The old food pyramid is back – with a twist. The FDA updated its food guidelines with a new emphasis on protein, vegetables, and other whole foods.
“Today marks the beginning of the end of an era of medical dogma on nutrition,” FDA Head Dr. Marty Makary said at a press conference last month. “For decades,” he said, “we’ve been fed a corrupt pyramid that has had a myopic focus demonizing healthy saturated fats.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr went even further saying that the government was lying to the American people to “protect corporate profit-taking.”
Biochemist Dr. Anthony Jay told Drew Mariani that these recommendations are “a great step in the right direction.”
Jay pointed to a recent study which indicates a high number of young Americans have insulin resistance, or IR.
In one study from 2021, a group of researchers found insulin resistance in “40 percent of young adults.” The study called on policymakers and clinicians “to aggressively pursue screening and…prevention measures to control IR and associated cardiovascular risk factors.”
The high number of IR adults could be attributed to the old pyramid’s recommendations, Jay suggested, which called for six to eleven servings of grains a day. “I don’t even know how you can eat that much,” Jay told Drew.
Winning Over Skeptics
Even those who are skeptical of other aspects of the Make America Healthy Again movement find things to celebrate in the new guidelines. Emily Oster, professor of economics at Brown University took to the pages of the New York Times to laude the “sensible” advice.
Specifically, Oster praised whole food recommendations. “Virtually all nutrition experts agree that eating foods in which the ingredients are limited, recognizable and not highly processed is a good thing,” she said.
Oster also highlighted the guideline’s call to introduce young children to allergens. “The new guidelines continue to emphasize the introduction of allergens in children’s diets at around 6 months old because of very clear data that it lowers the risk of developing food allergies later,” the professor wrote.