Dietary Guidelines

Dietary Fat Recommendations

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2006 Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations

In the 2000s, AHA’s recommendations emphasized core elements of population-wide recommendations for cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment and provided a role of health care professionals to educate Americans about diet’s role in CVD in a clinical setting. The revised focus was on promotion of cardiovascular health (CVH) and prevention of CVD with recognition of the role of the environment and community settings to influence food choices. The 2006 recommendations are for the population ages 2 and older and include diet and lifestyle recommendations to reduce CVD risk, including:

 Balance calorie intake and physical activity to achieve or maintain a healthy body weight.  Consume a diet rich in vegetables and fruits.

 Choose whole-grain, high-fiber foods.

 Consume fish, especially oily fish, at least twice a week.

 Limit your intake of

•         saturated fat to <7% of energy,

•         trans fat to <1% of energy, and

•         cholesterol to <300 mg per day by: 

  • Choosing lean meats and vegetable alternatives;

  • Selecting fat-free (skim), 1%-fat, and low-fat dairy products; and

  • Minimizing intake of partially hydrogenated fats.

 Minimize your intake of beverages and foods with added sugars

 Choose and prepare foods with little or no salt.

 If you consume alcohol, do so in moderation.

Abstract

This article examines how faith in science led physicians and patients to embrace the low-fat diet for heart disease prevention and weight loss. Scientific studies dating from the late 1940s showed a correlation between high-fat diets and high-cholesterol levels, suggesting that a low-fat diet might prevent heart disease in high-risk patients. By the 1960s, the low-fat diet began to be touted not just for high-risk heart patients, but as good for the whole nation. After 1980, the low-fat approach became an overarching ideology, promoted by physicians, the federal government, the food industry, and the popular health media. Many Americans subscribed to the ideology of low fat, even though there was no clear evidence that it prevented heart disease or promoted weight loss. Ironically, in the same decades that the low-fat approach assumed ideological status, Americans in the aggregate were getting fatter, leading to what many called an obesity epidemic. Nevertheless, the low-fat ideology had such a hold on Americans that skeptics were dismissed. Only recently has evidence of a paradigm shift begun to surface, first with the challenge of the low-carbohydrate diet and then, with a more moderate approach, reflecting recent scientific knowledge about fats.

Dr. Winston Craig, MPH, PhD, RD.

Claim to Fame: Co-author of the American Dietetic Association’s 2009 position paper on a vegetarian diet.

Education: Master in Public Health in Nutrition at Loma Linda University,a Seventh-day Adventist university in California that promotes a vegetarian diet.

Profession: Nutrition chair and professor at Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist university in Michigan that promotes a vegetarian diet.

Employer’s Mission: “The mission of the Nutrition Department of Andrews University is to prepare dietetic and nutrition professionals for service in church, society, and the world and to influence the community-at large to affirm the Seventh-day Adventist lifestyle, including the vegetarian diet.”

Previous Employment: Chemistry instructor at Kingsway College, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school in Ontario (1974 - 1976). Assistant professor in Chemistry and Health Science at Adventist College of West Africa (1976 - 1979). Assistant/Associate Prof. in Nutrition at Loma Linda University (1979 - 1984).

Religion: Seventh-day Adventist.

Most Popular Books and Articles:Some Valuable Things I Learnt About Nutrition and Health from Ellen White… The Use and Safety of Common Herbs and Herbal Teas… The Top Ten For Good Health!… Dietary Fat… Raw Foods Diet and Vegetarian Meat Substitutes.

Quotes: “Did you know the Bible describes the best foods for our bodies in Genesis 1:29 and 3:18?”

“Temperance in all things is necessary for health and the development of a balanced Christian character (Ellen G. White, Counsels on Health, p. 38). In today’s world, we are continually tempted to excesses or to extremes. Being self-controlled includes restraining ourselves from extremes. Self-control is listed as part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and is essential for living an effective and productive Christian life (2 Peter 1:6).”

“The original diet given to humans in Genesis One is a plant-based diet. After the permission to eat flesh food the longevity of people was greatly shortened.”

"Sylvester Graham in 1839 wrote that humans would never suffer illness if they ate only uncooked foods. His ideas on a raw food diet were not endorsed by other health reformers of that time, such as John Harvey Kellogg and Ellen White. Dr Kellogg wrote that he could not endorse the extravagant and unsubstantiated claims made by the promoters of the raw food fad. Ellen White also did not recommend that we eat only a raw food diet. … Ellen White clearly promoted the importance of cooking or baking legumes, grains, potatoes and other starchy foods.”

Controversies: Winston Craig occasionally quotes himself as a source in his own articles. His most common “source” is the General Conference Nutrition Council, a Seventh-day Adventist group with a logo modeled off the United Nations flag. When Craig cites them as a source, he is actually citing his own articles that are published anonymously on that site. Craig even references the General Conference Nutrition Council (himself) in his ADA position paper on a vegetarian diet. After all, when you quote yourself, you’re quoting the most reliable person you know.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans

2010:

• 20–35% of calories from total fat, with most coming from PUFA & MUFA.

• <10% of calories from SFA. Replace them with MUFA & PUFA.

• TFA as low as possible. (Trans Fatty Acids)