But she cautioned that the guidelines\u2019 endorsement of red meat and butter shows disregard for the environment and for public health. \u201cIt takes me back to the 1950s,\u201d she said. \u201cDo they really think that diets like that have nothing to do with heart disease?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the guidelines contain contradictory advice because they promote foods high in saturated fat while also telling Americans to limit their intake of saturated fat to no more than 10% of daily calories. \u201cHow is that going to work?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Nestle said her advice is that eating \u201cmoderate\u201d amounts of red meat and dairy are \u201cjust fine\u201d if you\u2019re consuming a variety of foods and not overeating calories. \u201cThe guidelines should not be interpreted as a license to gorge on red meat, beef tallow and butter, delicious as they may be,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything in moderation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avoid processed meats<\/p>\n
The most significant change to the dietary guidelines is the recommendation that Americans avoid potato chips, confectionery, sweetened beverages, breakfast cereals and other highly processed foods made with refined grains, added sugars, artificial sweeteners and other additives, said Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of Tufts University\u2019s Food Is Medicine Institute. \u201cNo guidelines have ever said \u2018avoid highly processed foods\u2019 before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mozaffarian pointed out that previous guidelines have recommended meat and dairy. But they specifically encouraged people to eat \u201clean meat\u201d and fat-free or low-fat dairy, rather than red meat and full-fat dairy. So the changes are subtle. But he also noted that the new guidelines mention red meat as just one of many types of protein people should eat, along with eggs, poultry, seafood, beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds and soy. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a major focus on red meat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The problem with red meat isn\u2019t that it contains a lot of saturated fat, Mozaffarian said, but that it has other carcinogenic and pro-inflammatory compounds that may increase your likelihood of developing cancer and Type 2 diabetes. He recommended that people eat no more than one serving a week of steak, veal, lamb, pork, ground beef or other red meats. And he said processed meats such as bacon, hot dogs, sausages, salami and deli meats should either be avoided altogether or viewed as an occasional treat.<\/p>\n
As for full-fat dairy, it\u2019s fine to have up to three servings a day, but ideally you should prioritise fermented dairy foods such as plain yoghurt, kefir and some cheeses, Mozaffarian said. \u201cAs a cardiologist who entered the field studying dietary fats, I can tell you that dairy fats are not harmful,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of evidence for the health benefits of dairy.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you include full-fat dairy in your diet, you should prioritise plain yoghurt and fermented products, the experts said. Photo \/ Andrew Scrivani, The New York Times<\/p>\n
Try plant protein sources such as nuts and soy foods<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guidance about red meat and dairy fat is simply wrong and dangerous to the health of Americans,\u201d said Walter Willett, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.<\/p>\n
But like the other experts, Willett had some good things to say about the new guidelines, especially the advice to eat less sugar and refined grains.<\/p>\n
Willett said people should follow the advice of a federal advisory committee that published a report in late 2024 encouraging Americans to eat less meat and more beans, peas, lentils, nuts and other plants, as well as seafood and non-fat dairy foods.<\/p>\n
Willett said that when discussing foods, comparison is critical, \u201cand there are layers of evidence showing that plant protein sources such as nuts and soy foods will lead to better health outcomes\u201d compared with eating meat. He said that meat and full-fat dairy are not only high in saturated fat but also \u201cextremely\u201d low in essential fatty acids that are good for cardiovascular and overall health.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn randomised trials, red meat increases LDL cholesterol,\u201d he added. \u201cIn long-term epidemiologic studies, red meat is associated with increases in coronary heart disease, especially when compared with plant protein sources.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for dairy foods, he said that they\u2019re not essential and that there\u2019s no good evidence that people need to eat three servings a day. He also highlighted the effect that dairy and meat production have on the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t have a healthy population without a healthy planet, and cattle have an extremely large impact on greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and deforestation,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the sake of future generations, it is critical that we reduce the current consumption of animal-sourced foods, not increase consumption, along with dramatically reducing the use of fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willett said that eating a diet that\u2019s good for your health and good for the planet doesn\u2019t mean that you have to give up all meat and dairy. But it does mean that you should limit yourself to one weekly serving of red meat and perhaps one daily serving of milk, cheese or yoghurt.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Willett was a co-author on a large study that looked at the effects of what is known as the Planetary Health Diet. It examined data on more than 200,000 Americans who were followed closely for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
The study found that people who ate mostly minimally processed plant foods such as nuts, beans, fruits, vegetables, wholegrains and olive oil, along with modest amounts of meat, fish, eggs and dairy, had lower rates of premature death from heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases. At the same time, their diets had a smaller environmental footprint because they consisted of foods that were grown using relatively less land and water, and that were produced with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, eating for better personal health and planetary health, Willett said, means shifting the balance of your diet to include more plant sources of protein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They said you should focus on eating an overall healthy diet, with an emphasis on things such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1665,141583,95,13916,7224,141582,26107,15416,5658,71,23801,134,26098,221,3822,5969,111,139,556,69,15406,20263,3271,3010,19137,3270,6923,197],"class_list":["post-240538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-advice","tag-advise","tag-and","tag-asked","tag-dairy","tag-deviate","tag-dietary","tag-eat","tag-experts","tag-from","tag-guidelines","tag-health","tag-heres","tag-how","tag-meat","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz","tag-red","tag-sharply","tag-should","tag-top","tag-traditional","tag-we","tag-what","tag-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}