The Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may soon be telling you
what you should eat to reduce your “carbon footprint.”
In order to—ostensibly—prevent global
warming and reduce our national carbon footprint, Washington is already
telling Americans what light bulbs they can buy, and what buildings in
which they should want to live and work. Now, food could be the next
frontier.
Currently, the USDA and HHS are drafting their 2015 Dietary Guidelines. Every five years, the USDA and HHS issue recommendations
for Americans on what constitutes a healthy diet. As Dr. Barbara
Millen, chair of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), remarked, their job is “facilitating and promoting healthy eating and physical activity.”
The Dietary Guidelines website outlines the purpose in this way:
They [the Guidelines] provide authoritative advice about consuming fewer calories, making informed food choices, and being physically active to attain and maintain a healthy weight, reduce risk of chronic disease, and promote overall health.
Notice that there’s nothing about the environment in these statements.
Unfortunately, ideology now trumps
practicality; rather than devoting its time to the group’s actual
purpose—serving as the cornerstone of Federal nutrition policy and
nutrition education activities—the DGAC is focusing on environmental concerns. As Millen stated at the initial meeting, “Overall,
we want to be certain to make recommendations for a healthy,
ecologically responsible diet.” The Subcommittee on Food Sustainability
and Safety made this objective even more explicit in their presentation at the second meeting when they stated: “The goal is to develop dietary guidance that supports human health and the health of the planet over time.” [Emphasis added]
Dr. Miriam Nelson, chair of the
subcommittee, did not attempt to hide her desire to manipulate the
American diet to promote this agenda. Dr. Nelson was quoted in The Washington Free Beacon as
saying that, “Eating fewer animals, but choosing those wisely, and
reducing sugar, refined grains, things like that…would actually have a
lower footprint than what we are currently doing.”
Right now, the DGAC is still gathering
research before they formally issue new recommendations. Nothing
concrete has been decided but their public statements have had a
significant focus on the environment, including climate change.
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