Cholesterol, Fat & Salt Making Comeback, But Eating Right At Core Of New Dietary Guidelines
Dietary advice can be confusing. Is it OK to eat meat and eggs? Is fat in or out? What about grains? How much salt? (Photo: Getty Images)
An advisory committee’s recommendations for the nation’s dietary patterns are due soon, and some advice may be changing. The committee is expected to downplay the importance of lowering cholesterol intake and may put less emphasis on eating lean meats. The panel could also tweak its recommendations on exactly how much salt is too much and put limits on sugar consumption for the first time.
Still, despite some revisions, the main advice never changes: eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and eat less saturated fats, salt and sugar.
The Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments will use the advisory committee’s report to write the final version of the 2015 dietary guidelines, due by the end of this year.
A look at the upcoming dietary guidelines, and what they mean for consumers:
WHY THEY’RE IMPORTANT
The dietary guidelines are issued every five years. The federal government uses them to set standards for school lunches and other federal feeding programs, and they serve as the basis for information on the nutrition facts panel on the backs of food packages.
They’re also used to create the government’s “My Plate” icon, which replaced the food pyramid and recommends a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and low-fat dairy.
Doctors and nutritionists use the guidelines when giving advice, and food companies use them to make claims about their food.
EVOLVING WITH SCIENCE
The guidelines evolve as science evolves. Take cholesterol.
In December, the advisory panel said in its preliminary recommendations that cholesterol is no longer “considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” That would be a change from previous guidelines, which said Americans eat too much cholesterol. This follows increasing medical research showing how much cholesterol is in your bloodstream is more complicated than once thought, and depends more on the kinds of fats that you eat. Medical groups have moved away from specific targets for cholesterol in the diet in recent years.
It’s unclear if the recommendation will make it into the final guidelines. Dr. Robert Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver who is a past president of the American Heart Association, says there’s not enough evidence to make good recommendations on cholesterol right now, but “no evidence doesn’t mean the evidence is no.”
People can enjoy high-cholesterol egg yolks in moderation, he advises, but “a three- to four-egg omelet isn’t something I’d ever recommend to a patient at risk for cardiovascular disease,” he says.
Watch Yahoo News’ Bianna Golodryga talk cholesterol with Nina Teicholz, author of ‘The Big Fat Surprise’:
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