A new version of the country’s dietary guidelines has been in the works this year thanks to a government-appointed group of top nutrition experts. This group decided earlier this year to collect data on the environmental implication of different food choices and how sustainability plays a role in our diets. But congress is not having it.
NPR explained how this is playing out now:
Lawmakers attached a list of “congressional directives” to a massive spending bill that passed both the House and the Senate in recent days. One of those directives expresses “concern” that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee “is showing an interest in incorporating agriculture production practices and environmental factors” into their recommendations, and directs the Obama administration to ignore such factors in the next revision of the guidelines, which is due out next year. The directive is not legally binding, but ignoring it would provoke yet another political battle between the Obama administration and Congress.
Something tells me the first lady is going to be slightly peeved by this development. And she’s not the only one.
Earlier this year (before this recent congressional development), nutritionist and environmentalist Kate Clancy was invited to speak with the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee about the issue. In 1986 she co-authored an article called “Dietary Guidelines for Sustainability.” “Let me say that after 30 years of waiting, that fact that this committee is addressing sustainability issues brings me a lot of pleasure,” Clancy told the committee.
Members of the advisory committee aren’t allowed to talk to the press about their work. But Timothy Searchinger, a researcher with Princeton University and the World Resources Institute, an environmental group, believes that recommendations about diet have to consider environmental impacts.Producing food, he says, already claims half of all land where vegetation can grow. Farming is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. “That doesn’t mean that farmers are bad. It means that eating has a big impact on the environment,” he says.
For nutritionists concerned about sustainability, it seems that having a less meat-based diet would not only have health benefits but would have a positive impact on the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Not surprisingly, the American Meat Institute (which represents meat producers) disagrees with this opinion and has said that nutritionists don’t have the expertise to take on environmental questions.
We’ll see how all of this plays out.
