A New Nutritional Paradigm

The McGovern Committee didn't know it, but they were writing the first widely accepted paradigm for human nutrition. It's a battle other countries wanted to avoid. Once the Guidelines for Americans were published, they were quickly adopted by all of the English speaking world, and later almost universally.

This established what Thomas Kuhn calls a paradigm, an agreed framework, of assumptions on which everyone is agreed, but which allows a wide range of debate and research and experimentation, intended to develop and extend the paradigm.

The way was now open for pharmaceutical companies to find "cures" for diseases that were being caused be the faulty diet recommended. The millions of dollars spent on treating Type 2 diabetes is a case in point. With the right diet, the cost of treating type 2 diabetes is a fraction of what we are currently spending.

Those who had a place at the table were still able to develop their industries. There were many new opportunities for researchers, and for the industrial companies to develop low fat products.

Those who opposed the new paradigm lost their high positions, their careers ended, and they had to find other interests. Some like "Pete" Ahrens, and Fred Kummerow fought on, but it was a lonely battle.

Doing the Big Deal

Political Donations and Lobbying Influence the Result

This was a big deal, institutions, companies, producer groups, and professional groups we all involved in buying a place at the decision table.

George McGovern was sincere in his intentions. He thought that the dietary ideas of Nathan Pritikin and Dean Ornish, moving towards a vegetarian diet would be supported by science. He hoped that the recommendations of nutritional scientists would allow his committee to avoid making hard political decisions.

I've been critical of the McGovern Report, but I now see that they really did try to make the best decision possible.

Perhaps because of the lack of a paradigm previously, the science that had been done was disjointed. The excellent scientific work done pre-WWII in Germany and Austria was not widely known, and politically it probably wasn't acceptable. When McGovern asked for a scientific guidance, those who were not scientists, epidemiologists and nutritionists thought that the science was clear. Scientists, like "Pete" Ahrens, George Mann or Fred Kummerow disagreed. There was little common ground to stand on.

Gary Taubes has shown that the sugar industry planned to distort the science and the public knowledge about sugar, in a manner similar to the way the tobacco industry behaved. They bankrolled scientific papers and funded medical and nutritional specialists, to support the view that "Sugar was Safe" (1976)

The sugar industry sponsors both the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association, and both associations approve of sugar as part of a healthy balanced diet.