The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, unveiled this month, highlight the benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets. The new Guidelines go further than previous federal policies in acknowledging the power of plant-based diets for health.
The Dietary Guidelines—issued by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services every five years—are the blueprint for all federal nutrition programs, including school meals. The new Guidelines devote two full pages to vegetarian and vegan nutrition, and point out that these eating patterns provide nutritional advantages and reduce obesity, heart disease, and overall mortality. Vegetarian diets may include dairy products and eggs, while vegan diets avoid all animal products.
“People who avoid meat cut their risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers, and those who also avoid dairy products and eggs are healthiest of all,” says PCRM nutrition education director Susan Levin, M.S., R.D. “It’s good to see that these diets are now part of federal policy.”
Read the full PCRM announcement here.