The Republicans’ have been blaming the Obama administration for crossing its domain in telling people what to eat. The proposed dietary guidelines have thus been opposed tooth and nail by the Congressional Republicans who question the legitimacy of issuing guidelines that focus more on environment rather than nutrition.

The report issued by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, precedes the latest version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to be released later in the year. The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture will now utilize the report of the Advisory Committee to finalize the update of the Dietary Guidelines.

The proposed dietary guidelines assert the intense need of factoring in environment impact while choosing one’s diet whereas the House and Senate spending bills stress that the guidelines should only be based on nutrition and diet.

Therefore, the Advisory Committee recommends eating plant-based foods as it is better for the environment than eating a diet based on foods from animals. Further, the advisory panel has also suggested to tax sugary drinks and snacks in a bid to decrease their consumption.

The food industry especially the meat industry and the beverage companies have been annoyed by the proposed dietary updates.

The report has also been blamed for paying no heed to dietary fat, as the committee asserts no health benefit in limiting the amount of total fat in the diet and thus, prescribes no upper limit on fat. However, the committee does recommend keeping the level of saturated fat within 10% of total calories as it could lower the risk of heart disease.