Search results: USDA meat

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines are out.

They are now online in a version that takes up dozens of screens with annoying drop-down boxes.  It’s hard to navigate, and if it’s searchable, I can’t figure out how (OK, it’s searchable but doesn’t work all that well).

First the good news.  These Dietary Guidelines—for the first time—attempt to focus on foods and dietary patterns:

Previous editions of the Dietary Guidelines focused primarily on individual dietary components such as food groups and nutrients. However, people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern.

They almost succeed in this mission.  The Guidelines say:

• Follow a healthy eating pattern across the lifespan [Pattern].
• Focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount [Pattern].
• Limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats and reduce sodium intake [Oops: Nutrients].
• Shift to healthier food and beverage choices [Pattern].
• Support healthy eating patterns for all [Pattern].

A healthy eating pattern, they say:

• Includes foods from various groups [Pattern].
• Limits saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars, and sodium [Oops: Nutrients].

As for (Oops) Nutrients:

• Less than 10% of calories from added sugars [this is new, but consistent with many other reports such as the one from WHO]
• Less than 10% of calories from saturated fats [in the Guidelines since 1990]
• Less than 2,300 mg sodium [no change from 2010]

Why Oops?  Because these Dietary Guidelines, like all previous versions, recommend foods when they suggest “eat more.”   But they switch to nutrients whenever they suggest “eat less.”

In the 2015 Dietary Guidelines,

• Saturated fat is a euphemism for meat.
• Added sugars is a euphemism for sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Sodium is a euphemism for processed foods and junk foods.

If the Guidelines really focused on dietary patterns, they wouldn’t pussyfoot.  They would come right out and say:

• Eat less meat [OK, they do but only under the euphemism of “protein” and only for males. “Some individuals, especially teen boys and adult men, also need to reduce overall intake of protein foods (see Figure 2-3) by decreasing intakes of meats, poultry, and eggs and increasing amounts of vegetables or other underconsumed food groups.”  But what about processed meats?  Not a word that I can find.
• Cut down on sugary drinks [OK, it says “drink water instead of sugary drinks,” but good luck finding that statement without knowing where it is].
• Eat less processed and junk food.

Why don’t they?  Politics, of course.

Recall that Congress weighed in with an Appropriations Bill that called for an investigation of the scientific basis of the Guidelines and granted $1 million to the National Academy of Medicine to take them over.

Recall also that the secretaries of USDA and HHS said that the Guidelines would not say anything about sustainability as a rationale for advising eating less meat.

So let’s count the 2015 Guidelines as a win for the meat, sugary drink, processed, and junk food industries.

Other concerns, nutritional and otherwise:

• Calories: The Guidelines deemphasize calories.  They dropped the information about food sources of calories from the 2010 edition, even though calorie balance remains a—if not the—major public health nutrition problem (an Appendix gives calorie needs).
• Portion sizes: the best way to control calorie intake is by eating smaller or moderate portions. If the Guidelines talk about portion size, it must be well hidden.
• Cholesterol: the recommendation to limit cholesterol has been dropped, but the document says, confusingly, that “this change does not suggest that dietary cholesterol is no longer important to consider when building healthy eating patterns. As recommended by the IOM, individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.”  Could the dropping of the limit have anything to do with egg-industry funding of research on eggs, the largest source of dietary cholesterol, and blood cholesterol?  The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has just filed a lawsuit on that very point.
• Protein: My pet peeve.  The Guidelines use this as yet another euphemism for meat.  “Protein” lumps meat together with seafood, poultry, eggs, nuts, seeds, and soy.  But grains and dairy also have protein, so using this term makes no nutritional sense and obfuscates the message to eat less meat.
• Seafood: the document recommends 8 ounces a week of seafood high in omega-3s but low in methylmercury. That pretty much means salmon and sardines (anchovies are too salty).

I might have more to say when I can look at a document that is easier to read.

Full disclosure: I was a peer reviewer on an earlier version of this document.

Documents and commentary

• The HHS press release and the government’s digital press kit
• The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report
• USDA’s MyWins food guide
• Dietary Guidelines version of MyWins
• My Rogue Dietary Guidelines (with Tamar Haspel)
• CSPI’s press release and materials
• CSPI’s summary of the Guidelines’ major points
• The New York Times take (I’m quoted)
• Politico’s take (I’m quoted)
• Friends of the Earth (with a good summary of public input)
• Julia Belluz in Vox (comparison to Swedish guidelines)
• The official HHS version in JAMA Cardiology
• The Sugar Association’s predictable complaints
• The American Cancer Society’s complaints (no clear guidance on red and processed meats)
• The Distilled Spirits Council’s statement
• Time Magazine’s collection of reactions (including mine)
• The Washington Post on the confusion (I’m quoted)
• Food-Navigator’s take: a marketing opportunity
• The American Beverage Association’s reaction

Thanks to Helena Bottemiller Evich of Politico Pro for doing the homework on food issues covered by the omnibus spending deal just agreed to by the House.  Here’s my quick summary of her summary.

• GMO labels: the effort to preempt local and state GMO labeling initiatives failed as a result of the efforts of 30 representatives who opposed the measure.
• Country of origin labels repealed: the meat industry scores a win in the House vote to repeal the measure.
• Dietary guidelines: I discussed this one in yesterday’s post.  The House wants to block their release on the grounds that they are not sufficiently scientific (translation: the meat industry doesn’t like advice to eat less meat).
• The Clean Water Act: it survives.
• GMO salmon: it will have to be labeled.
• Food safety funding: up more than $132 million to $2.72 billion in discretionary funding. This is a big win for the FDA. It also proposes $1 billion for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, also above the president’s request.
• Trans fat ban”: delayed until FDA’s formal rules go into effect in June 2018.
• School lunch flexibility: Riders allow schools to ignore whole grain requirements and block sodium restrictions pending further research.
• Chinese chicken out of schools: Prohibits purchasing chicken that was processed in China for school meals or other federal nutrition programs.
• More kitchen equipment: Schools get another $30 million for school equipment grants.
• Horse slaughter: Banned.

Caveat: this is the House deal only.  The House has to vote on the actual bill, then the Senate.  Then the two bills need to be reconciled and the President needs to sign.  Until then, everything is up for grabs.

Let’s take a look at a rare industry-funded study with results contrary to the interests of the funders.

It addresses the question: Is naturally occurring trans fat from meat and dairy products healthier than industrially produced trans fat?

The answer: not really.

The study

Vaccenic acid and trans fatty acid isomers from partially hydrogenated oil both adversely affect LDL cholesterol: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial.  Sarah K Gebauer, Frédéric Destaillats, Fabiola Dionisi, Ronald M Krauss, and David J Baer.  Am J Clin Nutr, November 11, 2015,  doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.116129.

• Conclusions: Total cholesterol (TC), LDL cholesterol, triacylglycerol, lipoprotein(a), and apolipoprotein B were higher after VA [vaccenic acid] than after iTFA [industrial trans fatty acids]; high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and apolipoprotein AI also were higher after VA. Compared with control, VA and iTFA both increased TC, LDL cholesterol, ratio of TC to HDL cholesterol, and apolipoprotein B…VA also increased HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein AI, apolipoprotein B, and lipoprotein(a)…whereas iTFA did not. c9,t11-CLA [conjugated linoleic acid] lowered triacylglycerol…and had no effect on other lipoprotein risk factors.
• Funding:  Supported by USDA, Dairy Management Inc., Nestlé, and Dairy Australia. The funding organizations had no role in the conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Background

Everyone agrees that hydrogenated fats containing trans fatty acids (industrial trans fatty acids or iTFAs) raise the risk of LDL-cholesterol (the bad one) and, therefore, the risk of coronary artery disease.  But what about the naturally occurring trans fats that occur in meat and dairy products as a result of bacterial hydrogenation of fats in the rumens of ruminant animals (ruminant trans fatty acids or rTFAs)?

Some studies suggest that rTFAs do not raise the risk of coronary disease.  This study tests that hypothesis.  It found that the major rTFA, vaccenic acid, does indeed raise risk factors for coronary artery disease almost or more than do iTFAs.

To make sense of the study, you need to know:

• In iTFAs, the two major trans fats are elaidic acid 25%, and vaccenic acid 10%
• In rTFAs, the trans fats are vaccenic acid 45% and elaidic acid 5%
• Therefore, vaccenic acid is the major trans fat in rTFAs

What about Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA, or rumenic acid)?

The study also looked at intake of another rTFA, conjugated linoleic acid, which seems to have more benign properties but is present in such small amounts that it hardly makes a difference.  Although this study found CLA to have no effect on risk factors for coronary heart disease, a study from independently funded investigators judged it to have effects similar to that of other rTFAs.

What took so long to get this study published?

David Baer, who works for USDA, is the senior author on this paper.  I saw a slide presentation he did on this study in 2010.  Its results were already available.

In 2011, his group wrote a review of ruminant trans fats, but did not report these results (they were known, but not published).

In 2012, Dr. Baer wrote about ruminant trans fats, disclosed his dairy industry funding, but also did not report these results.  He concluded:

It is still difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the role of rTFAs in modulating risk of cardiovascular disease as mediated through changes in LDL and HDL cholesterol. Intake of these fatty acids is typically low in the diet.

I heard about this study last summer and wondered whether its funders were holding up publication.  I called Dr. Baer and asked.  He said the funders had nothing to do with the delay.  Instead, life had intervened—collaborators left, he was busy with other things, and was having trouble getting the paper published.

The bottom line

The study was done with purified vaccenic acid, not dairy fat, in amounts higher than those likely to be consumed in diets.  The authors say

Evidence…suggests that VA [vaccenic acid] consumed in amounts and foods typically found in the diet is inversely or not associated with CVD risk.

That’s one possible interpretation, but check the title of the editorial accompanying the paper: “In equal amounts, the major ruminant trans fatty acid is as bad for LDL cholesterol as industrially produced trans fatty acids, but the latter are easier to remove from foods.”

The funders of this study must be disappointed.  It was undoubtedly difficult and expensive to do, since it involved synthesis of pure vaccenic acid and a clinical trial of more than 100 subjects.

The funders must have hoped the study would show vaccenic acid to be as benign or even healthier than conjugated linoleic acid.  They bet wrong on this one.

This brings the score to 80:7 (sponsored studies with results favorable to the sponsor vs. those unfavorable).

Two events yesterday:

#1.  USDA and HHS announce that sustainability will not be part of the Dietary Guidelines.

This year, we will release the 2015 edition, and though the guidelines have yet to be finalized, we know they will be similar in many key respects to those of past years. Fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains and lean meats and other proteins, and limited amounts of saturated fats, added sugars and sodium remain the building blocks of a healthy lifestyle.

…In terms of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), we will remain within the scope of our mandate in the 1990 National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act (NNMRRA), which is to provide “nutritional and dietary information and guidelines”… “based on the preponderance of the scientific and medical knowledge.”  The final 2015 Guidelines are still being drafted, but because this is a matter of scope, we do not believe that the 2015 DGAs are the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability.

OK, but see Michele Simon’s analysis of the legal issues related to sustainability in the guidelines, and My Plate My Planet’s analysis of the comments filed on the sustainability question.

As my analysis shows, the USDA and HHS would be well within its legal authority to include sustainability. In summary:

• A plain reading of the statute does not preclude sustainability;
• The Congressional intent was to further a broad agenda on health;
• Previous DGA versions included issues beyond “nutrition and diet”.

And also see Kathleen Merrigan et al’s argument in favor of sustainable dietary guidelines in Science Magazine.

So this is about politics, not science.

#2.  A coalition of critics of the Dietary Guidelines is attempting to block their release.

Yesterday’s Hagstrom Report and, later, Politico (both behind paywalls) reported that this group is calling on  USDA and HHS to turn over the guidelines to a committee of the National Academy of Sciences Food and Nutrition Board for reexamination before releasing them to the public.

The issues?  The meat and beverage recommendations.

The group is funded by philanthropists Laura and John D. Arnold, who fund Nina Teicholz’s work.

Teicholz is on the board of the group as is Cheryl Achterberg, dean of the Ohio State University College of Education, and John Billings, who directs the Wagner School’s Health Policy and Management Program at NYU (why they agreed to do this is beyond me).

Hagstrom notes that coordinating support is coming from Beth Johnson, a former undersecretary for food safety at USDA who has her own consulting firm with clients apparently including the National Restaurant Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Other members of the advisory board include several scientists who do research funded by food companies.

The Coalition’s website is here.

This morning’s Politico Pro Agriculture has a long piece on the funding behind the coalition.

In the lead up to congressional hearings on the proposed 2015 dietary guidelines, the Arnolds are spending an initial $200,000 to communicate that critique and to advocate for changes that they say would improve the process. They have funded the new political action group, called The Nutrition Coalition, whose well-placed lobbyists have helped Teicholz score face-to-face meetings with top officials in Congress and the White House to push for an independent review of the guideline process. The team helped persuade lawmakers to insert language in the fiscal 2016 House agriculture spending bill to direct the National Academy of Medicine to conduct such a review.

Really? Eating fruits and vegetables and not overeating calories requires this level of lobbying?

This too is about politics.

The mind boggles.

Addition

The Hagstrom Report is keeping track of the testimony at today’s congressional hearing on the guidelines.

• Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
• Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell

Politico Morning Agriculture reports today on an unprecedented move by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC).  The committee sent a letter to members of Congress to protest legislative interference with its scientific process.

Recall: The DGAC’s research report alarmed meat producers when it said that sustainability needed to be considered in developing dietary guidelines.

Of course sustainability should be considered in developing dietary guidelines.  Agricultural policy needs to be linked to health policy, and it’s high time we did so.

But industry protests and letters from Congress induced USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to assure Congress that the 2015 guidelines will focus only on nutrition.

That was not enough.  Industry groups induced the House of Representatives to put this rider in the 2016 Agricultural Appropriations bill:

SEC. 734. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to release or implement the final version of the eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, revised pursuant to section 301 of the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 (7 20 U.S.C. 5341), unless the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services comply with each of the following requirements:

(1) Each revision to any nutritional or dietary information or guideline contained in the 2010 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and any new nutritional or dietary information or guideline to be included in the eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans shall be based on

(A) scientific evidence that has been rated ‘‘Grade I: Strong’’ by the grading rubric developed by the Nutrition Evidence Library of the Department of Agriculture; and

(B) shall be limited in scope to only matters of diet and nutrient intake.

Politics in action!

As I told Politico Morning Agriculture, I’ve never heard of a DGAC writing directly to Congress.  But I understand its frustration.  The committee was asked by USDA and HHS to review and consider the science of diet and health and did so. It reported what its members believe the science says. Some segments of the food industry don’t like the science so they are using the political system to fight back. The idea that some members of Congress would go along with this is shameful.

CSPI has organized a letter-writing campaign to defeat the rider and provides these tools:

• Fact Sheet
• Talking points
• Memo
• Sign on letter

Let’s keep Congress out of the dietary guidelines process.  The process may not be perfect but scientific committees do the best they can to advice the public about dietary practices that are best for health—and, at long last, the environment.

Political interference with this process is not in the best interest of public health, and should be strongly discouraged.  If you agree with this view, CSPI makes it easy for you to say so.  Sign on now.

Update, June 25: Politico Morning Agriculture reports today that the Senate bill reads: “None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be used to issue, promulgate, or otherwise implement the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans edition unless the information and guidelines in the report are solely nutritional and dietary in nature; and based only on a preponderance of nutritional and dietary scientific evidence and not extraneous information.”

The attack on Country-of-Origin-Labeling (COOL) is a good example of why international trade agreements require close scrutiny.

In my book What to Eat, I had this to say about COOL (among other things):

In 2002, Congress passed a law requiring Country of Origin Labeling (the apt acronym is COOL) that was to take effect in 2004.  Later, under pressure from the food industry, Congress postponed the deadline until the end of September 2006…In America, food industry opposition to COOL is just about universal.   The industry complains that tracking the origin of foods is difficult, but also would prefer that you not know how far food has traveled before it gets to you.   The Grocery Manufacturers of America, an especially vigilant trade advocacy group, called the 2002 bill “a nasty, snarly beast of a bill,” but even stronger opposition came from the meat industry.   Its lobbyists argued that COOL would be “extraordinarily costly with no discernible benefit,” but their real objection was that meat producers would have to track where animals and products come from—another sensible idea that they have long resisted.

Nevertheless, COOL was supposed to go into effect for meat in 2008 and finally did so in 2014.  In the meantime, Canada and Mexico went to the World Trade Organization to argue that COOL unfairly discriminated against meat produced in those countries.

The Hagstrom Report lists Canada’s threatened trade retaliation (if the U.S. keeps COOL, Canada will raise tariffs on these products).

The WTO agrees that Canada and Mexico have the right to do this.

Now the House has introduced a bill to repeal COOL.  The House Agriculture Committee voted for the repeal.

So much for consumers’ interest in knowing where foods come from.

I’ll be posting more about trade agreements this week and next.  Stay tuned.

I gave a talk last week at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska.

Before I left, Michael Moss, who wrote the New York Times investigative report about Hasting’s USDA animal research facility, mentioned the Kool-Aid museum.

The Kool-Aid museum?

As it happens, I adore museum exhibits devoted to single food items.  The Hastings Museum houses a permanent collection of Kool-Aid historical materials and artifacts.

A Hastings resident, Edwin Perkins, invented this product in 1927.

Kool-Aid, in case this isn’t on your usual shopping list, is a flavored and colored powder that comes in small packets.  You add the 4.6 gram contents—plus one full cup of sugar—to two quarts of water.

What’s in the packets?  I was given a cherry limeade flavor: contains citric acid, maltodextrin, calcium phosphate, vitamin C, natural and artificial flavor, salt, artificial color, red 40, tocopherol [a form of vitamin E], BHA, and BHT (preservatives).

The less said about nutritional value, the better.

But take a look at its corporate history:

• 1953   General Foods buys Kool-Aid
• 1985  Philip Morris buys General Foods and, therefore, Kool-Aid
• 1988  Philip Morris buys Kraft
• 1989  Philip Morris combines Kraft and General Foods to create Kraft General Foods (Kool-Aid is now owned by a cigarette company)
• 1995  Philip Morris names the combined entity Kraft Foods
• 2003  Philip Morris changes its name to Altria (Kool-Aid is still owned by a cigarette company)
• 2007  Philip Morris splits Kraft—and, therefore, Kool-Aid—off as a separate company
• 2012  Kraft splits into two companies, Kraft Foods Group (with Kool-Aid) and Mondelez International
• 2012  Kraft Foods Group cuts a deal with SodaStream International to use Kool-Aid with SodaStream devices

I loved the exhibit, even though you have to go through rooms full of guns to get to it.

The exhibit didn’t mention the Jonestown massacre, the source of the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” because Kool-Aid was not involved.