In the early 1980s, the USDA issued its first “Dietary Guidelines”. My wife and I’s employers both brought in dieticians to tell us about the new standards. We were literally told to eliminate as much fat from our diets as possible – but that sugar was okay as long as you were not diabetic and you brushed your teeth (More on this coming up in about 2 weeks).
Great moments in Nutrition Science:
When the 1980 to 1985 Dietary Guidelines for America came out, they literally said, avoid too much fat. Those on the committee thought that it would be too complex to describe the specificities.
What does America do? We go make everything fat-free. Fat-free yogurt, fat-free cookies, fat-free chips. By the way, they’re disgusting. No one wants a fat-free chip, gross. What do you do to make a chip taste good?
A cookie taste good? When you take all the fat, you add sugar. Do you think that that harmed people’s perception of fat?
Remember this?
Try to forget what you learned during the no-fat diet craze in the 80s and 90s –
And who did we learn that from? The nutrition experts had it backwards.
Remember we were not to consume dietary cholesterol?
A few decades ago there was this whole marketing and concern that the more dietary cholesterol you ate, the higher your serum cholesterol, or when your doctor checks, your blood cholesterol would rise. They actually found that there really wasn’t that strong of a correlation. I would say out there, instead of looking at the cholesterol levels in your nutrition labels, really again, looking at the amount of saturated fat and that type of saturated fat.
The whole egg controversy has the pendulum swinging back and forth and back and forth. The most recent data on meta analyses, which is looking at multiple trials of large cohorts of people, found that moderate egg intake, which is about an egg per day, really was not harmful.
We were also told to eliminate animal fats including dairy fat. The result was, in the U.S., and elsewhere, an increase in the use of trans fats (hydrogenated fats created to remain room temperature stable). By 2018, the WHO estimated that trans fats were causing 1/2 million deaths per year. A major proponent of eliminating animal fats to prevent heart disease – ended up dying of heart disease...
The United States finally banned trans fats in processed foods in 2018.
If you and I are confused by dueling experts, it’s our problem …
FYI – today the recommendation is to eat “healthy fats”, cheese and eggs are back on menu, sugar is now the enemy and we should reduce and avoid refined carbohydrates (which on the original USDA Food Pyramid were up to 60% of our calories pre year 2000…). In the latest 2025 iteration, we are to focus on “plant-based” eating, since nutrition is now to address climate change, reduce animal abuse, and to address human labor issues – in other words, nutrition science has again flown off the rails. See Nutrition: Goal is to link to climate change and animal rights – Coldstreams.
