Do most Americans meet the U.S. Dietary Guidelines?
Boy, do we. And then some! At least in some categories. But we don’t come close in others. As you might guess, this is not necessarily a good thing. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service recently estimated how well Americans meet the Dietary Guidelines in a report, “Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in U.S. Food Consumption, 1970-2005.” Using recommendations for a person on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, the study’s authors estimated how well Americans might be meeting the Dietary Guidelines. Unfortunately, it appears that Americans aren’t eating nearly enough fruit, vegetables or dairy products. In fact, on average, Americans seem to be eating less than one cup of fruit a day (less than half the recommendation). Vegetable consumption wasn’t much better, averaging 1.7 cups a day instead of the 2.5 cups recommended. And instead of the three cups of milk or dairy products recommended per day, Americans consumed just 1.8 cups. At the same time, we’re over-consuming
