If you dig into it more, there are lots of studies supporting the Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Source recommendations, which are always years ahead of the industry-warped misinformation put out by the USDA. Dr. David Ludwig’s “Always Hungry” has over 20 pages of footnotes with lots of citations.
The literature on whole grains is problematic because many studies (like the USDA recommendations) do not distinguish between whole grains (low glycemic index) and whole-grain flour (almost the same glycemic index as refined flour).
Some corporate-brand reduced-fat cheeses have the same amount of salt as their regular counterparts.
Reducing the amount of full-fat cheese in a recipe by 30% by weight will probably give you as much flavor as using the full weight of reduced-fat cheese, could reduce the sodium by 30% over the reduced-fat version, and will save you money.
It’s a complicated subject. Does mozzarella have less salt than Reggiano? By weight, yes, per 100 grams, traditional whole-milk mozzarella has around 625 mg of sodium while Reggiano has over 1500 mg. But a serving of mozzarella might be four ounces, around 700 mg, while a serving of Reggiano might be a quarter cup, around 300 mg. Which is kind of beside the point since you typically wouldn’t substitute one for the other.
I actually dig into clinical trials and similar health and drug related issues on a daily basis as part of my job and I work sometimes with people from Harvard on some of these projects. And no, Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Source recommendations are not years ahead of anybody else but often simply also not backed up by reliable scientific data, e.g. clinical studies with enough statistical power etc. (and don’t get me even started on David Ludwig and USDA or other industry related “recommendation” which are in no way better). Most of the recommendations in your link are based on very small clinical studies with little meaning for “real” life - there is a reason that many drugs are “successful” in phase II studies and meet their endpoints but fail for missing their clinical endpoints in phase III studies when they are tested against larger (and statistically relevant) numbers of patients. If you have Modernist Cuisine or Modernist Bread there are a few chapters (not overy scientifically written and not going as deep as necessary) which illustrate it nicely why the large majority of nutrional recommendations by Havard, Ludwig and many other scientists and industry are actually not backed up by data and just not true. I would recommend that you look in depth into clinical studies conducted within the “nutrional” field and also read some clinical statistic books.
I so appreciate your elaborating here. I have a good bit of medical background and try to be super careful about anything I share, generally on FB. And it can be difficult for a ‘lay person’ to really read results of clinical trials. Unrelated to food, I was reading something just this morning. The results were questionable in the NIH article but it really wasn’t a blind test. And on and on. Again, thanks for taking the time. C
Nutrition Source is only one of various sources that are years ahead of the USDA, whose recommendations blur the lines between more and less healthy choices in deference to corporate pressure.
Diets aren’t drugs. Clinical trials aren’t a great way to discover what dietary choices people can stick with indefinitely that will make them healthier in the long run.
I don’t know why you are always bringing up USDA regulation which I don’t care about. And if you think clinical trials are not the best way to find out about nutrional rules/paths than quite frankly you don’t know what you are talking about. The (nearly) only way to scientifically prove if a drug/food etc. has a positive or negative effect on human health is through double blinded clinical studies with statistical power everything else is more or less tea leaf reading (or just small studies run to get grant but with little scientific relevance (but unfortuntaly often used in newspapers etc)
USDA recommendations and their outdated choice of nutritional numbers are by law on most food items in the grocery store.
Human digestion is a complex system. We understand many aspects of it only superficially if at all. For example, we’re just beginning to understand the important role of the intestinal biome.
Clinical studies provide little pieces of the huge puzzle, but epidemiological studies like the one I linked to are far more helpful in figuring out what diets are healthier.
Every clinican (including ones who work in fields of nutrition) will completely disagree with you as there are fundamental flaws in epidemiological studies which won’t give an unbiased readout and thereby have significantly less scientific value than double blinded clinical studies. It is obvious that you don’t even know the very basics of clinical research
My first job out of school was at CDC. I always wanted to be an epidemiolgist. They used to travel the world being ‘investigators.’ Here’s this from a gov site.
“What Epidemiologists Do
Epidemiologists are public health professionals who investigate patterns and causes of disease and injury in humans. They seek to reduce the risk and occurrence of negative health outcomes through research, community education, and health policy.”
And, yes, it takes organizing and analyzing ALL the data. Not as sexy but crucial.
Eat what you like but if you like rectangular solids made of MILK, SKIM MILK, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, BUTTERMILK, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM CITRATE, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, SALT, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, LACTIC ACID, SORBIC ACID, XANTHAN GUM, LOCUST BEAN GUM, GUAR GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR, COLOR ADDED, CHEESE CULTURES, ENZYMES, and VITAMIN A PALMITATE expect some ribbing.
