Don't follow the USDA's Dietary Guidelines.

Sometimes mothers are rule followers. But sometimes we are not. Why follow guidelines that don't work for most people? Guidelines that many scientists think are causing obesity and illness? Take back your plate. Give your children a better chance at a future without metabolic syndrome and weight issues. Return to vintage eating. Just eat the butter.

Early this year, the USDA reversed itself on the subject of dietary cholesterol. It softened the decades-long recommendation to sharply limit cholesterol -- a recommendation that caused Americans to reduce consumption of  a real food like eggs, which are high in cholesterol. Why the change? Because experts have known for decades that the cholesterol that you eat doesn't meaningfully affect your blood cholesterol. So why was it limited before? Who knows? 

The USDA has been wrong before. Does anyone remember the 'heart healthy' margarine ads from the 70's and 80's? In those ads, produced by Parkay, Promise, Imperial, Fleishman's, and Mazola margarine, among others, trans-fat-filled products were sold to the American people as 'heart healthy.' We now know that trans-fats actually contribute to heart disease, and the USDA's recommendations that allowed margarine to be sold as 'heart healthy' brought millions to an earlier grave from heart disease. So why believe the USDA now, when modern science does not back up its claims? And, if you haven't looked around lately, our health outcomes certainly do not support the notion that low-fat eating is healthy.

Here is a story worth thinking about. In 1957, a doctor named Alice Stewart published a peer-reviewed paper demonstrating a strong statistical link between the practice of taking x-rays of pregnant women and the development of childhood cancer in the children who had been x-rayed in utero. Unfortunately, it took the American and British Medical establishments 25 years to abolish the practice of routinely x-raying pregnant women. Why? Because change is hard for bureaucracies. And, because people were excited about x-ray machines. And because of professional inertia. And, I hate to say this, but doctors don't like to admit mistakes and egos (gasp!) are involved.  Watch Margaret Heffernan, organizational change expert, tell this story on the TED stage.

It is hard to believe that 40 years of dietary advice to avoid saturated fat was mistaken, but to ignore this possibility is a missed opportunity.

What is new in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines?  

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans were issued January 7, 2016. A little late, yes, as their typically uneventful redrafting was unusually controversial this time around. What ensued:

• A very public thrashing of the Dietary Guidelines (and the process by which they are crafted) has ensued in prestigious medical journals such as of the Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine.
• As a result, the House Full Committee on Agriculture held public hearings on October 7th, 2015 to take up the controversial 2015 Dietary Guidelines.
• Congress weighed in this December, requiring the USDA to hire the National Academy of Medicine to review the Dietary Guidelines, stating “The entire process used to formulate and establish the guidelines needs to be reviewed before future guidelines are issued.”

Going back to vintage eating, the way we ate before there were national dietary guidelines, is a potential path back to vibrant health.

Policy is not science.

There was never anything close to consensus regarding the recommendation to adopt a low-fat diet. Even back in the 60's, when these dietary guidelines were taking shape, many doctors and nutrition experts believed refined carbohydrates were the dangerous nutrient. Even more believed that there was just not enough real evidence for the government to make any sort of recommendation. But the policy was made and our diets changed. And people got fatter and sicker. Now is the time to change our diets back to vintage ways. Real food and more fat is a path that worked 50 years ago and might work for you and your family right now. Try it. Here are some options.