Ivan Slotsky, Princeton
To the editor:
USDA’s new MyPlate dietary logo illustrates graphically the shrinking roleof meat and dairy products in our national diet. It replaces meat with atofu loaf, and shunts dairy off the plate.
The new logo provides a fitting conclusion to a 30-year record of theDietary Guidelines recommending replacement of animal products and otherfatty foods in our diet with vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains(see www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines).
The recommendations reflect widespread concern with the growing epidemic ofobesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other killer diseases.
There is an historic reason why health authorities have not taken a strongerstand against meat and dairy, as they did with tobacco products threedecades ago.
In 1977, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs publishedDietary Goals for the United States, recommending reduced meat consumption.The meat industry forced the committee to destroy all copies of the reportand to remove the offending recommendation from a new version. It thenabolished the committee, voted Chairman George McGovern out of office, andtaught government bureaucrats never to challenge meat consumption again.(“Food Politics” by Marion Nestle, 2007).
Ivan Slotsky
Princeton
