The Truth About The Dietary Guidelines 2020
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is a set of evidence-based recommendations intended to help people choose an overall healthy diet.
These guidelines that are created every 5 years are NOT a one man process though.
There’s a governmental committee involved and expert advisors – that together create a distinct message to the public. In 5 highly exclusive brainstorm meetings.
The second meeting for the dietary guidelines is done. In that meeting, 70 of those advisors, could each make a 3-minute talk to the government officials.
For the first time in history this got streamed live and published to the public.
Streaming this meeting online is a huge step in transparency and creating better food guidelines for 2020.
But why are the guidelines important in the first place? Good question mate, good question.
The Surgeon General Report, the first official document on smoking, created a massive change in smoking habits. The same could happen for the consumption of animal foods.
Also China is using the dietary guidelines to reduce meat consumption by 2030 by 50%. This is massive as China will be the biggest meat consumer in the future, if we don’t change something.
Needless to say the dietary guidelines are drastically important in influencing the dietary choices of the general public.
Today you’ll learn how high the chances are that the guidelines will be plant-based a year from now and why it’s a very tough decision to make for the government.
To save you time watching the full video of the event which takes more than 4 hours. Let’s take a look at the data professionally compiled by QualityGains of the 70 speakers.
1. A third of the speakers were plant-based
Every third advisor emphasized the importance of a plant-based diet with a special focus on banishing dairy.
13% of the speakers where low carbers.
About 5% talked about the importance of the food choices regarding the climate.
2 people were pro meat, 2 people were pro dairy and 2 were pro egg. Ironically, all were funded by the industry. In total I would say about 30% of the total speakers were from the industry.
And fun fact: 0 people emphasized a carnivore diet.
While it does take 5 meetings and 2 oral comments from advisors the chances are pretty high, from the data alone, that we will experience a change in favor of the plant-based diet.
There’s just one problem:
2. A conflict of interest.
There’s the meat, dairy industry which are billion dollar companies. There are also the industries handling potatoes, mushrooms, nuts, restaurants, juices, soyfoods and even dentist associations.
And there are insurance companies, doctors and even the government which naturally have a big interest in keeping the health of the public.
Wait why is the government interested in our health? Because the living people are the ones that pay the taxes.
On the other hand, I guess the USDA receives industry grants, there is lobbying and our country is dependend on the workplaces which the big animal manufacturers produce. Tyson Foods alone, a meat manufacturer, employes more than 100’000 people.
The meat industry is worth a trillion dollars.
3. The future of the dietary guidelines
The streaming of this video meeting shows us, that the future of the dietary guidelines will be more transparent and objective. But we shouldn’t hope or even count on big steps from our government regarding nutrition.
I think the dietary guidelines of 2020 will realistically move into a plant based direction, but not extremely. It will go close to that of Harvard, which replace dairy with water, or the guidelines of Canada which don’t talk about dairy or meat at all.
But see, I think this is not what we need.
Regarding nutrition we’re facing a chicken and the egg problem. On one hand our government doesn’t want to make a big announcement regarding plant-based diet, in fear of the industry repercussions. The committee also fears that quote on quote extreme advice will not be practicable for the general population.
On the other hand if we don’t make the change now, we will probably never make it.
I mean the public. We, the people, are looking for this clear and distinct guiding light.
And if we aren’t motivated enough to change the dietary guidelines for the animals or the planet, at least the children of this nation should be considered, which too often are doomed to consume carcinogens served in school lunches on a daily basis.
Conclusion – The Truth About The Dietary Guidelines 2020
There’s one solution to this chicken and the egg problem.
I think at this point in time we need a John F. Kennedy, a visionary, a person that declares the public vision of going to the moon without knowing all the necessary steps involved.
While a third of the speakers were encouraging plant-based diets, there are still conflicts of interest involved.
Yet I think we need to have a government courageous enough to announce the journey to the plant-based moon in 2020.