2010 Dietary Guidelines More Anti-Fat, Pro-Carbohydrate Than Ever Before!
Filed under: Health — @ June 15, 2010
It’s the day we’ve been waiting for ever since the now-infamous 13-member advisory committee of national nutrition and health experts convened on Washington, DC to put together what would become The Dietary Guidelines for American, 2010 Edition. When Dr. Brian Wansink was appointed by former President George W. Bush to serve as the United States Department of Agriculture’s Director of Nutrition Policy and Promotion in December 2007, many people believed real change was going to happen with the newly-updated nutritional recommendations. Unfortunately, as we learned in my August 2009 podcast interview with Dr. Wansink, his role in this process was mostly ceremonial and the chosen “experts” were pretty much dictated to him by the heads of the government agencies–namely the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health & Human Services (currently those roles are filled by Tom Vilsack and Kathleen Sebelius respectively in the Obama administration). When Bush left office in January 2009, Dr. Wansink’s position and nominal influence went away and now he’s back at Cornell University continuing his work on the “mindless eating” concept.
In the meantime, the committee has met for a total of six times, the final two times in April and again in May 2010. Despite calling for highly-qualified nominees two years ago to serve on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and the names of several prominent low-carb researchers and practitioners were submitted for consideration, there wasn’t even a single name submitted even considered to serve on this important panel. No Dr. Jeff Volek from the University of Connecticut who is arguably the most knowledgeable expert on saturated fat today. No Dr. Richard Feinman from SUNY Downstate who can articulate the biochemical pathway of carbohydrates with the best of them. No Dr. Mary C. Vernon a practitioner who uses carbohydrate-restriction in Lawrence, Kansas and has witnessed some truly extraordinary improvements in her diabetic and obese patients through the use of simple yet effective changes in their diet. All were blacklisted for whatever the reason and their voice of sanity on this prestigious and influential panel of diet and health experts was never even given a fair chance to be heard during these proceedings.
I offered up some daring ideas about who we can influence the panel with the low-carb science last year, but the panel has been too busy dancing all around the issue while completely ignoring the low-carb elephant in the room. Looking forward, we definitely need an all-inclusive commission that looks at ALL of the scientific evidence rather than cherry-picking the ones that match some pre-determined agenda. That certainly seems to be what has happened in the case of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines now available for the world to see for themselves and allegedly debate.
Click here to see what some of the key recommendations they are making and why they are a great concern for people who care about their weight and health.
