Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is featuring comments from a recent conversation between NCBA Senior Director of Governmental Affairs, Sigrid Johannes, and Farm Reporter Maci Carter.
Johannes’s policy portfolio includes lab-grown meat, cattle health and welfare, food safety, and animal disease traceability. This means that she interacts with the FDA frequently, which is overseen by the Department of Health & Human Services, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Carter left the cards on the table when she pointedly asked Johannes if RFK, Jr.’s leadership worries her. Johannes replied, “I wouldn’t call it a worry. I would say that it is an area where our job becomes even more important. Secretary Kennedy clearly has a really strong vision for what he wants HHS to be. He has a really strong vision and goal for how he wants American health to look, and I think that is really admirable.”
She touted his goals to tackle big health problems in America, such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, especially in children, but pointed out that information backed by science needs to guide these efforts.
“It doesn’t matter who is in the White House or in charge of HHS, you will always hear NCBA advocating for fact-based, science-based solutions,” she stated. “In some cases, we’ve seen HHS take a really hard line on things like red meat and saturated fat, and that just means that its important for us to do our job and point out where beef fits into a healthy American diet. Here are all of the nutritional benefits we bring to the table.”
NCBA’s message to the USDA and FDA is threefold:
1.) To eliminate the recommended reduction of meat, poultry, and eggs currently in the Biden Administration’s proposed dietary guidelines.
“There’s really no science to support that,” Johannes said. “We think that recommendation is pretty tainted, very politically motivated in some cases. Some environmental groups were playing in that space, but there’s not a whole lot of real nutrition science to back up the idea that we need to cut meat.”
2.) Reform the process of creating dietary guidelines.
“There are all kinds of stuff that goes into the formulation of the DGs behind the scenes that just doesn’t pass the integrity test,” Johannes explained. “We would like USDA and HHS to take a closer look there.”
3.) Reinforce that the dietary guidelines should be practical and flexible for American families to follow.
“I would challenge you to find a single person on your phone contact list who uses the DGs to go grocery shopping every week,” Johannes challenged. “They’re not really practical for Americans in their day-to-day life. They don’t reflect factors like price, which play a huge role in what people buy and eat. We want to take these out of the academic sphere where they are not really even following best practices and bring them into real life, where they can actually be useful to people who are trying to make healthy choices and address some of those health concerns.”
She expressed complete confidence that Secretary Rollins and Secretary Kennedy will hear NCBA’s message and come to a workable solution for red meat in healthy American diets.
The two departments should have the next set of dietary guidelines in place by 2030. Secretary Kennedy has stated intent for the guidelines will recommend that Americans eat more whole foods.
The dietary guidelines are updated every four years and are intended to be utilized by policymakers, health care providers, nutrition educators, and federal nutrition program operators. Kennedy has already expressed a desire for average Americans to be able to understand and make use of the dietary guidelines going forward. Secretary Rollins mirrored these intentions when she said that the guidelines should be simple and speak directly to the American family.
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