000605 Group Calls New U.S. Diet Guidelines Unhealthy

Washington - Saying that new national guidelines on what Americans eat do too little to discourage gobbling down fatty meat and dairy products, a vegetarian group said Tuesday it was filing a petition against them.

The guidelines, issued Saturday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), emphasized for the first time the importance of exercise and suggested that people moderate the amount of sugar, fat, salt, alcohol and cholesterol they eat.

But the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit group that advocates a vegetarian diet, said the guidelines did not go far enough.

“Americans are in the worst shape they've ever been, with obesity at an all- time high,” Dr. Neal Barnard, president of PCRM, said in a statement.

“The government should be pushing for a diet built from grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes, and keep meat and dairy products no more than mere options.”

The group said it had filed a petition to HHS and the USDA asking for the guidelines to be withdrawn and redrafted. It also issued its own alternative guidelines.

“On the advisory committee that pulled this together, 6 of the 11 members had industry connections, which led us to sue the committee,” Barnard said in a telephone interview.

That suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, has yet to be heard. The PCRM unsuccessfully tried to get the court to issue a restraining order against the guidelines in January after it saw a draft copy of the guidelines.

Previous guidelines, which are issued every five years, had included a paragraph saying that a vegetarian diet was healthy. Barnard said they had shortened this reference in the latest guidelines to a single line.

“The guidelines are supposed to be revised only if there is a scientific foundation for the change,” Barnard said. “There was no scientific foundation for deleting all that text. We said put it back in.”

But what the group most objects to is the “food pyramid”, which recommends eating 2-3 servings of food a day from the dairy group, and 2-3 a day from the meat group, which includes beans. Barnard said for most Americans, this was a license to stuff themselves with cheese, burgers and other fatty food.

“I don't think America is going to conquer its obesity epidemic until it confronts the love affair it has with meat and dairy and fried foods,” he said. Currently, 55% of Americans are overweight and between 18 and 25% are obese, depending on who is doing the estimating.

Barnard said the draft guidelines were not all bad, but said they got changed in what he believes was last-minute lobbying by industry.

“They say base your diet on whole grains and vegetables and that's good, but that has been said since 1991 when the pyramid came out,” he said.

“To their credit, the committee did put soy in the dairy group. But USDA took it out and put it into a small footnote. There is really no reason why a person should favor cow's milk or goat's milk over soy milk or rice milk -- no health reason whatsoever, “ he added.

“I think it's entirely because of special interests. Who do they beat up on? Salt. There just isn't a very big salt lobby, but there is a very, very big dairy lobby, a big meat lobby and a big sugar lobby. They clearly are having the day.”

PCRM's alternative guidelines:

-- Choose whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes to meet nutrient needs

-- Avoid animal fats and hydrogenated oils (solid shortenings)

-- Choose and prepare foods with little or no added sugar

-- Choose and prepare foods with little or no added salt

-- If you drink alcoholic beverages, use should generally be less than one drink per day for women and less than two drinks per day for men.

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