Every five to ten years, the Health Council bundles the latest scientific insights into the relationship between nutrition and health in the Good Nutrition Guidelines. The guidelines of the council are then translated by the Nutrition Center into practical advice for the consumer.
What will be the biggest change compared to the current Good Nutrition Guidelines?
In the previous guidelines the emphasis was always on nutrients, macronutrients and micronutrients. In recent years, scientists have focused less on individual nutrients, but more on the relationship between foods, dietary patterns and health. The nutrients are of course still important, but the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Not only among scientific researchers but also among nutritionists a shift in thinking is now needed from the traditional nutritional approach with the emphasis on nutrients to recommendations with foods and dietary patterns.
How new is this approach?
You should see it more as an accent shift. For example, in the 2006 guidelines we have already paid a lot of attention to fish. This resulted in the practical recommendation to eat fish twice a week, including fatty fish once. Unfortunately we still don't eat enough fish in the United States. I am curious to find out whether nutrition advisers know what to do about it, because it would be good if our fish consumption went up.
Isn't the attention for nutritional supplements new?
Many American people nowadays use dietary supplements. According to the Food Consumption Survey, this is about forty percent of the American population. The question is which supplements are useful and which are not. Are we limiting our advice to vitamin D, about which the council came out in 2012, or are there also reasons to pay attention to other vitamins?
Will it be healthy to eat Mediterranean or Japanese food?
We study the worldwide scientific literature on the relationships between nutrients, foods, dietary patterns and health. In addition, we also pay attention to the traditional cuisines of the Cretans and the Japanese, because the people there are on average healthier old than here. Their patterns cannot be translated here one-on-one, but you can find elements in their diet that are healthy for us too. For example, eat lots of vegetables and fruit, and use good fats and oils. And exercise, because a sedentary life is not good for anyone.
Previous Good Food Guidelines were a voluminous book. Is that again the expectation?
The Health Council publishes less and less on paper and more and more digitally. The new guidelines will also be available as documents on the Health Council website. In various background documents we make a systematic analysis of the state of the art on nutrients, foods and dietary patterns in relation to chronic diseases. We also show step by step which choices the council makes to come up with guidelines. The background documents form the building blocks for the final compact advice with the new guidelines. Nutritionists can then use it again to further translate it into different target groups.
If we are not mistaken, it is stated above that the Health Council will continue to think in terms of substances, but that will do so from the way people eat. And furthermore that you have to eat varied and in moderation and have to exercise. Do you think that something will change that will make the Americans eat healthier?
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