The Crusade Continues
By Dan Murphy, Contributing Editor
USDA's "new" Dietary Guidelines for Americans were recently released, and most Americans greeted the news about as enthusiastically as they did President Clinton's State of the Union address. Over the long run, both messages will have about the same impact on our collective lifestyles.
Zip.
Fact is, for all its good intentions, the Dietary Guidelines have a serious public relations problem. Other than the fact that none of us particularly likes being told what to eat, I believe the problem is that like Clinton's admonishment to "spend more time with our families," the guidelines paint a pretty picture that unfortunately doesn't account for reality.
Speaking of pretty pictures, have you ever really examined USDA's Food Guide Pyramid? For those unfamiliar with this wonder of the nutritional world, you should "Get to know the Food Pyramid!" as the American Dietetic Association exhorts. As a piece of visual art, the pyramid won't be winning any graphic design awards, but as a lever with which to jack up the value of the fruit and vegetable kingdom, it's the department's most powerful tool.
Let's look at how this bias toward our little green and red friends affects the credibility of these latest guidelines:
-- Upwardly mobile fruits. In 1990, the last time the guidelines were revised, consumers had to read down to goal No. 4 to get the "eat-your-fruits-and-vegetables" message. The 1995 version bumps that admonition up to No. 3. Who says fruits and veggies can't climb the food chain, huh?
Even worse, in USDA's make-believe world, the suggested daily intake of vegetables and fruits on an "average" 2,000-calorie diet should be from five to nine servings. Conversely, the meat group, a crowded house that also includes poultry, eggs, fish, beans and nuts, checks in at a skimpy two to three servings a day.
Based on the accepted 3-ounce serving size, your total meat intake for an entire day would be something like this: A slice of lunch meat and one meatball. Hey, enjoy.
-- Snacks' disappearing act. Now, we all know that too many Americans are eating too much fat, much of it in the form of fattier meats. Let's face it, when those fat-free meat products hit the shelves, the fat that's trimmed away has to end up somewhere.
But the real problem with our national fat intake is the over-consumption of vegetable oils, mainly in the form of all those chips, snacks, crackers and cookies that somehow seem to have taken over three or four complete aisles in the supermarket. Think about it.
Nowhere on USDA's pyramid does the word "snack" appear. Heck, even Clinton can't make it through a speech without at least mentioning the word "tax."
But not USDA. To the dietary wizards in Washington, all that packaged junk we wolf down by the truckload somehow gets sanitized as part of the "bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group."
In fact, extensive dietary surveys conducted by the National Live Stock and Meat Board in both 1990 and 1993 show that foods from the meat group actually account for slightly less than 40 percent of Americans' total fat intake. The other 60-plus percent is coming from the processed foods that typically deliver nothing more than a load of fat and calories.
-- Green light for veggies. USDA's two thumbs up for vegetarian diets. Of course, it is possible to stay perfectly healthy on a vegetarian diet. And it is possible to handle all your own auto repairs by yourself. It's just that both operations require a knowledge most people simply don't have.
At their self-congratulatory news conference, USDA Secretary Dan Glickman and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala enthused about the need to "eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and grains."
Wonderful. But the report itself acknowledges that "true" vegetarians, of which there are about as many alive in the United States as there are liberal Democrats in Washington, need to be certain they "take care to get adequate zinc, iron, and B vitamins."
H-m-m-m. What were those nutrients in red meat again?
The point is, the Dietary Guidelines are powered by politics, not nutrition. USDA is living in a food fantasy land. And that shouldn't come as a shock to the industry-but rather a spur to continue its efforts to educate consumers about the real value of meat.
Let's just make sure that campaign accomplishes something more substantive than the upcoming presidential parade in which many of us will be less-than-willing participants.