New US dietary guidelines - eat more plants, less meat

  • I've been hearing the buzz around this for the last few weeks since some beef lobbyists were trying to 'urge' against the recommendations about eating less meat and going more towards a plant based diet.

    Why eat less meat? It takes a huge environmental impact.

    Recommendations about cholesterol were altered and coffee and alcohol can be beneficial. And sugar is to be nixed.

    There are apparently 500 pages in the recommendation. This article covers some highlights
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...-side-of-bacon

    Here is the entire report
    http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/...-Committee.pdf
  • Thank you for posting this. Interesting information. Personally, I believe that moderation is the key when it comes to eating. Eating anything in excess isn't good. If you eat a wide variety of all foods, not only do you get the nutrients you need for health, but it keeps your body running the way it should.
  • Unless you can eat organic, you are eating a load of pesticides with all the vegetables and starches and no meat. You are also getting a high dose of GMOs.

    The new My Plate will be out late this year. The thing to keep in mind is that the food manufacturers have a ton of input on this stuff so they can keep on selling prepackaged foods that they try to make us think are healthy.
  • ^ I think you should also keep in mind that the animals we eat also eat vegetables that were covered in pesticides (unless you buy organic meat). And, that pesticides bioaccumulate. Meaning that once an animal ingests those pesticides and then another animal ingests that animal, the levels of toxins in the body is much higher than if the animal had just eaten the original vegetable.

    I'm also not sure what you mean by a "high dose of GMOs". You say that as if GMO is some bacteria or disease you can ingest, which is not the case. I'm not advocating for Monsanto, as I think their use of GMOs is morally atrocious, but in many cases GMOs are hugely important for keeping the world from going hungry by increasing the amount of food that comes from one plant. There's still a lot to learn about the potential negative affects to the body, but I personally haven't read any hard science on why I need to avoid it completely. I do try to, and it's as easy as avoiding certain vegetables (corn, soy) or choosing organic.

    Anyway, it's too much to explain here but my point is scaring people away from eating vegetables had a far greater consequence than you may be aware and I think your explanation was overly simplistic. I would encourage everyone who is interested to really do their research.

    The best thing I can guide anyone to is the Environmental Working Groups Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 list. Basically it's a list of fruits and veggies you should always try to buy organic because otherwise they carry dangerous amounts of pesticides. And the Clean 15 list is fruits and veggies you can safely buy non-organic because they don't tend to hold onto pesticides. (My only personal qualm with this is it ignores the effect of pesticides on the environment and farm workers, buts it's an excellent guide for personal health)
  • Yeah, the GMOs (soy and corn at least) are primarily grown for animal feed. Although GMOs haven't been proven harmful in any way, they are needed at this time to support the amount of animals that are raised. If we eat less animals, then the less GMOs will be grown.

    Also, organics also use pesticides as well, just different kinds.