As is the case with so many policy areas, the Trump administration has totally upended the food policy agenda.
Out is the food pyramid, with its recommendations for bread and pasta. In is a call for eating “real food” – protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains.
Perhaps even more dramatic was the change made to the policy on alcohol consumption. The Biden administration, always looking to be as restrictive as possible, declared with little to no scientific evidence that no more than one drink per day was “safe” for women and two drinks per day for men.
Now the policy says to drink less and be careful to overindulge, and that makes more sense for a variety of reasons.
First, every drinker is not the same. Regardless of what bureaucrats tell us is an appropriate number of drinks regardless of age, sex, or weight, it definitely does make a difference how big or experienced the consumer is. A 98-pound woman and a 250-pound man simply don’t respond to drinking three shots of whiskey the same.
Second, what is a drink? This is not meant in a Clintonian “what is the definition of is” kind of way. Beer and whiskey are not the same in terms of effects on the mind or body. A drink defined as one beer is different from a drink defined as one shot. Hard liquor is harder on the body and more debilitating for drivers. That’s why we are generally more likely to get intoxicated on hard liquor than on beer.
The new recommendations take a more mature and more insistent approach. Rather than saying don’t drink or limit drinking to one per day for women and two for men, the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released in January, calls for moderation and responsibility and recommends against any alcohol use by pregnant women or those who have had problems with alcohol in the past.
Rather than concede one drink for women and two for men were OK or even beneficial, the new recommendations now clearly say that less is best. Some suggest this may be because of recent studies that have questioned the methodology of long-relied-upon research that showed “moderate” drinking could reduce the risk of heart disease. That included a landmark 2018 study in The Lancet that found some of those who had been placed in the “abstainer” category were drinkers who had been forced to quit by disease, thus skewing the statistics.
The misinformation on nutrition in the past has come at enormous costs. Today, nearly 90% of healthcare spending goes to patients with chronic illnesses, mostly caused by being overweight. More than 70% of American adults are overweight and nearly one in three kids ages 12-17 have pre-diabetes.
That’s why the new guidelines and their emphasis on making the right choices rather than following government diktats are preferable to the old kind. The new guidelines lay out the facts for Americans and urge them to make the right choices. “Eat the right amount for you,” the document counsels in its first sentence. Prioritize protein foods and consume dairy products, the document says in another turn from past policy.
It also brings government policy in line with reality – another hallmark of the Trump administration The idea is not to count your drinks or perhaps not even your calories. It is to develop the habits – less drinking, more protein, less processed foods, more activity – that actually have been proven by science to work.
Given the 5-year window for such plans, this may be the high-water mark for the MAHA movement in terms of influence during this administration. If its reign leaves us with more appreciation for eating right, less for counting drinks and more for being responsible and remembering that beer does not equal whiskey, then it will be yet another area where the Trump administration has made historic impact.
The MAHA movement made important contributions in this area. Policy is better as a result. Three cheers for President Trump and those in his administration for pushing for a healthy American populace regardless of political considerations.
Brian McNicoll, a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, is a former senior writer for The Heritage Foundation and former director of communications for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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