RFK Jr. says new nutrition advice is a historic reset. We fact-checked his claims—and found a steak-sized contradiction at the heart of MAHA's dietary overhaul.
The new guidelines engender a personal phenomenon I am struggling with in this administration. I find it necessary to bring a healthy level of skepticism to anything produced from this administration, including sources I previously trusted without much question, such as the CDC. The skepticism and the checking are exhausting and time consuming. I then find that I land somewhere that I am recognizing nuggets of “good” information / recommendations / etc., while dismissing some I deem unscientific or non-evidence based. And then I wonder if I am cherry picking myself to support my current world view?!
These guidelines are no different. I eat meat very rarely for health and environmental reasons, so I am dismissive of the renewed focus on meat-based protein because I feel like the science does not support it. I have tried with only modest success to limit my son’s added sugar consumption, so I pplaud the outright focus on that, even with unrealistic guidelines for children. So….I guess I will follow these guidelines to the extent they match what I’m already doing, because I have attempted to model my behavior on past science and evidence?! Or am I just hearing what I want to hear?!?! 🤪
I think I will put off having a steak till after my blood work on Monday. (I had finally gotten used to red meat about once a month.) How appropriate that that quack Kennedy's phone rang during the news conference and the ring was a quacking duck. I am a bit surprised that bear wasn't at the top of his food pyramid. Thanks for reading all this and deciphering their gobbledygook for us.
I wish I had thought to make the bear joke in the story! Not serving steak at our get together. Just booze -- for which there are no official recs anymore. ;)
You are a champ, Jane, for sifting through this steaming pile of... ground beef. It is not news that this regime hates science, but this really puts it into sharp relief. The one thing that jumps out at me that you didn't stress is the special emphasis on foods that have damaging environmental effects. Animal protein, especially beef and bovine dairy, are at the top of the list of foods that we need to reduce in order to try to mitigate the climate catastrophe. So not only is medical science dissed, we get to piss on climate science at the same time. Yay. Of course there are some good things in there—I don't think any sensible person would argue against emphasizing whole foods—but so much bad advice is woven in with it that it just confuses everything. I have to acknowledge the bright spot that olive oil (not mentioned as olive oil in the summary, only as "olives" but illustrated with a cruet so that works) does show up. That's great, and it's something that folks in nutrition are no doubt as happy as I am to see. I just hope people know to pour it over beans, bulgar and veg more often than steak. I'll keep an eye out for the headline "RFK Jr nominates American public for Darwin Awards." (Tip: it's a good time to invest in a cardiac care unit.)
TOTALLY agree. It's a mess. But in a world where Trump just pulled out of the international agreement on climate change it seems hard to imagine that anyone would give a second thought to the environmental implications of what we eat. Real men, after all, eat steak.
It will be interesting to see how this lands. I will continue to laud the value of extra virgin olive oil as the delicious healthy fat that is easy on the planet and see how that goes!
RFk jr is an embarassment and would be best traveling with a medicine side show, selling snake oil bottles of dr. good.
I like ribeye, have since I was able to chew one. Recently I found a ranch that provides hormone free and antibiotic free beef. I don''t over do it, but sure, when I walk by cows, my fame has them stampede away. \
Choose your protein wisely, don't eat the fat, trim it off or grill it off. Watch out for the no meat that looks like meat, the additives and stuff it is made of are not healthy, but since the company says it is, and your neighbors, son-in - law twice removed, married to your 4th cousin on the cat's side says it is good for you because they saw an ad on facebook.
Fruits, veggies, good protein. count your carbs, protein and fiber, get one of those apps like MyNetDiary -the free one, will do just that for you. And research what is the best values for your body type.
I have to admit, I am an unabashed carnivore. Most of my dietary protein comes from animal sources. So, the new guidelines 'fit' my current dietary journey. Mostly. I applaud the focus on highly, or ultra, processed food (although, without a definition of what ultra-processed means, this may be a case of cart before the horse thinking). I also applaud the focus on reducing refined sugar consumption. This is long overdue. I am hopeful that the guidelines - coupled with the U.S. Federal Govt's purchasing power for a variety of food programmes - will send the right market signals to the food processing industry to begin reformulation of their products, as well as stimulating the production of greater amounts of real, whole food that is affordable for most consumers. In Canada, front-of-package labelling (indicating whether the product has high levels of salt, sugar or fat) came into force on January 1. This has incited some action by some food processors to reformulate their offerings so that these labels do not appear on their products, which is an encouraging outcome. Moving the needle on processed food is tough, given how powerful food companies are. Anything, frankly, that encourages reformulation and healthier choices, is welcome.
Apropos of nothing do you know this company called Allo Simone that is based in Montreal? They make the most amazing low sugar hazelnut chocolate spreads. I can’t get them here because the shipping is double with the product actually costs but if you happen to like the flavors in Nutella you will adore this.
I know it well. No palm oil either! We actually made our own spread over Christmas, just to try that out. Worked out pretty well. Trying to not eat it as we come off Christmas; too much darn sugar in a lot of stuff leading up to, and during, the holidays.
I somehow had missed that Canada implemented the FOP labeling. I wonder if it will work -- both in terms of reformulation and in terms of steering people away from highly salty and sugary foods. Have you seen anything that wowed you?
As for animal protein, it is clear that at a population level for heath and environment plant proteins are key and I think the wording in the DG treats them as a nice to have, rather than as a central piece of a healthy diet. I think what MAHA has going for it with this advice is that lots of people, like you, are happy carnivores and this tells them what they want to hear. Giving the people what they want is good politics, not necessarily good nutrition advice!
On the issue of FOP labelling, nothing of a ‘wow’ nature yet, except for two major producers in Quebec furiously reformulating their product line. Hopefully others will follow.
bravo on the cake (and the post as well) - i hope it tasted as good as imagined it would
The new guidelines engender a personal phenomenon I am struggling with in this administration. I find it necessary to bring a healthy level of skepticism to anything produced from this administration, including sources I previously trusted without much question, such as the CDC. The skepticism and the checking are exhausting and time consuming. I then find that I land somewhere that I am recognizing nuggets of “good” information / recommendations / etc., while dismissing some I deem unscientific or non-evidence based. And then I wonder if I am cherry picking myself to support my current world view?!
These guidelines are no different. I eat meat very rarely for health and environmental reasons, so I am dismissive of the renewed focus on meat-based protein because I feel like the science does not support it. I have tried with only modest success to limit my son’s added sugar consumption, so I pplaud the outright focus on that, even with unrealistic guidelines for children. So….I guess I will follow these guidelines to the extent they match what I’m already doing, because I have attempted to model my behavior on past science and evidence?! Or am I just hearing what I want to hear?!?! 🤪
I think I will put off having a steak till after my blood work on Monday. (I had finally gotten used to red meat about once a month.) How appropriate that that quack Kennedy's phone rang during the news conference and the ring was a quacking duck. I am a bit surprised that bear wasn't at the top of his food pyramid. Thanks for reading all this and deciphering their gobbledygook for us.
I wish I had thought to make the bear joke in the story! Not serving steak at our get together. Just booze -- for which there are no official recs anymore. ;)
You are a champ, Jane, for sifting through this steaming pile of... ground beef. It is not news that this regime hates science, but this really puts it into sharp relief. The one thing that jumps out at me that you didn't stress is the special emphasis on foods that have damaging environmental effects. Animal protein, especially beef and bovine dairy, are at the top of the list of foods that we need to reduce in order to try to mitigate the climate catastrophe. So not only is medical science dissed, we get to piss on climate science at the same time. Yay. Of course there are some good things in there—I don't think any sensible person would argue against emphasizing whole foods—but so much bad advice is woven in with it that it just confuses everything. I have to acknowledge the bright spot that olive oil (not mentioned as olive oil in the summary, only as "olives" but illustrated with a cruet so that works) does show up. That's great, and it's something that folks in nutrition are no doubt as happy as I am to see. I just hope people know to pour it over beans, bulgar and veg more often than steak. I'll keep an eye out for the headline "RFK Jr nominates American public for Darwin Awards." (Tip: it's a good time to invest in a cardiac care unit.)
TOTALLY agree. It's a mess. But in a world where Trump just pulled out of the international agreement on climate change it seems hard to imagine that anyone would give a second thought to the environmental implications of what we eat. Real men, after all, eat steak.
It will be interesting to see how this lands. I will continue to laud the value of extra virgin olive oil as the delicious healthy fat that is easy on the planet and see how that goes!
RFk jr is an embarassment and would be best traveling with a medicine side show, selling snake oil bottles of dr. good.
I like ribeye, have since I was able to chew one. Recently I found a ranch that provides hormone free and antibiotic free beef. I don''t over do it, but sure, when I walk by cows, my fame has them stampede away. \
Choose your protein wisely, don't eat the fat, trim it off or grill it off. Watch out for the no meat that looks like meat, the additives and stuff it is made of are not healthy, but since the company says it is, and your neighbors, son-in - law twice removed, married to your 4th cousin on the cat's side says it is good for you because they saw an ad on facebook.
Fruits, veggies, good protein. count your carbs, protein and fiber, get one of those apps like MyNetDiary -the free one, will do just that for you. And research what is the best values for your body type.
I have to admit, I am an unabashed carnivore. Most of my dietary protein comes from animal sources. So, the new guidelines 'fit' my current dietary journey. Mostly. I applaud the focus on highly, or ultra, processed food (although, without a definition of what ultra-processed means, this may be a case of cart before the horse thinking). I also applaud the focus on reducing refined sugar consumption. This is long overdue. I am hopeful that the guidelines - coupled with the U.S. Federal Govt's purchasing power for a variety of food programmes - will send the right market signals to the food processing industry to begin reformulation of their products, as well as stimulating the production of greater amounts of real, whole food that is affordable for most consumers. In Canada, front-of-package labelling (indicating whether the product has high levels of salt, sugar or fat) came into force on January 1. This has incited some action by some food processors to reformulate their offerings so that these labels do not appear on their products, which is an encouraging outcome. Moving the needle on processed food is tough, given how powerful food companies are. Anything, frankly, that encourages reformulation and healthier choices, is welcome.
Apropos of nothing do you know this company called Allo Simone that is based in Montreal? They make the most amazing low sugar hazelnut chocolate spreads. I can’t get them here because the shipping is double with the product actually costs but if you happen to like the flavors in Nutella you will adore this.
I know it well. No palm oil either! We actually made our own spread over Christmas, just to try that out. Worked out pretty well. Trying to not eat it as we come off Christmas; too much darn sugar in a lot of stuff leading up to, and during, the holidays.
I somehow had missed that Canada implemented the FOP labeling. I wonder if it will work -- both in terms of reformulation and in terms of steering people away from highly salty and sugary foods. Have you seen anything that wowed you?
As for animal protein, it is clear that at a population level for heath and environment plant proteins are key and I think the wording in the DG treats them as a nice to have, rather than as a central piece of a healthy diet. I think what MAHA has going for it with this advice is that lots of people, like you, are happy carnivores and this tells them what they want to hear. Giving the people what they want is good politics, not necessarily good nutrition advice!
On the issue of FOP labelling, nothing of a ‘wow’ nature yet, except for two major producers in Quebec furiously reformulating their product line. Hopefully others will follow.