Remember your mother's constant admonitions about eating good food, exercising, and staying healthy? Well, Mom's wisdom is back in the new Food, and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Dietary Guidelines for Americans.1 A quick review of some of my mother's favorite phrases serves as a framework for understanding the new dietary guidelines and how they will work in improving the health of Americans.
Eat your vegetables. The 2005 guidelines emphasize the importance of including 5 half-cup servings of various dark green, leafy vegetables such as broccoli and kale, and orange vegetables such as sweet potatoes and carrots. Legumes such as beans, lentils, and peas are also important. Fast-food salad bars just won't cut it anymore, but Mom's lentil soup laced with carrots and escarole will!!
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Fruit, at least 2 cups per day, should be the main source of sugar in our diet. But how many days in the week do we go without a piece of fruit? An apple, orange, or small banana and you are halfway there. Canned, frozen, or dried fruits also count. Mom always had a fruit bowl on her table or homemade applesauce in the fridge. Fruit provides fuel in the form of natural sugars and fiber to assist in absorption.
Drink your milk. Fad diets in recent years pushed milk and dairy products to the bottom of the list. In the new guidelines, dairy is back: 24 oz of low-fat milk every 24 hours is required. Calcium-rich foods like milk are of great importance to the human diet, particularly since calcium is key to enhancing metabolic rate.
Trim the fat. Mom's weekly trips to the corner butcher shop taught me the importance of lean cuts of meat and fat-trimmed poultry. "Trim before you weigh and price," was my mother's plea to the butcher. Although we no longer have the luxury of that demand, we can abide by the new guidelines to choose lean cuts of meat and increase the amount of poultry, fish, legumes, and other sources of protein in our diets.
Oatmeal sticks to the ribs. Mom served fiber-rich foods-oatmeal on those cold winter mornings, whole-grain, crusty breads, and plenty of homemade pasta. To this day, one of my favorite snacks is graham crackers and a glass of milk. The new guidelines recommend a minimum of 3 oz per day of whole-grain foods.
No junk. We rarely had candy, chips, soda, donuts, or what my mother termed "junk" in the house. Mom preferred nutrients-rich instead of caloric-rich foods to keep her family healthy.
The chauffer is off today, so walk. Television, computers, and for many a sedentary occupation and lifestyle lessen the level of physical activity that is necessary to maintain health. Today, we drive, ride, or fly to save time, and in the process fail to budget enough time to move our bodies. The new guidelines recommend a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity every day to improve cardiovascular health, reduce stress, and maintain a healthy weight.
The US epidemic of obesity and related chronic diseases is one of the major public health problems of this century. Following the new dietary guidelines should help to prevent and ameliorate obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and stroke, osteoarthritis, and some cancers.
The new FDA dietary guidelines are proof that mother always knew best!!
Gloria F. Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN
Editor-in-Chief
Reference