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>Anyhow, the government was simply echoing the advice of the medical establishment. No it absolutely wasn't. It was echoing the advice of the agriculture lobb

>Anyhow, the government was simply echoing the advice of the medical establishment. No it absolutely wasn't. It was echoing the advice of the agriculture lobby. The medical establishment sent its information in and the FDA altered it. And guess what? The food guidelines from this year were manipulated by the agriculture lobby too. http://time.com/4130043/lobbying-politics-dietary-guidelines/ http://time.com/4130043/lobbying-politics-dietary-guidelines... I only skimmed your article, but it appears those instances were almost entirely labeling guidelines. Example: What constitutes "enriched" flour? I can see the value in that, but I hope it's clear that's very different from marketing enriched flour via the government provided education system.

wahern 10y ago
You said that the gov't "told generations of kids to eat a pound of bread every day." That seemed clearly a reference to the food pyramid and similar guidelines which recommended relative proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Those recommendations were largely reflective of the medical consensus, such as it was--i.e. too much group think and too much reliance on epidemiological methodologies rather than investigatory science. Yes, the USDA is responsive to the agricultural lobby. So what? At the end of the day it doesn't matter how or why they make their recommendations, but the substance and effect of those recommendations. And my point is that in the long-term the general guidance of the USDA has reflected, more than anything else, the medical consensus. Obviously it doesn't only reflect that, but everything is effected by lobbying, even the medical consensus. And my larger argument is that if you examine its long-term track record, on the whole it has been positive, at least in the context of nutritional policy. Yes, the USDA's fortification program was largely voluntary. So were its more modern recommendations. Sometimes their recommendations weren't voluntary, like guidelines for federally funded school lunch programs. But the same applies to their fortification programs--those school lunch guidelines also mandate fortified foodstuffs. Also, the fortification programs involved direct and indirect subsidies, which is why most basic foodstuffs (grains, salt) at retail were fortified, at least until the organic craze. I respond because I'm tired of the narrative that when government does something stupid the answer should just be to remove government from the equation. That's not rational. In every context we should endeavor to make informed and well-reasoned judgments based on a) context, b) facts, and c) some rough assessment of our priorities. Unfortunately we've forgotten how to incorporate those three things into our discourse. We don't understand context because we reframe every issue as some ideological battle about government. We don't understand facts because we're too lazy to root them out, and too lazy to assess their relevance and strength. And we suck at agreeing on priorities because, similar to context, we confuse the means with the end--that is, we seem to think our ultimate goal is to refashion government to fit some conceptual model, rather than to refashion particular laws and agencies to best meet some quantifiable goal, like a lower incidence of diabetes. This retreat and resort to ideology and abstract modeling is not only a political pathology, but arguably it has been the problem with nutritional science. For example, when I mention "epidemiological methodologies" above I'm implying, among other things, that we committed a category error: too much salt might be "causative" of high blood pressure on a population wide scale, but on an individual scale it doesn't cause anything in most people, and the particular issue in the subset of the population responsive to high salt intake wasn't something you'd expect given the large population studies. The population-wide mechanism was empirically sound (lower average salt consumption, improve average outcomes) but not reflective of the underlying pathologies at the micro-scale and ultimately suboptimal. IOW, yes, if _everybody_ reduced salt consumption to some common recommended level then population-wide health could improve. But there's a better equilibrium to be found by understanding the details and taking a more nuanced approach, allowing us to improve health even more. Likewise, maybe we might all be better off on average if the USDA disappeared overnight. But perhaps there's a better equilibrium where the USDA still has a role. We can't know without making a careful assessment, and continually re-making that assessment. Let's stop being lazy. Let's dig into the details. It's difficult and frustrating but there's really no better way. At the end of the day, government will never go away. Somebody will always rebuild the bureaucracy. The only sane long-term strategy is to stay engaged.
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  No, the government didn't produce a food pyramid that largely reflected medical consensus of the day. The food pyramid they produced is almost inverted from the medical consensus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guid... >I respond because I'm tired of the narrative that when government does something stupid the answer should just be to remove government from the equation. Don't pretend like you're presenting anything but an equal and opposite narrative. This government program, which is nothing more than bought and paid for marketing by lobbyists, has literally killed millions of people. How many people need to die before you'll say enough is enough? If the government got out of the way then people would seek out the information they need and they would get it from a variety of sources such as books, their personal physicians (probably the best choice), or other sources. Unreliable sources would relatively quickly fall by the wayside. But the government voice is a foghorn which cannot be ignored, especially when you put it in the school curriculum. >Let's stop being lazy. Let's dig into the details. I'm right here with you. One-size fits all nutrition recommendations from the government is a disaster. When the government becomes a voice for nutrition recommendations its scope makes it, in effect, the only voice. That makes the government voice the ripest target for manipulation. Instead, the voice of the scientific community at large should be out there. It's there today, but it's drowned out by the government fog horn. If you want nutrition information, the best person to talk to is probably your doctor because they will know pretty near the latest medical information and be able to adjust it for you as an individual.
  - graphitezepp 10y ago
    Central issue: medical consensus in food pyramid era. I think the only thing you two actually disagree about (because I certainly agree with most of what both of you said) is the medical consensus at the time of the food pyramid, and the only thing that has been contributed to that is a Wikipedia link. Now I have a high degree of faith in Wikipedia and also fully expect the food pyramid was bought and paid for, but following through on Wikipedia to the links supporting this brings 2 book links and a USDA.gov page. Perhaps reading the books would provide a high degree of good explanation, but I still don't know what the medical consensus at the time was. My contribution is a crappy link ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html ) that suggests the medical consensus indeed thought fat was a greater enemy and am left with no solid belief of the central issue. Stuff is hard.

wahern 10y ago

You said that the gov't "told generations of kids to eat a pound of bread every day." That seemed clearly a reference to the food pyramid and similar guidelines which recommended relative proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Those recommendations were largely reflective of the medical consensus, such as it was--i.e. too much group think and too much reliance on epidemiological methodologies rather than investigatory science. Yes, the USDA is responsive to the agricultural lobby. So what? At the end of the day it doesn't matter how or why they make their recommendations, but the substance and effect of those recommendations. And my point is that in the long-term the general guidance of the USDA has reflected, more than anything else, the medical consensus. Obviously it doesn't only reflect that, but everything is effected by lobbying, even the medical consensus. And my larger argument is that if you examine its long-term track record, on the whole it has been positive, at least in the context of nutritional policy. Yes, the USDA's fortification program was largely voluntary. So were its more modern recommendations. Sometimes their recommendations weren't voluntary, like guidelines for federally funded school lunch programs. But the same applies to their fortification programs--those school lunch guidelines also mandate fortified foodstuffs. Also, the fortification programs involved direct and indirect subsidies, which is why most basic foodstuffs (grains, salt) at retail were fortified, at least until the organic craze. I respond because I'm tired of the narrative that when government does something stupid the answer should just be to remove government from the equation. That's not rational. In every context we should endeavor to make informed and well-reasoned judgments based on a) context, b) facts, and c) some rough assessment of our priorities. Unfortunately we've forgotten how to incorporate those three things into our discourse. We don't understand context because we reframe every issue as some ideological battle about government. We don't understand facts because we're too lazy to root them out, and too lazy to assess their relevance and strength. And we suck at agreeing on priorities because, similar to context, we confuse the means with the end--that is, we seem to think our ultimate goal is to refashion government to fit some conceptual model, rather than to refashion particular laws and agencies to best meet some quantifiable goal, like a lower incidence of diabetes. This retreat and resort to ideology and abstract modeling is not only a political pathology, but arguably it has been the problem with nutritional science. For example, when I mention "epidemiological methodologies" above I'm implying, among other things, that we committed a category error: too much salt might be "causative" of high blood pressure on a population wide scale, but on an individual scale it doesn't cause anything in most people, and the particular issue in the subset of the population responsive to high salt intake wasn't something you'd expect given the large population studies. The population-wide mechanism was empirically sound (lower average salt consumption, improve average outcomes) but not reflective of the underlying pathologies at the micro-scale and ultimately suboptimal. IOW, yes, if _everybody_ reduced salt consumption to some common recommended level then population-wide health could improve. But there's a better equilibrium to be found by understanding the details and taking a more nuanced approach, allowing us to improve health even more. Likewise, maybe we might all be better off on average if the USDA disappeared overnight. But perhaps there's a better equilibrium where the USDA still has a role. We can't know without making a careful assessment, and continually re-making that assessment. Let's stop being lazy. Let's dig into the details. It's difficult and frustrating but there's really no better way. At the end of the day, government will never go away. Somebody will always rebuild the bureaucracy. The only sane long-term strategy is to stay engaged.

Consultant32452 10y ago
No, the government didn't produce a food pyramid that largely reflected medical consensus of the day. The food pyramid they produced is almost inverted from the medical consensus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guid... >I respond because I'm tired of the narrative that when government does something stupid the answer should just be to remove government from the equation. Don't pretend like you're presenting anything but an equal and opposite narrative. This government program, which is nothing more than bought and paid for marketing by lobbyists, has literally killed millions of people. How many people need to die before you'll say enough is enough? If the government got out of the way then people would seek out the information they need and they would get it from a variety of sources such as books, their personal physicians (probably the best choice), or other sources. Unreliable sources would relatively quickly fall by the wayside. But the government voice is a foghorn which cannot be ignored, especially when you put it in the school curriculum. >Let's stop being lazy. Let's dig into the details. I'm right here with you. One-size fits all nutrition recommendations from the government is a disaster. When the government becomes a voice for nutrition recommendations its scope makes it, in effect, the only voice. That makes the government voice the ripest target for manipulation. Instead, the voice of the scientific community at large should be out there. It's there today, but it's drowned out by the government fog horn. If you want nutrition information, the best person to talk to is probably your doctor because they will know pretty near the latest medical information and be able to adjust it for you as an individual.
- graphitezepp 10y ago
  Central issue: medical consensus in food pyramid era. I think the only thing you two actually disagree about (because I certainly agree with most of what both of you said) is the medical consensus at the time of the food pyramid, and the only thing that has been contributed to that is a Wikipedia link. Now I have a high degree of faith in Wikipedia and also fully expect the food pyramid was bought and paid for, but following through on Wikipedia to the links supporting this brings 2 book links and a USDA.gov page. Perhaps reading the books would provide a high degree of good explanation, but I still don't know what the medical consensus at the time was. My contribution is a crappy link ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html ) that suggests the medical consensus indeed thought fat was a greater enemy and am left with no solid belief of the central issue. Stuff is hard.