Nothing Kills More Americans Than What They Eat
New Trump administration USDA guidelines are keeping in a long, depressing tradition of allowing lobbyists to dictate what we eat
Last week’s alarming (and excellent) WaPo piece by Laura Reiley — “How the Trump administration limited the scope of the USDA’s 2020 dietary guidelines” — exposes another example of its abuse of science and “truth” to boost profits for big business at the expense of everyone else. No one is surprised when Trump and cronies make things worse; but the really depressing part of this story is that misrepresenting the advice of dietary experts isn’t at all unique to this administration.
Big Food and its allies have long influenced our government’s dietary advice to expand sales and profits, and that’s compounded the public health problems that result from the typical American diet. As it happens, diet causes more deaths in America than literally anything else, and our lifespans are declining as a result.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, introduced in 1980 as the product of a special Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, are the U.S. government’s official advice on how we should eat to be healthy. Since then, they’ve been revised and re-published every five years, informed by the Dietary…
