2015 Dietary Guidelines

Dietary Guidelines

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages individuals to eat a healthful diet — one that focuses on foods and beverages that help achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent chronic disease. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) jointly publish the Dietary Guidelines every 5 years. Learn more:

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Committee) submitted the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Advisory Report) to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in February 2015. The purpose of the Advisory Report is to inform the Federal government of current scientific evidence on topics related to diet, nutrition, and health. It provides the Federal government with a foundation for developing national nutrition policy. However, the Advisory Report is not the Dietary Guidelines for Americans policy or a draft of the policy. The Federal government will determine how it will use the information in the Advisory Report as the government develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. HHS and USDA will jointly release the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015 later this year.

Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

Each section of the Advisory Report below links to text for that section. A printable PDF is also provided. The PDF provides page and line numbers that the public can use when submitting written comments.

Download PDF – 11.3MB

Letter to the Secretaries[Download as a PDF – 422KB]

Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Membership[Download as a PDF – 114KB]

Part A: Executive Summary[Download as a PDF – 283KB]

Part B: Setting the Stage and Integrating the Evidence

Part C: Methodology[Download as a PDF – 143KB]

Part D: Science Base

Population with Diagnosed Diabetes

 

Age-Adjusted Rate per 100 of Civilian, Noninstitutionalized

 

The data show that blacks are disproportionately affected by diabetes. From 1980 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence of diagnosed diabetes increased among all sex-race groups examined. From 1980 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence of diagnosed diabetes was higher among blacks than whites, and highest in general among black females. During this time period, the age-adjusted prevalence increased 160% (from 2.5% to 6.5%) among white males, 108% (from 2.6% to 5.4%) among white females, 148% (from 4.0% to 9.9%) among black males, and 84% (from 4.9% to 9.0%) among black females. Among Asians, from 1997 through 2011, the age-adjusted prevalence increased 81% (from 4.3% to 7.8%) among males and 49% (from 3.7% to 5.5%) among females.

 

UCS dietary recommendations

the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) shows that finding innovative ways to help Americans increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables would greatly benefit our health and our national economy.

More than 127,000 deaths per year from cardiovascular diseases could be prevented, and $17 billion in annual national medical costs could be saved, if Americans increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables
to meet dietary recommendations.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), formerly the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), is a United States government agency that investigates complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) healing practices in the context of rigorous scientific methodology, in training complementary and alternative medicine researchers, and in disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals.

The NCCAM is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Department of Health and Human Services of the federal government of the United States. The NIH is one of eight agencies under the Public Health Service (PHS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

The forms of medical systems covered include:[4]

External links

 

Pudding

Pudding most often refers to a dessert, but it can also be a savory dish. In the United States, pudding characteristically denotes a sweet milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, though it may also refer to other types such as bread and rice pudding.
In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, pudding refers to rich, fairly homogeneous starch- or dairy-based desserts such as rice pudding and Christmas pudding, or, informally, any sweet dish after the main course. The word pudding in this context is also used as a synonym for the dessert course. The word is also used for savory dishes such as Yorkshire pudding, black pudding, suet pudding and steak and kidney pudding.
The word pudding is believed to come from the French boudin, originally from the Latin botellus, meaning “small sausage,” referring to encased meats used in Medieval European puddings.

What has your food been eating?

What has your food been eating?

Laurent Adamowicz at TEDxBeaconStreet

Published on Mar 18, 2013
Having seen the very best, the worst, and the ugliest of the food industry, Laurent Adamowicz gives a poignant account of how our food system has dramatically changed over the last two decades. Could the obesity epidemic be directly linked to what our food has been eating?

Senior Fellow 2011 in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University, Laurent Adamowicz is a former food industry executive and serial entrepreneur. He is the founder & CEO of Bon’App, a simple nutrition guidance mobile application that tells you what’s in your food.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Sugar

we need sugar to live, it is responsible for a lot of the energy our body produces.

It’s a matter of how much activity from different sorts of taste buds the brain labels as a good thing.

When our taste buds developed, some way back in our evolutionary history, there would not have been any problems with obesity, acquired diabetes, etc. Sweetness in nature means sugar (fructose, glucose, sucrose), sugar means ready-to-use energy, which is pretty much always good. If you are choosing between two types of plant to eat, going for the sugary one is a big advantage.

People do seek out salty foods (in the West, everyone eats more than is recommended as it’s added to everything for taste). Salt (sodium chloride) is a very useful chemical as sodium ions are crucial in making nerves work. People don’t enjoy eating pure salt presumably because although eg heart disease might not have been a problem for our ancestors, it’s not that hard to kill yourself immediately with salt if you don’t know when to stop – especially if you live near the sea.

Bitterness mostly acts as a warning sign for decomposition and the presence of toxins in food. Humans have adapted to be able to enjoy a certain amount, but it’s usually a reason to be suspicious of a food. I’ve heard children are hypersensitive to bitterness, perhaps because it’s best for them to be extra wary of things which might be toxic, and this is why they are so suspicious of vegetables, never mind coffee.

‘Umami’ is supposed to help you with your protein needs, obviously.

Texture is also important of course, which helps us seek out fatty foods. (Fat, like sugar, was good news as an energy source.) Even if your nose and taste buds stopped working completely, you might still not be that keen on mud.

I don’t know about ‘tastes’ that aren’t in taste buds (ie those more closely connected to smell). It may be that we have a whole range of indicators for freshness/nutrition/edibility and that these various smells/flavours set them off.

Humans are particularly good at enjoying a range of tastes though – chilli and mint probably evolved their temperature-related flavours to put animals off eating them.


Uploaded on Jul 30, 2009
Watch “The Skinny on Obesity” with Dr. Lustig: http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]More UCTV videos about sugar: http://www.uctv.tv/sugar
Dr. Lustig’s book (comes out Dec 27, 2012), “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease”: http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beat…

Published on Oct 18, 2013
(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Dr. Robert Lustig, UCSF Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, updates his very popular video “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” He argues that sugar and processed foods are driving the obesity epidemic, which in turn affects our endocrine system. Series: “UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine presents Mini Medical School for the Public” [10/2013] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 25641]

By Dr. Mercola

“Death by sugar” is not an overstatement…
Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also chronic and lethal disease.
There’s really no doubt anymore that excess sugar can be toxic to your body, and it’s only a matter of time before it will be commonly accepted as a causative factor of most cancers, in the same way as we accept that smoking and alcohol abuse are direct causes of lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism.
His work has highlighted the major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used by the human body.
If you haven’t already seen it, I would strongly encourage you to watch Dr. Lustig’s lecture featured above.
He’s a very compelling lecturer and you will learn loads, particularly about how fructose is ruining your health biochemically.

People Are Really Waking Up to the Dangers of Sugar

His lecture, which was posted on YouTube in July 2009, went viral and has received more than 2.2 million views so far.
Many of those views are no doubt due to this newsletter, as my two previous articles on Dr. Lustig’s work: “Sugar May Be Bad, But This Sweetener is Far More Deadly”, and “This Common Food Ingredient Can Really Mess Up Your Metabolism” alone have well over one million views. People are watching the lecture at the rate of 50,000 a month, even though it’s 90 minutes long, The New York Times reports.i Calling sugar a “toxin” or a “poison” 13 times, and referring to it as “evil” five times, Robert Lustig explains that the dangers of sugar apply to all forms of it, whether it’s the white granulated stuff – commonly known as sucrose – or high fructose corn syrup.
And his stance has nothing to do with calories, according to the NYT:
“It’s a poison by itself,” Dr. Lustig says.

a single and self-regulating complex system

The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.

The scientific investigation of the Gaia hypothesis focuses on observing how the biosphereand the evolution of life forms contribute to the stability of global temperatureocean salinityoxygen in the atmosphere and other factors of habitability in a preferredhomeostasis.

Since life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25% to 30%;[8]however, the surface temperature of the planet has remained within the levels of habitability, reaching quite regular low and high margins. Lovelock has also hypothesised that methanogens produced elevated levels of methane in the early atmosphere, giving a view similar to that found in petrochemical smog, similar in some respects to the atmosphere on Titan.

Processing of the greenhouse gas CO2 plays a critical role in the maintenance of the Earth temperature within the limits of habitability.

Currently this Gaian homeostatic balance is being pushed by the increase of human population and the impact of their activities to the environment. The multiplication ofgreenhouse gases may cause a turn of Gaia’s negative feedbacks into homeostatic positive feedback. This could bring an accelerated global warming and mass human mortality.  Simulation which included rabbitsfoxes and other species, led to a surprising finding that the larger the number of species, the greater the improving effects on the entire planet (i.e., the temperature regulation was improved). It also showed that the system was robust and stable even when perturbed.

Even as more Americans buythe products are increasingly removed from the traditional organic ideal: produce that is not only free of chemicals and pesticides but also grown locally on small farms in a way that protects the environment.

Everyone knows about how the advent of artificial fertilizers and pest controls altered the face of agriculture around the world during the Green Revolution more than half a century ago. And while few people are fully ignorant of the damage done to the environment through the use of these synthetic pesticides (and fertilizers), not many people have given much any thought to what will happen when we run out of these vital resources; which is nearing much faster than you might have guessed.

If you’ve ever used fertilizers you have probably at least seen their N-P-K ratings on the bag, standing for the three main fertilizers: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Nitrogen is quite plentiful and renewable, despite being the most damaging environmentally and largely being synthesized from natural gas, but the same is not true for phosphorus (bone meal) and potassium (potash). These vital minerals exist in quite limited quantities and cannot currently be feasibly synthesized, which causes major problems. The world’s phosphorus supply comes almost exclusively out of relatively unstable Morocco, and potassium from Canada and the former states of the Soviet Union, potentially making them future sites for “fertilizer wars” similar to the last century in the Middle East when supplies can’t easily keep up with demand.

Industrial agriculture could be hitting fundamental limits in its capacity to produce sufficient crops to feed an expanding global population according to new research published in Nature Communications.

The study argues that there have been abrupt declines or plateaus in the rate of production of major crops which undermine optimistic projections of constantly increasing crop yields. As much as “31% of total global rice, wheat and maize production” has experienced “yield plateaus or abrupt decreases in yield gain, including rice in eastern Asia and wheat in northwest Europe.”

The declines and plateaus in production have become prevalent despite increasing investment in agriculture, which could mean that maximum potential yields under the industrial model of agribusiness have already occurred. Crop yields in “major cereal-producing regions have not increased for long periods of time following an earlier period of steady linear increase.”

The paper makes for ominous reading. Production levels have already flattened out with “no case of a return to the previous rising yield trend” for key regions amounting to “33% of global rice and 27% of global wheat production.” The US researchers concluded that these yield plateaus could be explained by the inference that “average farm yields approach a biophysical yield ceiling for the crop in question, which is determined by its yield potential in the regions where the crop is produced.”

Think about these issues when you’re considering whether or not to go with small scale organic foods or extremely wasteful and disrupting industrial ones.


Organic Agriculture May Be Outgrowing Its Ideals

By
Published: December 30, 2011

But even as more Americans buy foods with the organic label, the products are increasingly removed from the traditional organic ideal: produce that is not only free of chemicals and pesticides but also grown locally on small farms in a way that protects the environment.