US Department of Agriculture declares eggs, butter, nuts, coconut oil & meat as ‘safe’

The US Department of Agriculture, in the upcoming Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015 report, will remove the 300 milligrammes a day limit on cholesterol intake which was on the 2010 guidelines. The reason behind the 180-degree turn is available evidence over the lack of a relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol.

Simply put, food listed as containing “nutrients of concern” such as eggs, butter, full-fat dietary products, nuts and coconut oil and coconut meat would be classified as safe. This action by the department attempts to make the upcoming dietary guidelines consistent with the conclusions of the reports of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology.

With this change, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will no longer warn Americans about the danger of eating high-cholesterol foods and instead refocus on raising the red flag on sugar as the “main substance of dietary concern,” reports Yahoo. It would end three decades – from the 1970s through the 1990s – of constant warning from government agencies on the dangers of consumption of high-cholesterol food to avoid cardiovascular ailments and strokes.

That would mean following the advice of scientists and nutritionists to reintroduce good cholesterol into the “safe zone.”

American cardiologist Dr Steven Nissen agrees with the forthcoming dietary guidelines, revised every five years and scheduled to be released in 2016. He points out that the dietary guidelines, last revised in 2010, had been wrong for decades.

Since about 20 percent of cholesterol levels in the human blood comes from the diet, the remaining 80 percent is produced by the liver because the body cannot possibly eat enough cholesterol the body would need for daily functions, adds Dr Chris Masterjohn, also a heart doctor.

The next step should be to tighten the noose on the food industry which is pushing sugar into daily diet. Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra emphasises that added sugar has zero nutritional value and the body does not need any carbohydrate for energy from added sugar. He notes that carbohydrates that do not contain fiber, particularly sugar, have the biggest impact on insulin surges in the body, adding the insulin is a fat-storing hormone.

However, added sugar, saturated fat and sodium would not be reduced in isolation, but the cut would be part of a healthy dietary pattern which is balanced in calories, as appropriate. The emphasis would be on replacement and shifts in food intake and eating patterns.