f
GOVERNMENT: IS IT FOR THE PEOPLE? 309that it was a printing error. But, no, it was correct. I know several of the
people on the panel who wrote this report and decided to give them a
ring. The first panel member, a long-time acquaintance, said this was
the first time he had even heard about the 35% protein limit! He sug-
gested that this protein recommendation might have been drafted in the
last days of preparing the report. He also told me that there was little
discussion of the evidence on protein, for or against a high consump-
tion level, although he recollected there being some pro-Atkins sympa-
thy on the committee. He had not worked in the protein area, so he did
not know the literature. In any event, this important recommendation
slipped through the panel without much notice and made the first sen-
tence of the FNB news release!
The second panel member, a long-time friend and colleague, was a
subcommittee chair during the latter part of the panel's existence. He is
not a nutritional scientist and also was surprised to hear my concerns
about the upper limit for protein. He did not recall much discussion
on the topic either. When I reminded him of some of the evidence
linking high-animal protein diets to chronic disease, he initially was
a little defensive. But with a little more persistence on my part about
the evidence, he finally said, "Colin, you know that I really don't know
anything about nutrition." How, then, was he a member-let alone the
chair-of this important subcommittee? And it gets worse. The chair of
the standing committee on the evaluation of these recommendations
left the panel shortly before its completion for a senior executive posi-
tion in a very large food company-a company that will salivate over
these new recommendations.A SUGARCOATED REPORT
The recommendation on added sugar is as outrageous as the one for
protein. At about the time this FNB report was being released, an expert
panel put together by the WHO (World Health Organization) and the
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) was completing a new report
on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases. Professor
Phillip James, another friend of mine, was a member of this panel and a
panel spokesperson on the added sugar recommendation. Early rumors
of the report's findings indicated that the WHOIFAO was on the verge
of recommending an upper safe limit of 10% for added sugar, far lower
than the 25% established by the American FNB group.
Politics, however, had early entered the discussion, as it had done in