SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

In the United States, a vigorous debate is under way over government-issued dietary guidance [sciencemag.org]. A February 2015 report by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) recommended, for the first time, that food system sustainability be an integral part of dietary guidance in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) (1). With the final decision from the secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) and of Agriculture (USDA) about what parts of the DGAC recommendations to include in the 2015 DGAs expected at the end of this year, we discuss the need to incorporate sustainability into dietary guidelines and the political maneuvering under way to excise it.
...
FAO [United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization] defines sustainable diets as those with “low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and healthy life for present and future generations” (4). By this or any other definition of sustainability, no country has achieved a sustainable diet. Current and emerging dietary patterns threaten human health in developing and developed countries (5, 6) and negatively affect long-term food security (7). It is thus not unreasonable that government-issued dietary guidelines take sustainability into account. The Netherlands, Brazil, and Sweden have already done so. Germany and the United States have active, but unresolved, discussions.

Original Submission