DA designed to keep Americans healthy received more and more persuasive influence by a food industry that felt threatened by any reference to eating less of its products.
Such influence was felt keenly by government officials intent on designing eating guidelines (42-50). Throughout the years, recommendations on what constitutes a ôfood groupö and how much of each type of food to eat have fluctuated greatly from four food groups to as many as eleven. At times, fats and sweets have been represented as a food group on par for consumption with groups such as fruits and vegetables. Meat and dairy industry representatives have testified as to the benefits of their respective products and complained that negative connotations of the wording related to meat and dairy consumption could dramatically hurt their industries and thus create dips in the U.S. economy. Because the heads of committees responsible for defining nutritional guidelines are often politicians, threats to getting re-elected in
...