Confusing Americans is key for the success of the food industry!

Though I've only read the first fifty pages of Marion Nestle's Food Politics, one thing is exceedingly clear: The food industry does not care about the health of consumers, and the United States government (historically) has been too afraid of upsetting gigantic food industries to do much about it.  The name of the game is confusion.  Recommendations are constantly rephrased.  Instead of telling us to decrease consumption of meat (and risk the fury of the meat industry), which was the recommendation in the first draft of the Dietary Goals report in 1977, the recommendations have been rephased: Choose lean meats, limit intake of high-fat processed meats, limit use of animal fats...

According to Nestle's findings, recommendations for reduction of meats and saturated fats  have been consistent for over fifty years.  Yet, public awareness about the hazards of these foods seems fairly recent.  

When my parents were growing up in the 1950s, milk was it's own food group. The Daily Food Guide from 1958 recommends milk, meat, vegetables/fruits, and breads/cereals.  It's no wonder they had meat and a tall glass of milk at every meal.  However, this guide became obsolete in the 1970s, when the recommendations shifted in order to help Americans avoid chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer.  The new guidelines were met with objections, specifically from the meat and diary producers.  Food companies even hired scientists to  report findings that were more beneficial to the higher consumption of all foods.  The controversy over recommendations and sales figures for the food industry resulted in seven different editions of dietary guidelines between 1977 and 2000.  Though the findings never truly changed, each new edition was more neutral and more careful not to inhibit the income of our food industry.  Instead of recommending a decrease in consumption of meats, the recommendations were rephrased to limit  intake of  high-fat processed meats. 

Though controversial, the new pyramid from 1992 at least made it clear that  dairy and meat should not be the basis of our  diets. According to Nestle, this food pyramid, created in 1991, was withdrawn under pressure from the meat producers, but then was finally released in 1992.  According to Nestle, the USDA was supposed to release new dietary recommendations (maybe a new food pyramid) in June of 2011...

Even with new recommendations, will we follow them?  Nestle posted this graph on her blog this week.  It doesn't look too promising that we will change our ways.