem with the dramatic increase of processed food consumption, and meals eaten away from home. Currently, the average American consumes a whopping 22 teaspoons of sugar per day. While broaching the sugar topic for the first time is a move in the right direction, more specific recommendations are needed such as in grams or teaspoons to be more tangible to consumers.

The 300mg cholesterol limit per day was lifted

The new recommendation is to consume as little cholesterol as possible because foods that are high in cholesterol are typically high in saturated fat, and there is a strong association between saturated fats, higher LDL, and cardiovascular disease.

Egg and shellfish lovers will applaud this one, since both of these protein foods are high in cholesterol, yet low in saturated fats.

Consume less than 2,300 mg sodium per day, and less than 1,500 mg per day for certain health conditions and demographics

This recommendation does not help consumers, since they are largely unaware of sources of sodium in the diet. My clients often tell me they follow a low sodium diet because they do not use a salt shaker. Meanwhile, one ounce of deli meats contains 300 mg sodium. One can of tomato soup contains 2,000 mg sodium. Baked products are also significant sources, such as Dunkin’ Donuts low fat blueberry muffin, which has 620 mg sodium.

Americans spend more than half of their food budget on meals eaten outside of the home. A typical meal out will contain well over 5,000 mg sodium.

More useful information would be to recommend that consumers eat less processed foods, and more whole foods. More meals need to be prepared in the home.

It is impossible to stick to a therapeutic diet by regularly dining out and consuming processed foods.

Less than 10% of calories should be from saturated fats

Yes, decreasing saturated fats will help protect against cardiovascular disease, but what foods have saturated fats? Citing specific foods such as red meats would be more useful information to the public.

The original endorsement of the SAC specifically suggests limiting red meats and processed meats, and encourages a plant based diet, for both human and environmental health. The DGA lumps together animal and vegetable proteins, while not all protein sources are created equal.

Takeaway:

As expected, heavy lobbying by the sugar and beef industries have influenced, and watered down the SAC recommendations, so we are left with politics over science. The SAC were much more specific in what foods to increase, and to limit.

The public would benefit from specific food recommendations to limit, rather than nutrients to limit. For example, stressing less processed foods instead of sodium and sugar targets, and less animal proteins and more plant based proteins instead of saturated fat targets.

The next version will be released in 2020. Let’s hope each revision of will better serve the public, with less industry input.