The next battleground in the debate over global warming could be your dinner plate.
Conservative think tanks and the beef and pork industry are howling that a group of advisers recommended Americans eat less meat to lower their carbon footprint. Critics said the advisers didn’t have the expertise or purview to inject environmental policy into nutritional guidelines.
The advisory report released last week is “supposed to be a scientific document outlining the best dietary and nutritional advice. This particular advisory committee has completely veered from that mission,” Daren Bakst, research fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner.
The group of 14 nutrition experts gave their thoughts to federal agencies on how to update the 2010 federal dietary guidelines, which provide recommendations on a healthy diet and govern food choices for federal programs such as school meal programs and food stamps. The federal government will make a final decision on those recommendations later this year.
The advisers suggested that Americans move to a Mediterranean-style diet that consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds while lowering meat consumption.
For the first time in the history of the guidelines, the environmental impact of what you eat played a part in the recommendations. Other countries such as Germany and Sweden have already emphasized sustainability in their dietary recommendations.
The report cites 15 different studies conducted over the past 11 years in the U.S. and abroad that showed consuming meat leads to more greenhouse gas emissions through production, shipping, storage and cooking.
A 2005 Institute of Medicine study found beef production in particular used more land, irrigation water and produced more greenhouse gases than dairy, poultry, pork or eggs.
The beef industry slammed the evidence as incomplete.
“Based on all the evidence that this committee reviewed, there is no basis [for] Americans lowering their red meat intake to be healthy or achieve a sustainable” diet, Dr. Shalene McNeill, a dietician and executive director of human nutrition research for the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, told the Washington Examiner.
The pork industry noted that the committee had “no expertise in sustainability,” said Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council.
Bakst also questioned whether the science behind calculating the environmental impact was done properly. He said that the nearly 600-page report is filled with policy recommendations and doesn’t read like a scientific report.
The panel looked into sustainability to figure out whether it should be an issue of concern, said Alice Lichtenstein, a professor at Tufts University and a co-chairwoman of the current panel.
Lichtenstein noted that sustainability has been the impetus for recommendations before. Prior advisers pointed out that overfishing had depleted the stores of available fish.
“Industry responded by developing and refining sustainable and environmentally responsible fish,” Lichtenstein said. “I have no doubt that similar types of approaches are potentially feasible.”
The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture will make the final decision on the guidelines and want comments on the report by April 8. They will release final guidelines later this year.
