The nation’s top nutritional panel is recommending for the first time that Americans consider the impact on the environment when they are choosing what to eat, a move that defied a warning from Congress and, if enacted, could discourage people from eating red meat. 
 
 Members of Congress had sought in December to keep the group from even discussing the issue, asserting that while advising the government on federal dietary guidelines, the committee should steer clear of extraneous issues and stick to nutritional advice. 
 
 But the panel’s findings, issued Thursday in the form of a 571-page report, recommended that Americans be kinder to the environment by eating more foods derived from plants and fewer foods that come from animals. Red meat is deemed particularly harmful because of, among other things, the amount of land and feed required in its production. 
 
 “Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet,” the report says. 
 
 [ Top nutrition panel: The American diet is killing us ] 
 
 Many scientists say animal-based foods are a poorer choice for the environment because they are associated with significantly larger carbon emissions than their plant-based counterparts. (Jayme Halbritter/AP) 
 
 The environmental recommendations are part of a report meant to provide the scientific basis for the next version of the Dietary Guidelines, the federal government’s publication on what to eat. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department will issue the guidelines later this year. 
 
 Those agencies could ignore the panel’s recommendations, but major deviations are rare, experts and former panel members said. 
 
 Overall, the committee’s report amounts to a scientific update regarding what is known about healthy eating. Although Americans don’t necessarily heed the dietary guidelines ahead of each meal, the guidelines are influential and can help dictate what is on the menu of school lunches and how foods are labeled. 
 
 The panel found that Americans are consuming too much salt, added sugars and foods rich in saturated fats. And for the first time, the panel addressed concerns about coffee, saying that there is strong evidence that moderate consumption is not associated with long-term health risks. The panel also reversed decades of warnings about eating foods high in cholesterol, such as eggs and liver. 
 
 [ So can I binge on eggs now? Here’s what you need to know. ] 
 
 But the decision by the advisory panel to link the dietary guidelines to the environment will probably stir the most controversy. 
 
 In December, Congress approved language that expressed “concern” that the advisory committee was “considering issues outside of the nutritional focus of the panel” — alluding to the environmental discussions. 
 
 The nation's top nutritional panel released its report recommending changes to the U.S. dietary guidelines. Here are the main takeaways of what you should and should not eat. (Julio C. Negron and Jayne W. Orenstein/The Washington Post) 
 
 Moreover, Congress said at the time, the final Dietary Guidelines should “only include nutrition and dietary information.” 
 
 The advisory panel’s report prompted immediate criticism from Congress — as well as a warning from Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the budget for the Agriculture Department. 
 
 “Chairman Aderholt is skeptical of the panel’s departure from utilizing sound science as the criteria for the guidelines,” according to Brian Rell, a spokesman. “Politically motivated issues such as taxes on certain foods and environmental sustainability are outside their purview.” 
 
 He warned that the panel committee would “keep this in mind” as it considers funding the agencies this spring. 
 
 Meat industry lobbyists also attacked the recommendation, asserting that the panel was stacked with health experts who know too little about environmental science. 
 
 “The Committee’s foray into the murky waters of sustainability is well beyond its scope and expertise. It’s akin to having a dermatologist provide recommendations about cardiac care,” Barry Carpenter, the chief executive of the North American Meat Institute, said in a statement. 
 
 He added that the recommendations “appear to be based on personal opinions or social agendas.” 
 
 In the past, federal bureaucrats have come under lobbying pressure from groups that discovered their particular product had been targeted for opprobrium by the Dietary Guidelines. 
 
 Americans are eating less meat than they have in the past, but they are still eating too much, according to the panel’s experts, and all that meat consumption is having detrimental effects on the environment. 
 
 Many scientists say animal-based foods are a poorer choice for the environment because they are associated with significantly larger carbon emissions than their plant-based counterparts. Animals generate a lot of methane, and the production of meat products requires large amounts of feed, fertilizer and fuel, all of which put stress on the environment. 
 
 Numerous studies have documented the outsize impact. A study published last year in the journal Climatic Change reported that meat eaters contributed more to global warming than do fish eaters, vegetarians and vegans. 
 
 Red meat in particular, which the committee says Americans need to scale back on for health reasons, has been linked to a larger carbon footprint than other meats. For instance, on a per-kilogram basis, beef is associated with more than twice the carbon emissions of pork, nearly three times that of turkey and almost four times that of chicken, according to the Environmental Working Group. 
 
 Red meat is also a comparatively inefficient source of calories and protein. The World Resources Institute has estimated that poultry, pork, shrimp, fish and eggs are all much better sources of those two nutrients relative to the amount of feed and land required to produce them. 
 
 “It’s pretty much a consensus view among global environmental scientists that we would be better off if we ate less meat,” said Timothy Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University who focuses on agriculture and climate change. 
 
 Miriam Nelson, a professor at Tufts University and one of the committee’s members, said the panel is not saying that people should become vegans. 
 
 “But we are saying that people need to eat less meat,” Nelson said. “We need to start thinking about what’s sustainable. . . . Other countries have already started doing this — including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it, too.” ||||| View Images Ground beef patties are packaged for distribution in Amarillo, Texas. New dietary recommendations released today suggest a diet high in vegetables and low in red meat, but no longer warn against foods high in cholesterol. 
 
 Photograph by Brian Finke, National Geographic 
 
 The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee issued its recommendations today, calling on Americans to eat less meat, watch their sodium intake, and start thinking about the environment more. As many had predicted, it also peeled back a 40-year-old warning against eating foods high in cholesterol, like eggs and shrimp. 
 
 "The overall body of evidence examined by the 2015 DGAC identifies that a healthy dietary pattern is higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in alcohol (among adults); lower in red and processed meat; and low in sugar-sweetened foods and drinks and refined grains," the report says. 
 
 Not a surprise, unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, but the devil will be in the details. 
 
 One critical detail is that the committee, for the first time, is including "the impact of food production, processing, and consumption on environmental sustainability" in its recommendations. 
 
 "Linking health, dietary guidance, and the environment will promote human health and the sustainability of natural resources and ensure current and long-term food security," the committee says. 
 
 After intense lobbying by representatives of the U.S. meat industry and other special interest groups, the language calling on Americans to eat less red meat was softened somewhat by a footnote saying that lean red meat can be part of a healthy diet. (Read more about the meat debate in "Carnivore's Dilemma" in National Geographic magazine.) 
 
 Why It Matters 
 
 While some see being told what to eat as a "big government as nanny" moment, the recommendations—and what the U.S. Department of Agriculture ultimately decides to adopt—are used to set food policy for major institutions and schools. Those policies in turn serve as a guide for everyone who wants to do business with or just plain needs to eat at government offices, other big institutions, or schools. 
 
 The Big Picture 
 
 Dietary recommendations like these don't come around all that often. The U.S. Department of Agriculture releases them only every five years. A lot of science and politics can change in that time, and someone always has a beef with what ends up in the final document. 
 
 Despite some debate about saturated versus unsaturated fats, with some research suggesting that saturated fats aren't as bad as once thought, most dieticians and health experts are generally pleased with the recommendation to limit saturated fat intake to no more than 10 percent of daily calories. (Related: "Is Fat Our Friend?") 
 
 The committee members "don't move at all on the issue of what kinds of fats to eat. They continue to recommend limiting saturated fat and supporting polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats," Steven Nissen, chair of Cleveland Clinic's Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, told Time magazine. "I would have liked the guidelines to be a little more neutral on saturated fat." 
 
 What's Next 
 
 The public is invited to comment on the guidelines through April 8. The USDA will likely issue the final 2015 dietary guidelines by the end of this year. ||||| A federal panel that helps set federal dietary guidelines is recommending Americans eat less meat because it’s better for the environment, sparking outrage from industry groups representing the nation’s purveyors of beef, pork and poultry. 
 
 
 
 The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a federally appointed panel of nutritionists created in 1983, decided for the first time this year to factor in environmental sustainability in its recommendations. They include a finding that a diet lower in animal-based foods is not only healthier, but has less of an environmental impact. 
 
 
 
 The meat industry is lashing back, contending the panel has neither the authority nor the expertise to make such a judgment. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 “When you talk about the lens of the dietary guidelines it’s just not appropriate for the advisory committee to enter that conversation when they were asked to look at nutrition and health science,” said Kristina Butts, executive director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) agrees, saying sustainability is a complex issue best left to a body that specializes in the environment.“The same concern would exist if an expert sustainability committee were making nutrition policy recommendations,” Betsy Booren, NAMI’s vice president of scientific Affairs, said in a public meeting last week. “It is not appropriate for the person designing a better light bulb to be telling Americans how to make a better sandwich.”The Agriculture Department and Department of Health and Human Services will use the committee’s report and recommendations to draft the final guidelines for 2015, due out later this year.But even Agriculture Secretaryhas said sustainability is an issue that falls outside the scope of the guidelines.“I read the actual law,” he was quoted saying in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “And what I read … was that our job ultimately is to formulate dietary and nutrition guidelines. And I emphasize dietary and nutrition because that’s what the law says. I think it’s my responsibility to follow the law.”But members of the committee say they had free reign to discuss food supply in recommending what people should and shouldn’t be eating.“The scope is ours to fully define,” said Barbara Millen, chairwoman of the advisory committee and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.“Because we are encouraging Americans to eat more seafood, we felt we needed to look at the sustainability of that issue as well.”In response to the claims about a lack of expertise, Millen said the panel did bring in two domestic sustainability experts to work with the committee members.The 571-page report says the average U.S. diet has a larger environmental impact in terms of increased greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use and energy use than the healthy dietary pattern it suggests — one that’s rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, seafood, legumes and nuts; moderate in low- and non-fat dairy products and alcohol; and lower in red and processed meat, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, and refined grains.In its review of scientific studies, the committee highlighted research concluding that a vegan diet had the most potential health benefits."The organically grown vegan diet also had the lowest estimated impact on resources and ecosystem quality, and the average Italian diet had the greatest projected impact,” according to the report. “Beef was the single food with the greatest projected impact on the environment; other foods estimated to have high impact included cheese, milk, and seafood."The committee’s report says people should eat less red and processed meat because it contains saturated fats, which when over-consumed can lead to cardiovascular disease, and instead recommends Americans eat more vegetables and nuts.But industry groups argue that meat contains protein, which helps people feel fuller for longer periods of time. Eating meat, Butts said can help people stick to their diets better.Though consumers have never been known to strictly follow the final guidelines, NAMI’s spokesman Eric Mittenthal said the recommendations do impact federal programs like school lunches, WIC, the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, and military rations.But Millen said industry is misunderstanding their report, and overreacting.She said the committee mapped out three diets for Americans to use as guidelines – a vegetarian-style, a Mediterranean-style and a healthy U.S.-style diet.“If people took the time to understand, this is not a meat-free diet and this is not vegan approach, they’d realize this is a healthy dietary pattern with three models that offers consumers a lot of choice,” she said.The committee’s Vice Chairwoman Alice Lichtenstein said there’s also a misunderstanding in the meat industry about what the committee actually does.“We’re tasked with delivering a report to HHS and USDA,” she said. “We don’t know how much will be factored into the final guidelines or not. Our job is to collate and review the evidence out there and deliver it to the secretaries.”On Tuesday, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) and 70 House Republicans sent a letter to HHS and USDA urging the final dietary guidelines to be based on sound nutritional science and adhere to the charter authorized by Congress.In the letter, the lawmakers said they believe the advisory committee “greatly exceeded their scope in developing the recommendations for the secretaries of USDA and HHS.”“It is the responsibility of the secretaries to ensure that this advisory committee stay focused on nutritional recommendations and not the wider policy realm of sustainability and tax policy, in which members of this committee had neither expertise, evidence, nor charter,” they wrote.HHS and USDA have extended the written comment period from April 8 to May 8 to give the public additional time to comment on the advisory committee’s report.An HHS representative said the departments would review the report, along with input from federal agencies and public comments to develop the final 2015 guidelines.The department would not answer questions about whether the topic of sustainability was within the committee’s purview or whether the agency plans to factor sustainability into the final guidelines.
– When the federal government's new Dietary Guidelines come out later this year, the nation's top nutritional panel wants them for the first time to include a recommendation that Americans keep the planet in mind when deciding what to eat. That's the panel's advice, at least, and its inclusion in its 571-page report, issued yesterday, is quite controversial. In December, Congress warned the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee not to touch on anything other than nutrition, but the report urges Americans to eat more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods in an effort to have a smaller environmental impact, the Washington Post reports. The report calls out red meat in particular as harmful to the environment, and it also notes that Americans should cut back on it for health reasons. Members of Congress and the meat industry lobby were quick to criticize the report. "Politically motivated issues such as ... environmental sustainability are outside their purview," says a spokesman for GOP Rep. Robert B. Aderholt; the head of the largest meat-trade association said the recommendations "appear to be based on ... social agendas." But the American Institute for Cancer Research applauded the report's meat advice, NBC News reports. And, National Geographic adds, the report does include the footnote that "lean red meat" can be included in a healthy diet. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department could simply ignore the report, which is meant to provide a scientific basis for the guidelines, when they issue the official guidelines, but the Post reports the recommendations are rarely altered. Americans can, of course, ignore the guidelines once they come out, but as they can impact things like school lunch menus, they could have an effect. (Another first: a reversal of long-standing warnings about cholesterol.)