JAMA: focus on real food, not dietary guidelines

According to commentary in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, U.S. Dietary Guidelines are not working. One reason suggested is that Americans aren't paying enough attention to real food.

Written by two nationally recognized experts in nutrition and nutrition-related illness, they state that the nation has gone astray by focusing on the nutritional components of food, such as various types of fat, sugars and vitamins. Instead, people should be advised to focus on foods, such as emphasizing the consumption of whole foods over processed foods, which would reduce salt intake among other benefits; and fruits and vegetables, which would increase fiber intake.

For example, the authors said, the dietary guidelines focus on advice such as "avoid too much fat, saturated fat, cholesterol." But, despite attempts to simplify food labels, "few individuals can accurately gauge daily consumption of calories, fats, cholesterol, fiber, or salt."

Moreover, the dietary guidelines are often misused by food manufacturers. Based on the addition of a few ingredients, foods can be advertised as healthy. "Taking the nutrient approach to self-serving extremes, the food industry 'fortifies' highly processed foods, like refined cereals and sugar-sweetened beverages, with selected micronutrients and recharacterizes them as nutritious," wrote the authors, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and Dr. David S. Ludwig, both of Harvard Medical School."

Nutritional science should not be abandoned, they said. But the focusing on nutrient details over real foods "contributes to confusion, distracts from more effective strategies, and promotes marketing and consumption of processed products that normally meet selected nutrient cut points but undermine overall dietary quality."

Bonnie - hmm, where have I heard this before? Eating real food is one of my number one mantras! Then, let the experts deduce what specific macro and micronutrients an individual needs.