New dietary guidelines are confusing
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), recently released for 2025-2030, give updated advice on what we should and shouldn’t eat for optimal health.
Nutrition professionals have been using the DGA’s recommendations for whole foods, limiting added sugars, fruits and vegetables, nuts/legumes, whole grains and healthy fats since I’ve been a dietitian (30 years). We have made some changes to our recommendations as science has provided more insight.
We encourage limiting ultra-processed foods and supporting the microbiome with high fiber foods. But we are so confused to see the pyramid flipped with recommendations to eat more meat, butter and beef tallow.
I will be disregarding this guidance, as we know that high saturated fat intake from red meat, fried foods, and butter has been shown to increase blood cholesterol levels. We do believe that the different saturated fatty acids in foods may behave differently: Saturated fats in dark chocolate and possibly saturated fats in whole milk dairy may not be detrimental to our health.
But what we know is that a plant-forward diet aligned with a Mediterranean-style of eating has been proven to support good health.
CHERYL ORLANSKY, ATLANTA
Enabling president disqualifies GOP from governing
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been terrorizing immigrants and citizens alike and has now murdered someone in broad daylight. The Department of Justice is defying court orders to release all the Jeffrey Epstein documents. The Department of Defense has illegally abducted the leader of a sovereign country and is threatening several others.
The State Department announced that we will pull out of a major global climate treaty and dozens of other cooperative organizations. Billions of dollars in funding for children and health care have been stripped from states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been gutted and once-eradicated diseases are returning. USAID is gone and millions of deaths, mostly children, will be the result. America, while certainly no saint, was once a global leader on every front. That has rapidly changed.
The degradation of trust, authority, soft power and goodwill can be laid directly at the feet of congressional Republicans. You thought I would blame Trump? Yes, he’s a blight on society, a corrupt human being who has shirked responsibility and failed his entire life. But he can’t continue his farcical reign without the members of his party. Whether they are full-throated participants or simply acquiescent doesn’t matter.
The continued enablement of the Trump administration has disqualified the Republican Party from governing, and accountability is coming. Americans of all stripes must resist our current downslide until we can begin correcting course in the midterm elections later this year.
DAVID LEEDLE, ATLANTA
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