One of my favorite milestones has come again. The new eating guidelines were just released! Are they are better than the old ones? Well, they are but they aren’t.
There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not they are going to help people who currently don’t know how to improve their diet. What the USDA has recommended is spot on. Eat a balanced meal with a variety of foods and increase your activity level. Eat less sugar, salt and saturated fat. The unfortunate thing is it’s a high level summary and there is no obvious detail that will teach people how to follow them. I see “eat nutrient dense foods”, but what does that mean? I’m sad to say that the average American will need to do more research to decipher HOW to change their eating habits. What happened to the pictures with numbers? That was easy to follow.
What I would like to see is a max of 2 pages with pictures including a sliding scale of what meats have good versus bad fats. Then the average person could make an educated decision on how often they have fish versus beef or pork. Same goes for salt and the multiple sugar sources. A little lesson on reading food labels would be beneficial too. Then, finish off with a picture with a beautiful array of vegetables with a caption to “eat as much as of these as you want”! That would all fit on a 2 pages.
If you want to read the new guidelines for yourself go to http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/ .
Just a quick tip………to get any level of detail you will need to click on the appendices.
