The Hagstrom Report

Agriculture News As It Happens

Navigation

Vilsack on dietary guidelines: Officials have less latitude than committee

Reacting to the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s release of its report, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today that he had spent a “lot of time” reviewing the law that sets up the guidelines and the charter of the committee and concluded that he and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell will have a narrower mandate to write the dietary guidelines than the committee had in analyzing nutrition and providing advice.

The advisory report was released at 1 p.m. today. It recommends the government encourage Americans to reduce consumption of sodium, saturated fats and added sugars and to take the sustainability of food production into consideration when making food choices.

The fiscal year 2015 omnibus appropriations bill says that Congress expects Vilsack to stop any inclusion of sustainability in the guidelines.

In a telephone interview, Vilsack said he wants people to realize that the process of writing the dietary guidelines “is just beginning today,” and that he and Burwell will consider input from federal agencies and the general public. He said he wants to be sure that people “know that I know my responsibility.”

The members of the advisory committee “had a greater latitude to opine” about a variety of issues that “may or may not inform the guidelines,” Vilsack said.

“Our function at USDA is to make sure we adhere to the statutory directive,” he said.

He also said he understands that industries feel compelled to respond immediately to anything negative about their products in the report, but he added that he also believes “it is important for people to engage in dialogue.”

“There seems to be the ability to turn up the heat on things, not the capacity for many to turn the heat down,” Vilsack said. “As a proponent of slow cookin’ you end up with a pretty tasty meal.”

Vilsack said it would be premature to react to any of the specific recommendations in the report.

But he added, “I was happy to know my caffeine intake doesn’t create a problem.”

Vilsack noted that he had not drunk coffee until he became an Iowa state senator in his late 40s, but that he is now “a very significant” coffee drinker who consumes “pretty close” to the recommended limit of three to five cups per day.

Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
— Executive Summary