Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 10, 1991 TAG: 9104100187
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine wants the Agriculture Department to change its food groupings from meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy products and bread and cereal to whole grains, vegetables, legumes and fruit.
The basic problem with the current system, the organization said, is that Americans eat too much meat and dairy products - at the expense of other foods.
Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the committee, said Thomas Jefferson had the right idea when he said, "I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and not as aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables which constitute my principal diet."
Barnard said that today's typical Western diet is much higher in animal fat and protein than in Jefferson's day, and so are the risks of cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis.
He said concern about getting enough protein has led to an overemphasis on protein, with the average American eating about twice as much as needed.
Barnard also said the Agriculture Department had designed guidelines for the benefit of the producers.
"Previous recommendations have protected the image of certain foods and promoted the health of food industries, while compromising the health of American consumers," he said.
The committee's announcement that it was beginning a campaign for a change brought quick reaction from a former agriculture secretary and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Meats and dairy products should not be removed from the four basic groups because the are important sources of protein, iron, calcium and other nutrients, said John R. Block, agriculture secretary under President Reagan and now president of the National-American Wholesale Grocers' Association.
Block, who owns an Illinois farm, said most consumers are aware of the potential problem of excessive fat in their diets and "food producers have responded by offering leaner cuts of meat and processed products lower in fat and cholesterol."
Dean Kleckner, president of the Farm Bureau, the nation's largest farm organization, called the physicians' proposal an effort "to promote strict vegetarian diets."
Another of the physicians, Dr. Denis Burkitt, said that many of the diseases citizens of developed countries have come to expect are rare or unknown in the Third World, where meals typically center around fruit, vegetables and grain rather than meat.
He said that in the last 200 years developed countries have steadily increased the amount of meat and dairy products in their diet, though the body has no more need for such foods now than it did 20,000 years ago.
"Everybody in America has a Stone Age body," he said. "What we are doing is putting high-grade fuel into engines made to run on diesel."
by CNB