Congress Pushes Back on Dietary Guidelines Recommendations”

Representative Vickie Hartzler of Missouri and 70 other members of Congress have written a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell and Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack about concerns regarding the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report. Members say the report exceeds the scope of its charge by straying from purely nutritional issues and venturing into areas like sustainability and tax policy.

House Ag Chair Mike Conaway says the advisory committee overstepped its bounds when it strayed from science-based nutritional recommendations and singled out certain industries. Hartzler says the notion that the recommendations were made based on selected data and excluded valuable nutritional information is appalling. Hartzler taught nutritional science for 11-years and is disturbed by the suggestion that a quality source of protein like red meat shouldn’t be part of a healthy diet. She says it’s claims like that which call the validity of the report into question. Conaway urges the Secretaries to commit to a process to fully review and consider public comments before publishing the new dietary guidelines.

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