2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines

There have been a lot changes in the 2016 year, among them were the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines released January 7^th of this year.  The guidelines are reviewed every 5 years based on current research and are meant to help professionals create healthy diets.  New changes include guidelines on added sugar, caffeine, sodium and cholesterol.

                Added sugar is a growing problem.  The new guidelines recommend limiting added sugars to 10% of a person’s total daily caloric intake. For a 2000 calorie diet that is approximately 200 calories or 50 grams of sugar. Unfortunately at this time there is no way to easily identify how much added sugars are in foods.  In 2018 new food labels will listed added sugars separately from naturally occurring ones.  Until then check the ingredients for words that will identify added sugars such as honey, agave, molasses, and anything that ends in ose such as fructose. 

                Caffeine made an appearance for the first time in the guidelines as well.  The recommendation is for 400mg or less per day.  On average coffee has between 100-200mg, Breakfast tea contains 60-90mg, black tea has 30-60mg and green tea has 25-50 mg.  The guidelines don’t make any recommendations to consume caffeine merely that there are no increased risk of major chronic diseases at this level of intake.

                The 2015 guidelines loosened up slightly on sodium recommendations removing its 1500 mg restriction for African Americans and people over 51 years old.  However the recommendation stays intact for those with hypertension (high blood pressure), prehypertension and heart disease.

                Also removed from the guidelines is the recommendation to limit cholesterol.  The guidelines do continue to recommend replacing unhealthy fats (saturated and trans fats) with more healthy fats (unsaturated fats).   The recommendation remains to limit saturated fat to 10% of diet (remember for heart patients this is even stricter 5-6% or approximately 13g).  The recommendation for trans fats remains less than 1%.  Remember to check the ingredient list for these hidden fats with the words “partially hydrogenated.”

                These guidelines are used to shape the My plate (https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate-Daily-Checklist) which is a helpful visual representation of what these guidelines mean.  The fact remains however that it is difficult to think of these guidelines in terms of what an actual diet would look like.  Try to remember to make half of your plate fruits and vegetables shooting for at least 7 servings per day (1 cup raw/1/2 cup cooked), 3 oz of lean proteins, with the final ¼ of your plate whole grains. Use these updated guidelines to help you read labels and bring healthier foods into your diet.  And remember that more so than any one magic food it is overall diet quality that makes the difference.