ACKNOWLEDGE THE WIN

Those of us who have kind of given up on anything good from the government need to take this moment to acknowledge a win.  This week's release of the new Dietary Guidelines is truly monumental and represents a major step toward truth in food recommendations. 

                  The Dietary Guidelines form the foundation for school lunches, institutional meals, military commissaries and any public assistance for food.  Most of us, I think, don't appreciate how much these guidelines impact perceptions and practice within the institutional culinary community. 

                  For the first time--get that?--for the first time the guidelines call out ultra-processed foods, added sugar, pre-packaged and ready-to-eat highly processed foods.  Instead of Cheerios and Fruit Loops on the foundational bottom, we see animal proteins, eggs, and whole dairy (not skim milk).  For the first time our government acknowledges the difference between foods.

                  Livestock farmers and the animal protein industry is celebrating.  Ritz Crackers, not so much.  And perhaps the breakfast cereal aisle can be chucked out the back door of the grocery store.  As well as the soft drink aisle and the potato chip and Triscuit aisle.

                  For the first time in our nation's history, the government recognizes that calories from Lucky Charms are not the same as calories from a boiled egg.  This is a major step toward truth in nutrition and I think it's helpful to appreciate the win.  

                  If we want to find fault, of course, we could complain that these guidelines don't recognize plants grown in good soil and animals grown in a healthy habitat.  The Bionutrient Food Association has found that you have to eat about 80 carrots of the poorest-grown quality to get the same nutrition as one carrot of the best-grown.  That's a pretty big difference.

                  Turning to animal proteins, grass-finished beef has 300 percent more riboflavin than corn-fed.  So yes, we can find fault that it doesn't recognize enough differences . . . yet.  But let's be charitable and appreciate this step.  I think it's a big deal and am grateful MAHA is having such a positive impact in the nation's ivory towers.

                  Next week I'll be addressing about 1,800 conventional corn and soybean farmers in Des Moines, Iowa at a big conference.  These new Dietary Guidelines must have the corn-bean folks shaking in their shoes, and rightly so.  I'll be promoting conversion of these native prairie lands, which built the soil crop farmers are still mining, back to the original perennial polyculture soil-building prairies to feed cows.  Our nation is awash in corn and soybeans; we need grass-finished beef.  And so does the soil.

                  Positives from the federal government come seldom.  Let's give credit where credit is due.  Imagine the lobbying and push back form K Street's industrial base that RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, Marty Mackey, Brooke Rollins and others had to endure to re-imagine our nation's official food recommendations. 

                  The next big question, of course, is how this gets implemented.  With thousands and thousands of dieticians and culinary directors steeped in cheap ultra-processed carbohydrates, how do we move that ship?  The good old boy network, with kickbacks from the industry for buying their junk, exert unimaginable influence.  Is the administrator really going to give up free Caribbean Cruise tickets from Duncan Hines to start ordering beef? The Devil's in the details, isn't it?  So I'm happy, but mutedly.  Is that fair?

                  What do you think?