How the USDA Can Make or Break Public Health, and Why It Has Chosen
the Latter
June 18, 2014
Story at-a-glance
Since its inception, the USDA has been granted powers by
both Congress and presidential executive orders that
have made it the policy-setter for both agricultural
policies and nutritional guidelines
USDA policies have been heavily influenced by the food
industry, and for the last 100 years, its nutrition
guidelines have been a direct result of an effort to
boost farm economics
Agricultural subsidies are in large part responsible for
promoting and worsening the US obesity epidemic
The USDA-run Smart Snacks in School program encourages
“healthy choices.” But the “smarter, healthier” choices
promoted are actually processed foods, including junk
foods like tortilla chips, and artificially flavored
water
If you want optimal health, you need to return to a diet
of real, whole foods—fresh organic produce, meats from
animals raised sustainably on pasture, and raw organic
milk and eggs
By Dr. Mercola
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) was formed in 1862 by
Abraham Lincoln. It is responsible for developing and executing
federal policies relating to farming, agriculture, forestry, and
food.
Since its inception, the USDA has been granted powers by both
Congress and presidential executive orders that, progressively
and collectively, have made it the policy-setter for both
agricultural policies and nutritional guidelines.
This is an obvious and serious conflict of interest that has
led to an epidemic of chronic disease. It's also why federal
guidelines relating to diet are so grossly divergent from
nutritional science.
Historically, USDA policies have been heavily—and in some
instances, exclusively—influenced by pesticide producers and the
junk food industry, and for the last 100 years, its nutrition
"guidelines" have been a direct result of an effort to boost
farm economics.
In short, federal dietary recommendations have very little to
do with actual nutrition science, and everything to do with
promoting foods that serve the junk food industry's bottom
line, not the public health.
Through its power to set and enforce both agricultural policy
and dietary standards, the USDA has much to answer for when it
comes to the current state of health of Americans...
Nutrition Guidelines Set to Boost Junk Food Economics, Not to
Promote Health
Ever since 1933, every five to seven years the US Congress
passes a set of legislative acts commonly referred to as "the
Farm Bill," which includes agricultural subsidies to growers of
certain types of food.
These subsidies are in large part responsible for promoting
and worsening the US obesity epidemic—a fact highlighted in a
2013 study published in the American Journal of Preventive
Medicine.1
According to the authors, the root of the problem is that:
"Government-issued payments have skewed agricultural
markets toward the overproduction of commodities that are
the basic ingredients of processed, energy-dense foods."
This includes corn, soybeans, wheat and rice, which are the
top four most heavily subsidized foods.
By subsidizing these, particularly corn and soy, the US
government is actively supporting a diet that consists of these
processed grains, namely
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), soybean oil, and grain-fed
cattle – all of which are now well-known contributors to obesity
and chronic disease.
The Farm Bill essentially creates a negative feedback loop
that perpetuates the highly profitable but health-harming
processed food diet that the United States has become infamous
for.
The US government is actively promoting obesity and chronic
disease through these subsidies, while simultaneously creating
flawed and ineffective anti-obesity campaigns and programs to
combat the very problems rooted in its agricultural policies!
The Evolution of USDA's Role in Junk Food Economics
A USDA document titled,"History of
Agricultural Price-Support and Adjustment Programs, 1933-84,
Background for 1985 Farm Legislation"2
describes the evolution of the USDA's role.
In 1929, in an effort to provide balance to the equation, the
Federal Farm Board was established by the Agricultural Marketing
Act to help the USDA solve the problems of a) surplus food
products, and b) low farm prices.
This effort also met with failure, at which point Congress
enacted additional legislation designed to help farmers make
more money.
The Great Depression of the 1930s produced a variety of
legislation giving the USDA new powers intended to boost failing
agricultural markets while helping to feed the poor, and with
each successive act thereafter, the USDA became increasingly
more powerful.
Crops covered by these acts included tobacco, various grains,
cotton, and livestock such as pigs/hogs. Peanuts, wheat, rice,
milk, a number of fruits and vegetables, and corn also became
price control/subsidy crops during the '30s.
In 1937, the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act3
gave the USDA the authority to control milk, fruits, vegetables,
and specialty crops markets through price controls and surplus
stockpiling. The law's purpose was to bolster Depression-era
failing agriculture prices by allowing USDA to fix minimum
prices on these products.
An addendum was added to Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act
in 1949, forming the Raisin Administrative Committee, which is
still in existence today. This committee is currently in the
news4,
5 for its archaic rules that farmers cannot pack and
market their own raisins. Instead, they must turn over up to 50
percent of their crop to the USDA, which then purportedly
"markets" the raisins for the farmers.
A lawsuit6
on this matter claimed that USDA isn't paying farmers for the
raisins, and is instead holding them in reserve in order to
artificially jack up prices. Remarkably, these archaic
regulations were recently upheld by the Ninth US Circuit Court
of Appeals. As reported by JimBovard.com,7
"the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the US
Department of Agriculture taking 47 percent of a farmer's
harvest does not violate the Fifth Amendment's takings clause as
long as the government aims to drive up crop prices." Basically,
what this means is that your tax dollars are spent on a
government program that results in higher prices at the grocery
checkout line...
USDA Also Supports GMOs—Even in Organics
Last year, Congress passed, and Obama signed into law, the
"Monsanto Protection Act," which grants enormous powers to the
USDA to approve genetically engineered seeds, and allow them to
be used even when the approval is challenged by a court ruling.
Interestingly enough, if you study the history of USDA
secretaries and leadership, you'll see that one of the early
secretaries who had incredible clout in structuring USDA—Henry
Agard Wallace8
— actually helped develop hybrid corn, and continued to conduct
genetics research until his death. Wallace served as secretary
through the pivotal USDA years of 1933 to 1940, more or less
laying the groundwork for the agency's stance on genetically
engineered (GE) foods decades ago.
Today, it's quite clear that GE crops are at the top of the
list of agricultural products that the chemical technology
industry wants to protect at all costs. GE seeds are FAR more
lucrative than conventional seeds, since they're covered by
patents, and farmers are forced to purchase new seed and pay
royalties each year.
When you consider the USDA's long history of playing a
central role in protecting pesticide and junk food economics,
it's hard to imagine the agency taking responsible actions for
the environment and human health when it comes to
GMOs... If it benefits the
junk food industry, the USDA will side with the junk food
industry, even if human health suffers. This likelihood becomes
even more evident when you consider the USDA's involvement in
setting nutritional standards and dietary guidelines. The USDA
is even exercising its political muscle to allow synthetic,
non-organic, and even GE ingredients in organic agriculture—a
development that has drawn harsh criticism,9
and rightfully so.
USDA's Involvement with Nutrition Standards, and the Role of the
School Lunch Program
When and why did the USDA get involved in setting nutrition
standards,10
and how does the School Lunch Program figure into it?
Historically, the school lunch program has always been tied to
the setting of nutrition guidelines, which makes it virtually
impossible to talk about one without including the other.
The National School Lunch Program became part of the USDA
during the Great Depression as a subsection of the Surplus
Disposal Programs, beginning in 1933. The Federal Surplus Relief
Corporation, later called the Federal Surplus Commodities
Corporation, used federal funds assigned to USDA to purchase and
distribute surplus food to unemployed families. Schools were
added when it became apparent that individual states' and
communities' efforts lacked in uniformity.
States had haphazardly run school lunch programs up to this
point, but when the Great Depression began and USDA took over in
1933, the agency used this as an opportunity to solve hunger
while simultaneously creating a market for farmers' products—all
with the use of federal funds granted to USDA.
Today, the National School Lunch Program operates in over
100,000 private and public schools, as well as residential child
care institutions. Congress expanded the program to include
snacks in 1998.11
The so-called Smart Snacks in School program12
encourages "healthy choices." But if you look at this Smart
Snacks Infographic,13
you can see that the "smarter, healthier" choices promoted are
actually processed foods, includingjunk foods like
tortilla chips, and flavored "diet" water...
Food Distribution Programs Are More About 'Creating Markets'
Than Optimizing Nutrition for the Underprivileged
The USDA asserted its authority to set nutrition policy when
it publicly declared that the purpose of the surplus food
program was to "dispose of surplus food and simultaneously raise
the nutritional level of low-income consumers."14
The actual law putting USDA in charge of educating people on
nutrition was the Smith-Lever Act of 1914,15
which established Cooperative Extensions in each state. These
are still active today. One job of the extensions is to educate
the public on nutrition under the "guidance" of the USDA.
Besides the School Lunch Program, the USDA has been, or still
is, involved with more than a dozen different food distribution
programs (see below). Again, such programs are basically
designed to create a market for whatever foods farmers are
growing a surplus of—NOT necessarily to distribute the
healthiest foods to those who need it most...
Nutrition Program for the Elderly (now known as the
Nutrition Incentives Program)
School Breakfast Program
Special Milk Program
Soup Kitchen/Food Banks Program
Summer Food Service Program
Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program
Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations
Child and Adult Care Food Program
Commodity Supplemental Food Program for low-income
pregnant and breastfeeding women (a predecessor to the
WIC program)
Emergency Food Assistance Program
A Brief History of USDA's Flawed Nutritional Guidance
From the very beginning, USDA dietary guidelines have been
based on what farmers have to sell, not what your body actually
requires to stay healthy. ChooseMyPlate.gov has a flyer
summarizing the history of USDA food guides and nutritional
guidance,18
which began nearly 100 years ago in 191619
with guidelines for "how to select foods," with a focus on
"protective foods." This included 20 percent of daily calories
from fatty foods, and only 10 percent of daily calories from
sugars. The bulk of your diet was fresh fruits and vegetables.
This was perhaps the first and last time the USDA even came
close to promoting a relatively nutritionally sound diet. As
mentioned earlier, the agency didn't begin to frame its dietary
guidelines around the farm economy until the 1930s Great
Depression.
In the 1940s, the USDA came out with daily serving
recommendations for seven different food groups, but it lacked
specific serving sizes. Still, it wasn't too flawed, as the
focus for its nutritional guidance centered on reaching
"nutritional adequacy" by eating a little bit of everything.
Then, in 1956, guidelines were altered to reflect only four
food groups: milk, meat, fruits/vegetables, and breads/cereals.
Fat and sugar were excluded from the guidelines, as was caloric
intake suggestions. These guidelines were promoted as the
"foundation diet approach," and the four food groups mentioned
were considered "food for fitness."
In hindsight, this is particularly ironic since sugar and fat
are two of the mostimportant factors of a
foundational diet for fitness! Sugars (along with breads and
cereals) need to be restricted, and any beneficial food
guidance need to make that clear, while healthy non-processed
fats are a crucial component of a healthy diet.
As I've discussed in previous articles, Dr. Ancel Keys
published a paper that served as the basis for nearly all of the
initial scientific support for the
Cholesterol Theory in 1953—three years before the USDA cut
fat from its dietary guidelines. Trans fat-containing margarine
took the place of healthy butter and lard, and the low-fat era
was born. The consequences of this have been dire, as rates of
heart disease began rising right along with the shunning of
saturated fats...
In 1979, the basic four food groups were expanded with a
fifth group, which recommended a moderate intake of fat, sugar,
and alcohol. These five food groups then served as the basis for
the creation of what became the 1992 Food Pyramid.
Some of you may be old enough to recall the
original Food Pyramid, which had grains as the largest
bottom block of the pyramid, encouraging you to eat 6-11
servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta each day. This excess
of carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the
opposite of what most people need to stay healthy. At the
very top of the pyramid was fats and sugar, and while sugar
clearly belongs there, fats do not. In fact, most people would
benefit from getting anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of their
total daily calories from healthy fats until their body regains
the ability to burn fat as a primary fuel!
The Food Pyramid was replaced by the more nebulous MyPyramid
Food Guidance System in 2005, followed by "MyPlate"
in 2011. MyPlate slightly downplays grains as the most important
dietary ingredient, making vegetables the largest "slice," but
it still has a long way to go before it will offer a
meal plan that will truly support your optimal health.
One of its most glaring faults is that MyPlate has again
removed virtually all fats from the equation—despite advances in
nutritional science confirming previous suspicions that
non-processed healthy fats are crucial for good health, while
processed carbs and sugars are the main drivers of disease!
Again, the real reason why grains are promoted as a
major cornerstone of your diet is because that's what
farmers are paid to grow in the US. There's a lot of it,
and it's inexpensive compared to healthier foods like vegetables
and nuts...
Blatant Conflicts of Interest Between USDA and the Food Industry
Revealed
According to former USDA director of dietary guidance, Luise
Light,20
blatant conflicts of interest between the USDA and the food
industry occurred during the 1980s while the original Food
Pyramid was being designed. She was hired during this time to
develop the new food guide for USDA, and she recounts her
disillusionment with this work in her book, What to Eat; The
Ten Things You Really Need to Know to Eat Well and Be Healthy. According
to Light, the USDA secretary himself changed healthier
guidelines to less healthy ones, just to suit the demands of
certain segments of the food industry. She writes:
"Where we, the USDA nutritionists, called for a base
of 5-9 servings of fresh fruits andvegetables a day, it was
replaced with a paltry 2-3 servings... Ourrecommendation of
3-4 daily servings of whole-grain breads and cereals was
changed toa whopping 6-11 servings forming the base of the
Food Pyramid as a concession to theprocessed wheat and corn
industries.
Moreover, my nutritionist group had placed bakedgoods
made with white flour... at the peak of the pyramid,
recommending that they beeaten sparingly. To our alarm, in
the 'revised' Food Guide, they were now made part ofthe
Pyramid's base. And, in yet one more assault on dietary
logic, changes were made tothe wording of the dietary
guidelines from 'eat less' to 'avoid too much,' giving a nod
tothe processed-food industry interests by not limiting
highly profitable 'fun foods' (junkfoods by any other name)
that might affect the bottom line of food companies...
I vehemently protested that the changes, if followed,
could lead to an epidemic of obesityand diabetes — and
couldn't be justified on either health or nutritional
grounds. To myamazement, I was a lone voice on this issue...
Over my objections, the Food Guide Pyramid was
finalized,although it only saw the light of day 12 years
later, in 1992. Yet it appears my warninghas come to pass."
The agriculture secretary who did this was John Rusling
Block,21
who served as head of the USDA from January 1981 to February
1986. When Block left the USDA, he became president of the
National Wholesale Grocers' Association, which later became Food
Distributors International, which is now known as the National
Grocers Association.
Block has also served as a senior policy adviser at a
Washington lobbying firm, Olsson and Frank PC, which represents
special interest groups before the USDA. (Incidentally, Olsson
was deputy assistant secretary at USDA from 1971 to 1973.)
Today, Block serves on the board of directors at Hormel Foods,
along with other positions,22
including being a non-resident senior fellow with the National
Center for Food and Agricultural Policy.
Not surprisingly, the school lunch program is equally rife
with conflicts of interest with the food industry. For example,
the School Nutrition Association (SNA)23
is an association of food professionals who describe themselves
as "providing high-quality, low-cost meals to students across
the country." So who are these "food professionals" exactly?
Would it surprise you to learn that SNA's members include some
of the largest junk food manufacturers? This includes:
Coca-Cola
Domino's Pizza
General Mills
Pizza Hut
Sara Lee and others
Trust Government-Issued Nutrition Guidelines at Your Own Risk...
In 2004, Luise Light complained24
that the latest dietary guidelines being considered as a
replacement for the Food Pyramid were again being
dictated by the food industry. And then she made this
whistleblowing statement, citing the USDA's "long and cozy
relationship with the food industry:"
"As I learned from my days as aUSDA nutritionist,
nutrition for the government is primarily a marketing tool
to fuelgrowth in consumer food expenditures and demand for
major food commodities... It's an economics lesson that has
very little to do with our health andnutrition and
everything to do with making sure that food expenditures
continue to risefor all interests involved in the food
industry… It's evident that the government can't be relied
on to provide objective, health-promoting food and nutrition
advice."
The 2011 MyPlate guideline encourages you to replace
saturated fats (meat, lard, cream, butter, whole-milk cheese,
and coconut oil) with monounsaturated- and polyunsaturated fats
(primarily vegetable oils such as canola, corn, soybean, and
safflower). But this time, industry influence didn't get a free
pass. In September 2011, nutrition experts at Harvard School of
Public Health announced their dissatisfaction with USDA's
guideline by creating their own Healthy Eating Plate,25
which they said was designed specifically "to address
deficiencies" in USDA's MyPlate.
Harvard professor Walter Willett also made this
no-holds-barred statement26
as to why he and his colleagues had created their own food
guide: "Unfortunately, like the earlier U.S. Department of
Agriculture Pyramids, MyPlate mixes science with the influence
of powerful agricultural interests, which is not the recipe for
healthy eating."
What a Food Pyramid Based on Nutritional Science Really Looks
Like
While Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate is definitely better
than the USDA's guidelines, I still believe it can be further
improved upon. For example, it still recommends harmful
canola oil over healthy butter fat, and promotes eating a
variety of grains, albeit whole grains rather than refined
grains like white bread.
I recommend minimal to no consumption of grains and
sugars in my Food Pyramid for Optimal Health (see below), which
summarizes the nutritional guidelines espoused in my
Nutrition Plan. My pyramid, which is based on nutritional
science, is almost the inverse of the original USDA food
pyramid, featuring healthy fats and vegetables on the bottom.
Again, most people would benefit from getting at least 50
percent of your daily calories from healthy fats such as
avocados,
coconut oil, nuts, and raw butter until they are able to
burn fats as their primary fuel and have no evidence of insulin/leptin
resistance.
In terms of bulk or quantity, vegetables would be the most
prominent feature on your plate. They provide countless critical
nutrients, while being sparse on calories. Next comes
high-quality proteins, followed by a moderate amount of fruits,
and lastly, at the very top, you'll find grains and sugars. This
last top tier of sugars and grains can be eliminated
entirely.
While this may sound impossible to some, I can attest to the
fact that quitting carbs is doable. In fact, once your
body has successfully switched over from burning carbs to
burning fat as its primary fuel, carb cravings actually
disappear, as if by magic. There are two primary ways to achieve
this metabolic switch, and these strategies support each other
when combined:
Intermittent fasting: I prefer daily
intermittent fasting, but you could also fast a couple of
days a week if you prefer, or every other day. There are
many different
variations. To be effective, in the case of daily
intermittent fasting, the length of your fast must be at
least 16 hours long. This means eating only between the
hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this
equates to simply
skipping breakfast, and making lunch your first meal of
the day instead and limiting food to a 6-8 hour window
A ketogenic diet: This type of diet, in which
you replace carbs with low to moderate amounts of
high-quality protein and high amounts of beneficial fat, is
what I recommend for everyone, and is exactly what you get
if you focus on the bottom three tiers of my food pyramid.
This eating is very helpful to normalize weight and resolve
insulin/leptin resistance. It is not something one eats the
rest of their life but only until the insulin/leptin
resistance resolves
Rays of Hope
While the overall situation remains bleak, there are a few
rays of hope here and there. The main problem is that these
positive developments are not widely applied, so the vast
majority of people, including school children, are still being
harmed rather than helped by our federal food policies. That
said, some of the more encouraging developments include the
following:
In 2011, the New York Times27
publicized the "movement" to make school lunches fresh from
scratch once again, instead of basing most or all of the
menus on processed, pre-packaged foods. As recently as
April, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $25 million in
grants to help schools purchase the kitchen equipment
necessary for cooking healthier school meals.28
The agency has given out $160 million in kitchen equipment
grants since 2009.
The Department of Defense has also been working with
USDA since the mid-1990s to supply fresh fruit and
vegetables to schools along with their deliveries to
military installations.29,
30 The partnership gives schools a wider variety
of fresh produce than would normally be available through
the USDA. Noteworthy is the fact that this program's rules
specify that it does NOT allow processed or preserved fruits
and vegetables, dips, processed fruit strips, trail mix,
smoothies, carbonated fruit, or fruit with added flavorings
injected into it.
The USDA also operates a Farm to School Program,31
which promotes the use of locally-grown fruits, vegetables,
and milk. In 2011-2012, schools participating in this
program served over $350 million-worth of local food.
Additionally, last year the USDA awarded 71 grants to
schools for local farmers' produce, and to partner with
farms to teach horticulture skills.32
As I said, all of these are steps in the right direction. But
we need them to be implemented on a much larger scale! These
programs need to be the rule, not the exception.
Help Support Small Farms - Buy Direct
If you don't like the idea of your tax dollars lining the
pockets of wealthy corporations that flood the market with
sugary sodas, soybean oil, and corn chips, remember that you can
make a difference by voting with your wallet, each and every day
of the week. Support
small
family farms in your area, even if it means buying just one
or two items at your local farmers market, instead of the big
box store. All those little purchases add up.
If you want optimal health, you need to return to a diet of
real, whole foods—fresh organic produce, meats from animals
raised sustainably on pasture, and raw organic milk and eggs.
Say no to junk food producersby not buying their
products. Eating this way will earn you a long, healthy
life—whereas the typical American diet may set you on the path
toward obesity and chronic disease.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.