Food writer and activist Marion Nestle has a good post parsing the just-released USDA 2010 food guidelines:
Here are the take-home messages:
Balancing Calories
• Enjoy your food, but eat less.
• Avoid oversized portions.
Foods to Increase
• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
Foods to Reduce
• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals—and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.
I’m in shock. I never would have believed they could pull this off. The new guidelines recognize that obesity is the number one public health nutrition problem in America and actually give good advice about what to do about it: eat less and eat better. For the first time, the guidelines make it clear that eating less is a priority.
Read the rest for Nestle’s quibbles about the guidelines, including the USDA’s reluctance to just come right out and say that people should eat less meat.
A Thinking Reed 