Eat real food.
That’s the message that the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services aim to bring back to the American diet by prioritizing protein, fruits and vegetables.
On Wednesday, the federal government released new national dietary guidelines that tilted more heavily toward eating more protein, "marking the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in decades,” federal officials said in a statement. Wyoming cattle producers applauded Wednesday’s announcement of the changes by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.
“We’re certainly very pleased to see it,” Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, told Cowboy State Daily. “Long term it will clearly be beneficial to our producers in Wyoming.”
Prioritizing protein — including red meat — is one of the focuses of the new dietary guidelines. Rollins said the guidelines go hand-in-hand with the abundant food supply already available from America’s farmers and ranchers.
“We are finally putting real food back at the center of the American diet — real food that nourishes the body, restores health, fuels energy and builds strength,” Rollins said in a press conference announcing the new guidelines.
Boon For Cattle Industry
The announcement was good news for Wyoming’s beef industry.
“It’s about time it comes out like this,” said Mark Eisele, a Cheyenne-area rancher and former president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The scientific community has known about the importance of protein for a long time, he added.
A 1992 food pyramid places grains including bread, cereal, rice and pasta at the bottom of the pyramid, suggesting six to 11 servings a day. Protein — including meat, poultry, fish, beans and nuts — was higher up on the pyramid, with a recommended two to three servings a day.
The pyramid revealed on realfood.gov, the government’s website announcing the new guidelines, is inverted. Whole grains are still at the bottom, but only represent the tip of the upside-down triangle, with now two to four servings per day suggested. Protein, dairy, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables comprise the rest of the pyramid. The latest recommendations, using what realfood.govcalls “gold-standard science and common sense,” call for 0.54–0.73 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, three servings of vegetables per day and two servings of fruit per day.
Eisele said the new guidelines are not only a boon to Wyoming cattle ranchers; they represent a new era for school lunch programs, federal SNAP and WIC benefits and for the military. That’s because the guidelines take the focus off highly processed foods.
“The dietary guidelines have been obscured by folks that do a lot of ultra-processing” in years past, he said. “It’s back now to protein and [healthy] fat.
“We’ve been vindicated,” he said. “We already raise a wholesome, non-processed product.”
According to the realfood.gov site, 90% of the country’s healthcare spending treats people with chronic disease, and chronic disease is often linked to diet and lifestyle.
Real, Red Meat
“America is sick. The data is clear,” the site reads.
Magagna pointed out that there is a difference between real red meat and processed red meat. Real red meat, he said, is both an important and healthy source of protein.
He said that, even before this week’s change in dietary guidelines, consumers were beginning to recognize the value of including good red meat in their diets.
Magagna predicted that Wednesday’s announcement of new dietary guidelines will impact the nation’s beef supply, which has lately been low and therefore higher priced.
“There’s no question about it,” he said. “Prices for beef are much higher than they’ve been in the past … Price is really a matter of supply and demand. If we can bring back our supply and our production, it will have a definite impact on consumers.”
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
