We recommend studying the Canadian and US official Dietary Guidelines to our students. We suggest that they approach the guidelines as a theoretical and historical documents and as advice to a population of people with diverse needs and not to single individuals whose nutritional needs may not be met by these recommendations and whose health may be at risk if they follow the food selection advice. A skilful nutritional therapist will know the guidelines as one way to organize food selection but will also know exceptions  to these rules and have other methods of diet design such as the Alpha Nutrition Program

Revised US Guidelines - the Food Pyramid

The US Dietary Guidelines issued in 1995 presents an overview of conventional nutritional thinking and much of the general advice offered is sound. The food selection, however, should not considered anything more or less than local custom steered by a local economy. We want to emphasize that there are millions of people whose health may be at risk if they follow the food selection advice. The 1995 recommendations in the USA and Canada changed to a "food pyramid" approach which gave more value to eating fruits, vegetables and grains, but retained dairy products, cereal grains and meats as essential foods.

My truth is that if I  regularly ate dairy products and cereal grains, I would be very sick, disabled or dead. The lack of concern for my health needs is a very serious omission that discredits the entire enterprise of "official recommendations".

An update to US Dietary Guidelines was published in January 2005, with new emphasis on weight management. The food selection advice did not change.

Harvard's Walter Willet reviewed the new recommendations and stated: " The dietary pyramid released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture attempts to translate current nutritional knowledge to a recommended eating pattern in terms of food groups. Inevitably, such a document represents a mix of well-supported findings, educated guesses, and political compromises with powerful economic interests such as the dairy and meat industries."

Willet's conclusion is that "...optimal health can be achieved from a diet that emphasizes a generous intake of vegetables and fruit. Such plant-enriched diets, as embodied by other cultures can be not only healthy, but interesting and enjoyable as well."

More on our perspective Official Guidelines:
 

Alpha Education Books explain nutrition and the role of food choices in causing disease.
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	Alpha Nutrition Program
	Alpha Nutrition Cooking
	Nutrition Notes
	Food Choices
	Feeding Children

All Alpha Education Books, formulas and starter packs are ordered online. We ship through the Post Office to all destinations in Canada and  the USA. US $ costs depend on the daily dollar exchange rate. Alpha Nutrition ® is a registered trademark and a division of  Environmed Research Inc., Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. In business since 1984. Online since 1995. All our books are available as PDF files for download at  Persona Digital Online