iF YOU believe the clinical science supporting saturated fats in foods such as butter, cheese, eggs, and meat, you must call your senators and representatives in Washington, D.C., at once. That’s because the subcommittee on dietary fats made the illogical recommendation to further reduce the amount of saturated fat allowed in the upcoming 2020 to 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans that are due out later this year. The fact that no one on that committee even argued against this notion suggests that, on this topic, the panel is biased and unbalanced.
This is highly disturbing given that leading scientists from the U.S., Canada, and Denmark just reviewed the research on saturated-fat intake and its correlation to heart disease. These highly regarded scientists concurred that the most rigorous and current science fails to support a continuation of caps on saturated fats. In reality, saturated fats bring value to the human diet. Dairy foods at all fat levels should be part of the updated dietary recommendations.
When referring to science, the aforementioned group of scientists pored over rigorous clinical trials involving 75,000 people. This evidence has never been directly reviewed by any committee since the launch of the guidelines in 1980.
Instead, the federally appointed subcommittee on dietary fats forged ahead with its own agenda announcing that it had found the link between saturated-fat consumption and cardiovascular disease to be strong. In doing so, it exalted two studies involving children, which were either conducted on small-scale or genetically abnormal populations. In no way can these studies be generalized to the public. For adults, the subcommittee is relying on an old review, from 2015, which the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine deemed as non-systematic — or what we would call flawed.
But that didn’t stop the subcommittee on dietary fats. Some of these zealots asserted the cap on saturated fat should be reduced down to 7% of calories (from the current level of 10%), and others supported this idea. One subcommittee member even had the audacity to suggest the cap on saturated fat be reduced to zero.
Even though the University of Minnesota’s Ancel Keys no longer walks the earth, his minions still cling to his all-fats-are-bad mantra. It’s time we all stand up to this junk science. Even Time magazine has publicly confessed its decades-old sin of once condemning saturated fat. Call or email your senators and representatives to point out this pending train wreck. Failing to do so will prevent 2% and whole milk from making their way back into school cafeterias before 2025.
