A Bone to Pick with the USDA

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to hear Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of the USDA, give the keynote speech at Friedman's Annual Symposium. You *might* recognize her as one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Important People in the World". Well, I wholeheartedly agree. (I might be biased as she was one of my favorite professors during the master's program.)

One of the questions she fielded from the audience was about what the USDA was going to do to address the issue of SOFAs in the American Diet. (SOFAs stand for solid fats and added sugars. Not to be confused with the other "sofa" issue here in the States, mainly that people won't get off them.)

What Dr. Merrigan didn't mention was the checkoff programs currently in existence here in the United States. These are quasi-governmental bodies aimed at increasing consumption of certain key commodities produced in the US. I say they are quasi-governmental because, although they are really a part of AMS (the agricultural marketing service), they are paid for by taxes on industry and the boards of the committees include private sector players.

These programs are responsible for campaigns such as the milk mustache, "Beef. It's what's for dinner." and "Pork: The Other White Meat". All of these programs encourage consumption of products high in saturated (solid) fats. (Saturated fats are those fats that are solid at room temperature and are almost exclusively found in animal products.) This is in direct opposition to government health messages, such as the Dietary Guidelines, which call for Americans to "limit" (you should read that as "avoid") saturated fat. In fact, the current recommendations to the USDA by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee actually calls for even lower recommended intakes for saturated fat (from 10% of daily caloric intake down to 7%).

This makes this report from the NYT especially disturbing. At a time when Americans are eating way too much saturated fat from cheese products, the USDA is teaming up with industry (Dominos, Wendy's, BK) to fund ad campaigns to encourage consumption?

It's enough to make you sick.

Maybe even give you a heart attack, and I do mean that quite literally.