Deceitfulness
of Government Dietary Guidelines
Our
evolutionary history designed us for life on the savannas of east
Africa...
Have you ever wondered
about dietary advice handed down by governments? Well you should! The
UK’s Foods Standards Agency from time to time issues its dietary
guidelines in the form of its “eatwell plate”.
This
dietary advice is drawn up only after negotiation with all interested
parties. They are powerful and include agro-industrialists, farmers,
food lobbies, trade associations, labor unions, politicians and
financiers.
It
is not edifying: each interest group brings the maximum of financial and
political pressure to bear. Regrettably, in the mêlée, the
scientists’ impartial advice is mostly watered down or abandoned. In
other words, the government’s dietary guidelines are not a gold
standard; on the contrary, they are a weak and deceitful compromise
between all the competing interests.
This
is a major cause for concern. In spite of their debased nature, these
recommendations are then taught to our children in schools and they are
used to design meals in hospitals, schools, prisons and retirement
homes.
Worse,
these recommendations become the dogma in which professional dieticians
and nutritionists are trained. The conventional platitudes for healthy
eating have become as sincere as a harlot’s kiss. Integrity has
abandoned the field leaving it wide open to all kinds of alternative
dietary nostrums. Most of them are questionable, some are plausible but
none of them gets to the fundamentals. They cannot, for they do not know
the truth about our human heritage.
The
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is preparing its
five-year update of its Dietary Guidelines for Americans to be published
in late 2010. The review panel is open to comment from interested
parties. This is what I submitted:
“I
study the origins of the human species and the type of feeding pattern
to which we are naturally adapted.
“We
now know that we are still living in bodies that our evolutionary
history designed at that time: our biochemistry, our digestive
arrangements and even our mentalities are designed for life back then in
the Pleistocene.
“We
now know that grass seeds (grains) – which are of the monocot group -
are not human food. They are glycemic, contain harmful antinutrients and
are poor in micronutrients.
We
know that sugar in all its forms (including “natural” honey and
maple syrup) was never a significant part of our ancestral heritage. The
rise in consumption of some 4lb per year in 1800 to over 160 lb per year
is a disaster for the health of the nation.
“We
know that milk (and dairy products in general) are only for the young of
the species - they are a biochemical and digestive disaster for adult
humans.
We know that our
biochemistries rely on a modest supply of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty
acids in balance. Our bodies do not know how to handle transfats,
hydrogenated fats and, with the exception of stearic acid, saturated
fats. A dysfunctional fatty acid profile plays havoc with our health.
“We also know that
dicot plant food which is low glycemic and rich in micronutrients
should supply some 75% of the volume of what we eat; animal
matter, with a low fat content and with the right fatty acid profile,
some 25% of volume.
“This is all
thoroughly documented in the scientific literature, and summarized in my
book Deadly Harvest.
“But get that past the
food lobbies!”
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