The Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may soon be telling you what you should eat to reduce your “carbon footprint.”
In order to—ostensibly—prevent global warming and reduce our national carbon footprint, Washington is already telling Americans what light bulbs they can buy, and what buildings in which they should want to live and work. Now, food could be the next frontier.
Currently, the USDA and HHS are drafting their 2015 Dietary Guidelines. Every five years, the USDA and HHS issue recommendations for Americans on what constitutes a healthy diet. As Dr. Barbara Millen, chair of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), remarked, their job is “facilitating and promoting healthy eating and physical activity.”
The Dietary Guidelines website outlines the purpose in this way:
They [the Guidelines] provide authoritative advice about consuming fewer calories, making informed food choices, and being physically active to attain and maintain a healthy weight, reduce risk of chronic disease, and promote overall health.
Notice that there’s nothing about the environment in these statements.
Unfortunately, ideology now trumps practicality; rather than devoting its time to the group’s actual purpose—serving as the cornerstone of Federal nutrition policy and nutrition education activities—the DGAC is focusing on environmental concerns. As Millen stated at the initial meeting, “Overall, we want to be certain to make recommendations for a healthy, ecologically responsible diet.” The Subcommittee on Food Sustainability and Safety made this objective even more explicit in their presentation at the second meeting when they stated: “The goal is to develop dietary guidance that supports human health and the health of the planet over time.” [Emphasis added]
Dr. Miriam Nelson, chair of the subcommittee, did not attempt to hide her desire to manipulate the American diet to promote this agenda. Dr. Nelson was quoted in The Washington Free Beacon as saying that, “Eating fewer animals, but choosing those wisely, and reducing sugar, refined grains, things like that…would actually have a lower footprint than what we are currently doing.”
Right now, the DGAC is still gathering research before they formally issue new recommendations. Nothing concrete has been decided but their public statements have had a significant focus on the environment, including climate change.
It does not matter to “environmentalists” that DGAC’s sole purpose is to consider the health of Americans: For adherents of the environmental extremist movement, human welfare often comes second to that of the environment.
If the USDA and HHS continue down this route, the 2015 Guidelines will not be entirely based on real health objectives and nutritional needs. These agencies will have chosen to risk people’s health for an unrelated political objective—rather than simply promoting the well-being of all Americans.