Readers React: Leave nutrition policy to nutritionists, not politicians

To the editor: Jonah Goldberg has it right: The U.S. government has been practicing medicine without a license. (“Working the refs on nutrition science,” Opinion, Dec. 22)

Its intervention goes back to at least World War II, when multivitamins were added to the list of benefits for our fighting men overseas to show that adequate nutrition was provided by the government. The critical amount of each vitamin needed for health has been revised almost every year and is still inadequate for most of us.

In the 1950s, eating too much cholesterol was thought to be the source of heart attacks and strokes. Since then our government has advocated a very low dietary cholesterol intake.

We now know excess carbohydrate and calories are the real culprits. The revered food pyramid with its broad carbohydrate base has finally been discarded as not adequate.

Nutrition should be left to the nutrition experts and practitioners and not to the politicians, who might sell their votes to the highest bidder. Furthermore, we should require physicians to learn about nutrition from experts and not from food industry hacks and their representatives.

Jerome P. Helman, MD, Venice

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To the editor: This Democrat says bravo (for once!) to Goldberg for his attack on the longtime politicization of the government-appointed nutrition advisory panel. While good in concept, the panel should not be part of the Department of Agriculture, with the many political winds buffeting it — from a senator’s favorite nutritionist to the many food industry lobbyists.

As he notes, the decades-long “low fat, high carbohydrate” message from the panel, largely undertaken at the behest of one influential doctor and without any scientific backing, has been a disaster for the American public, helping it to grow more obese and diabetic.

The indoctrination is so complete that it will take decades to reverse the damage, with nutritionists, doctors and patients being incredulous that diets high in fats and low in carbohydrates have actually been scientifically supported all along.

David Weaver, San Juan Capistrano

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