New US Dietary Guidelines

From Sleeper, the Woody Allen 1973 movie where he, a health food store proprietor, wakes up in the future to learn that dietary recommendations have changed:

Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he [Woody Allen] requested something called “wheat germ, organic honey and tiger’s milk.”

Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.

Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… Pop-Tarts?

Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.

Dr. Melik: Incredible.

New US dietary guidelines would worsen carbon emissions and land use

Updated federal dietary guidelines finally take on ultra-processed junk food — but the push for more animal protein quietly erases every environmental gain, and then some.

*The most recent US dietary guidelines have taken a sudden U-turn, suggesting that there should be doubling of animal protein intake in the country. In a recent analysis, scientists warn that the new diet — which also recommends reducing the intake of ultraprocessed foods — would more than offset any benefits of that move with the suggested spike in animal proteins, triggering rising greenhouse gas emissions, land, and fertilizer use.*

Meat, meat, and more meat for meat brains. Only 67% of land animals by biomass are livestock (we don’t eat people yet). Let’s double our (those earning <$2/day) intake of animal protein. Doing so will help end the Anthropocene in half the time. Eat the rich — the new health food.