Diet Guidelines Prompt Food Fight

With the stakes in the billions of dollars, the process of deciding what the nation should eat--always political--is turning even more contentious.

A respected committee of doctors and nutrition experts is preparing to submit next month its five-year review of the federal government’s dietary guidelines. Already, industry advocates are burying the panel under reams of statistics and studies that hail the benefits of eating red meat, consuming dairy products and even drinking moderate amounts of alcohol.

And a recent lawsuit by a health activist organization charges that six of the 11 panel members accepted research grants from organizations with ties to the dairy and meat industries.

The suit also charges that the panel--which includes only one black and one Latino--has been insensitive to the special health needs of various minority groups, promoting milk consumption, for instance, when majorities of African Americans, Asians and Native Americans and half of Latinos (compared with only 15% of whites) are shown by studies to be lactose intolerant.

Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that the guidelines often flout what medical experts know to be true about the health risks of some food products. But those dangers tend to be drowned out because politically connected food industries have a stake in the outcome, he said.

“Everybody in food and agriculture is happy with the guidelines because they can see a part of themselves on the [food] pyramid,” Willett said in a recent interview. “They’re all in the game.”

The game--usually played with rival scientific studies and dueling nutritional experts--escalated to new heights in December when the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington-based group that promotes vegetarianism, sued the federal government in an attempt to stop officials from accepting the advisory panel’s report and preventing release of the 2000 guidelines.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala as defendants and charges government officials with violating the law that bans special interests from exerting undue influence over federal advisory committees.

“Everybody in food and agriculture is happy with the guidelines because they can see a part of themselves on the [food] pyramid,” Willett said in a recent interview. “They’re all in the game.”

The group’s leaders claim that six of the 11 advisory board members--all of whom are distinguished academics in health, nutrition or medical sciences--have what they describe as “inappropriate financial ties” to the meat, dairy or egg industries. They cite, for example, lectures given by some board members before the National Dairy Council and research grants that meat industry groups have given to the academic departments that employ them.

Of particular concern to the physicians’ committee is the inclusion of milk and dairy foods as recommended daily sources of calcium. The group leaders argue that alternatives--such as collards, kale and other dark, leafy green vegetables--should be highlighted in the guidelines as an alternative to dairy products. While those vegetables are high in calcium, they lack the side effects, like nausea and intestinal distress, that strike those allergic to dairy products.

Citing widely known studies showing that 95% of Asian Americans, 65% of black Americans, 65% of Native Americans and 50% of Latinos are lactose intolerant, the suit also concludes that the federal dietary guidelines are insensitive to racial and ethnic minorities.

“The interests of Caucasians are being put first,” said Mindy Kursban, staff counsel for the physicians’ group. “It’s a form of rationalized racism that overlooks minority people’s health concerns to sell more products produced by the meat, dairy and egg industries.”

Agriculture Department officials disagree, saying that the process for setting the guidelines, which are due out next spring, is open and fair to all.

“It’s not unusual for all sorts of people and groups to make comments to the panel and directly to the Agriculture Department,” said Shirley Watkins, undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. “We do have an obligation to promote American-grown agricultural products, but that’s not in conflict with [setting] the dietary guidelines. We don’t promote a particular product.”

But Watkins added that the guidelines, which establish the national standards for healthy eating and are the foundation for school lunch menus, elder care and other public food programs in addition to setting the national standard for healthy eating, are just suggestions. People can choose from them as they decide what to eat. Moreover, she said, federal officials can only tell Americans about the health benefits and costs of what they eat and cannot establish strict rules for every population group.

“We are not being racially biased in our decisions,” said Watkins, who is African American. “Do they want us to say that, if you’re a person of color, like me, you can eat only some kinds of foods? I don’t think so.”

Even if it were possible, suggesting that Americans switch from their meat- and dairy-based diets toward a plant-based one would be doomed to failure, according to many health officials.

“Some nutrients can best be obtained only by eating meat or drinking milk,” said Dr. Rovenia Brock, a nutritionist dietitian at the University of the District of Columbia. “It’s foolish to think that people would eat enough broccoli, about eight servings a day, to get the calcium that would be contained in a glass of milk.”

Brock writes a health and nutrition column in Heart and Soul magazine, which is targeted toward African American women. She said that activists who want the federal government to change the guidelines are more interested in promoting their social causes than nutrition. “It’s bunk to think that milk is that bad for all African Americans,” she said. “Plus, people know there are alternatives, such as lactose-free milk, for those who have problems.”

Nevertheless, the efforts of the physicians’ committee have drawn attention, if not full endorsement, from a loose-knit coalition of doctors, health advocates, civil rights leaders, celebrities and politicians who agree that the dietary guidelines and the composition of the panel should be more sensitive to minority health concerns.

While not always in complete agreement with the physicians’ committee’s tactics, an array of organizations and individuals--including the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and former heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali--have expressed support for changing the federal dietary guidelines to be more sensitive.

President Clinton has told some concerned lawmakers that he understands their concerns about the federal dietary guidelines. But White House aides said privately that they have not been told to act one way or another on the issue.

Only the physicians’ committee’s lawsuit offers specific proposals for changes. In legal papers filed with the federal court, which has yet to act on the matter, the committee urges a shift from encouraging meat and dairy products as the primary source of some necessary nutrients to making them optional and offering a list of vegetable alternatives from which Americans could make choices.

Democratic House delegate Donna M. Christian-Green of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who chairs the Health Brain Trust of the Congressional Black Caucus and is a family physician, said that racial and ethnic minorities suffer higher rates of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer than white Americans. Unhealthy eating habits among minorities account for many of the discrepancies, she said, adding that the federal dietary guidelines should make clear that members of minority groups could improve their health by eating less of certain foods, like meat and dairy products.

“The guidelines ignore issues that are important to people of color,” she said. “The government is not doing its job if it doesn’t include options for people to choose a healthier diet.”

The nation’s milk and other food industries have shrugged off this new level of criticism as misguided. Virtually none of the food-producing firms, which are traditionally quick to respond to legal or political challenges, has mounted an aggressive counterattack against the lawsuit, choosing only to respond when asked directly.

“It’s a sad argument for them to make that [minorities] shouldn’t consume dairy products,” said Jean Ragalie, a vice president for nutritional affairs at the National Dairy Council. “We know that African Americans and others have higher health risks, and for them to say they shouldn’t be consuming dairy is not helpful.”