One key lesson from coping with COVID-19 is that high-quality scientific information matters. It’s as true for nutrition and food science as it is for virology.

As the scientific community has worked to figure out how to fight the virus, many of the classic truths about the connection between good nutrition and good health have been reaffirmed. It is consequently unsurprising that a healthy diet plays an important role in COVID-19 management and recovery. That makes it all the more unbelievable that the dietary guidelines issued by the U.S. government to promote a healthy diet are woefully out of step with current scientific understanding.