At the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego, Senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays spoke with Sigrid Johannes from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Washington, D.C. office. Our Coverage from San Diego is powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.
Sigrid Johannes addressed the policy concerns surrounding the upcoming dietary guidelines, particularly in contrast to the scientific report released in December. “That scientific report was not good for us,” she said, citing “bogus recommendations” like swapping meat and eggs for legumes. Johannes emphasized that such substitutions aren’t nutritionally equivalent and critiqued the report’s outdated warnings about saturated fat. “There was also a lot of language in there about saturated fat and the dangers of red meat, even though the United States as a whole is within 1% of meeting our saturated fat target.”
Despite the challenges presented in the report, Johannes remained optimistic about the industry’s efforts to influence the final guidelines. “The good news is we’ve done a lot of work since December to improve the final guidelines,” she stated. She pointed out a key distinction between the preliminary scientific report and the actual guidelines, which she expects to be more favorable to beef producers. “There’s a lot of debate about how impartial [the scientific report] really is. It’s cooked up by 30 hand-selected people not open to a lot of public engagement.”
Johannes also discussed the new approach being taken with the upcoming guidelines, applauding efforts to streamline the final document. “They are streamlining and cutting this down quite a bit. I’m excited to read seven pages instead of 500.” She stressed that simplification would benefit the public: “That’s not helpful when it comes to somebody making their grocery list So I think cutting it down, making it a lot clearer and simpler for Americans, is a really good move.” Read more about the dietary guidelines process here.
Turning to the broader “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative, Johannes explained its origins and potential impact. “It really sort of came together before President Trump even began his second term,” she noted, describing it as a coalition of parents, educators, and health advocates seeking alternatives to establishment medicine. “The ramifications for the cattle industry have been pretty wide and varied one place where this really comes out to play is the dietary guidelines,” she added, also referencing the MaHA Commission’s work on obesity and chronic disease.
Looking ahead, Johannes expressed concern about regulatory shifts tied to MAHA’s second major report, due August 12. “The report caused a lot of concern in some parts of Ag,” she said, citing criticism of pesticides and GMOs. However, she was relieved that beef was treated fairly: “The only place that beef was mentioned was to talk about what a good source of protein we are.” excitingly, we know the beef checkoff was cited as a source, Shalene McNeill said ” we saw in the Make America Healthy Again initial report that some of our Beef Checkoff research was actually cited, acknowledging the health benefits of beef eating.” Still, vigilance remains essential. “We want to make sure that none of the good work that Maha is doing gets spun off in the wrong direction by making it harder for us to raise cattle,” she concluded, especially with regard to critical tools like antibiotics and growth promotants.
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