The Flemish people of Belgium just received "new" dietary guidelines, and they look uncomfortably familiar.
But are these guidelines really based on firm evidence - or simply outdated ideas about what makes for a healthy diet? Dr. Zoe Harcombe explains.
Dr. Zoe Harcombe: Belgian dietary guidelinesTofu, fruit, bread, potatoes, rice and pasta are at the top of the Flemish pyramid not because there is any evidence that these foods are healthier than offal, meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, but because the panel started from the erroneous belief that certain foods are bad and therefore other foods must be better. This was the fundamental flaw in the original dietary guidelines, dating back to the US in 1977. We don't tell people to eat at least 55% of their diet in the form of carbohydrate because we know carbohydrate to be healthy. We don't even know that it is safe in this volume. It is the inevitable consequence of telling people to eat no more than 30% of their diet in the form of fat.
