Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 10/2/15


Issues of sustainability have a legitimate role in the federal dietary guidelines, as originally recommended by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee last February, according to researchers in an article posted on Science magazine’s Science Express website.

The article is written by public health and sustainability experts at George Washington and Tufts universities. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee is due to meet with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell soon to begin the process of deliberating and adopting the next iteration of the guidelines that will inform the regulations of the Federal School Lunch Program and other government food programs.

Some legislators and most of the food industry argue that the advisory committee overstepped its bounds by incorporating its understanding of sustainability precepts in its recommendations. The authors of the Science article say objections are political.

"We believe the issue of scope is not the overarching concern, but a political maneuver to excise sustainability from dietary discussions," they said.

The politicization of the dietary guidelines is due to food industry executives seeking to avoid future regulation; that sustainability could narrow the focus of guidance from a food group to specific foods, potentially pitting sources of protein, for example, against one another; that including sustainability in the guidelines now opens the door to giving it greater consideration in the future; and that considering sustainability opens the government up to demands by consumers that they spend more money on developing “sustainable” systems.

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