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Saving Room For Dessert May Help Dieters
Saving Room For Dessert May Help Dieters -- Posted by Gumbo on 11-14-04 19:46
Saving Room For Dessert May Help Dieters
August 23, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal dietary advisory panel is considering whether
its revision of nutrition guidelines should let some people treat themselves
to guilt-free desserts.
Such treats would be bonuses for healthful living, under proposals being
considered by the advisory panel that's drafting an update of the
nutritional guidance.
The experts are looking at what are called "discretionary calories." Those
could be allowed for people who get nutritious meals while staying below the
calories they need to burn for energy.
The panel is looking at ways to write discretionary calories into the
recommendations that the government is to issue early next year, in tandem
with an update of the food guide pyramid.
Discretionary calories are what's left when the calories needed to meet all
of a person's nutrient needs are subtracted from the greater number of
calories needed to meet energy needs.
To gain discretionary calories, people would eat a balanced diet of foods
that are high in nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, but not high in
calories. This could include vegetables and fruits, for instance, as well as
protein from meat and carbohydrates from bread. But consumers would have to
eat in moderation, so they get all their nutrients while staying below their
energy ceiling.
The payoff: They could pick up the extra calories for energy without having
to worry about nutrition. And this allows a variety of high-calorie fun
foods. Ice cream would be one possibility, said committee member Joanne
Lupton, a nutrition professor at Texas A&M University.
The number of discretionary calories would depend on how much people ate and
how much energy they burned. There would be only a little wiggle room for
people whose diets are close to their energy needs. Active people who are
moderate eaters would have more discretionary options -- perhaps an ice
cream sandwich and a bag of potato chips, at about 150 calories each.
But there's a catch: People can't look for treats if they are overweight,
because they already have used up their discretionary calories. As a result,
food industry groups find the idea of discretionary calories unsettling.
Although the advisory committee has not come up with final wording, the
industry groups don't want consumers told that foods they love could be
off-limits.
The Grocery Manufacturers of America urged the panel not to single out any
particular type of food. It encouraged the committee instead to stick with
its call for people to be more physically active. People should be
encouraged to balance the calories they take in with the calories they burn,
the trade group said.
Lupton noted that people who burn more calories can eat more, and said
people could "buy" discretionary calories by being more active. People also
can create more discretionary calories by eating mostly high-nutrition,
lower-calorie foods, she said.
At the National Food Processors Association, a nutrition official supported
that approach. "I can't underscore enough how people have to get more
activity, in addition to thinking about the foods they consume," said Robert
Earl, senior director for nutrition policy.
Another committee member said there was a flaw in the discretionary calorie
argument. People who need more energy don't have to eat foods with few
nutrients, said Dr. Benjamin Caballero, director of the Center for Human
Nutrition at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
They also can get their extra calories with nutrient-rich foods, he said.
On a park bench by a snack shop on the National Mall here, 22-year-old
Rodney Carpentier of the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Ravena found some wisdom in
the discretionary calorie approach.
Carpentier, who described himself as "overweight," said people ought to eat
healthfully "and after that, possibly, you can start talking about having
snacks and stuff like that."
As he ate an ice cream sandwich, Carpentier said it could be hard to get
people to plan their lives around discretionary calories.
"I wouldn't stop to think about it," he said.
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