Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 6/18/20

The influential Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is expected to urge officials at USDA and HHS to strengthen the federal government’s advice to the public on alcohol and added sugars consumption.

Where things stand: The committee — which does not write the guidelines, but reviews the latest science and advises the government on what they should say — unveiled its conclusions during a more than 8-hour-long webinar on Wednesday. The panel’s conclusions are still considered in draft form. The final advice to the agencies is expected to be publicly released in mid-July. Pros can find the full slide deck here.

Men should dial back the booze: “For those who drink alcohol, recommended limits for better health are up to 1 drink per day for both women and men,” the panel concluded. Consuming the current limit of two drinks per day for men is associated with a “modest but meaningful increase” in all-cause mortality compared with just one drink per day, the committee found. The recommended advice would be unchanged for women.

Added sugars: The committee is also suggesting that Americans should consume even less added sugar than previously advised. The last iteration of the guidelines recommended that people not get more than 10 percent of their calories from added sugars.

A dialed down limit of 6 percent is “more consistent with a dietary pattern that is nutritionally adequate while avoiding excess energy intake,” the panel said.

Largely status quo: For all the criticism about the committee being too corporate-friendly or hamstrung by the Trump administration, the panel has put forward recommendations that look pretty similar to those during the Obama administration (save for no discussion of sustainability, which was never going to happen this round).

Low-carb fury: Critics of the guidelines and those advocating to include low-carbohydrate and high fat diets were not pleased with what they saw on Wednesday. The panel doubled down on the previous recommendations to limit saturated fat consumption, for one.

Nina Teicholz, executive director of the Nutrition Coalition, which believes the guidelines have long been flawed, tweeted on Wednesday: “Ironic that the findings against sat fats are being announced just as a new [Journal of the American College of Cardiology] article by prominent scientists finding caps on sat fats not warranted.” That study can be found here.