• 1980: Avoid too much sugar.
• 1985: Avoid too much sugar.
• 1990: Use sugars only in moderation.
• 1995: Choose a diet moderate in sugars.
• 2000: Choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugars.
• 2005: Choose and prepare foods and beverages with little added sugars or caloric sweeteners, such as amounts suggested by the USDA Food Guide and the DASH eating plan.
• 2010: Limit the amount of added sugars when cooking or eating (using less table sugar); consume fewer and smaller portions of foods and bev-erages that contain added sugars, such as such grain-based desserts, sodas, and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
• 2015
[fill in the blank].
(NHANES) study and other studies, such as the Nurses’ Health Study, which is a large cohort study.64 NHANES is examined in Chapter 4, “Nutrition Information Policies.”
One criticism leveled from the data collection perspective is that cohort studies are observational, and can suggest associations and correlations, but cannot show direct causation. Gary Taubes, the science journalist mentioned above, points out observa-tional studies are a tool for developing hypotheses, but not a tool for directly develop-ing a dietary edict.65 Conversely, randomized trials are not practical for all research questions; and having a narrow focus that randomized trials are the “gold standard” to the exclusion of other forms of scientific inquiry may diminish opportunities to build scientific knowledge.
CONCLUSION
Establishing dietary guidelines implies having a quantitative (scientific) understanding of what humans need physiologically from our diet as well as what characteristics foods contribute to our diet. At any one time, dietary guidance can only be based on what is known and generally agreed on at the time the dietary guidance is given. Research, whether government or food industry based, may race ahead following differing areas and ideas. New information is constantly available, which individuals may freely adopt, but there can be a lag between knowledge and guidance, particularly at the governmen-tal level, which may contribute to consumer confusion.
Through the Dietary Guidelines, the United States has adopted an evidence-based approach for evaluation nutritional research and promoting dietary advice. Nonetheless, the food industry may still have an undue influence on the development of the guide-lines. Recall that MyPlate was developed by USDA to operationalize the dietary advice recommended by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines. In turn, Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate attempts to correct what its developers perceive to be the weaknesses in MyPlate, which they attribute to USDA’s mandated support of the food industry.
Even in the absence of industry influence on the actual recommendations, food producers can have a significant impact on how dietary guidance can become our actual diet through the characteristics of the foods we consume. The first Dietary Goals (1977) suggested American should eat less, and specifically less refined and processed sugars, total fat, saturated fat, and sodium. Seeking to profit from consumers looking to follow dietary guidance, the food industry quickly provided us with delicious fat-free and low-fat food products. An undue emphasis on low-fat as a singular culprit may have contributed to a general increase in the consumption of refined carbohydrates, encouraging a new dietary health problem.
Looking forward, the content and the impact of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines remain to be seen. But given the current trends toward dietary patterns and sustainability, and accepting the fact that based on history and politics the Dietary Guidelines may not come out with strong recommendations to eat less of any particular food item, is it pos-sible that our next dietary guidance theme might simply be Michael Pollan’s summa-tion: “Eat less, mostly plants”?
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