The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture hosted a meeting for public comments in Bethesda, Md .regarding the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s (DGAC) report released on February 16th. This report shows the lack of knowledge in regards to animal protein in general and its unique food source for beneficial amino-acid nutrients. The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) and others hope that the committee will review these inconsistencies before releasing the "2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans” as these guidelines provide the scientific basis for the government to speak in a consistent and uniform manner.
AMSA member Eric Berg, Professor at North Dakota State University, represented AMSA at the public meeting and provided oral testimony and discussed that protein, a vital nutrient, did not receive adequate consideration by the DGAC. In particular, protein quality is increasingly becoming an important nutrition topic. Berg pointed out specifically that “foods of animal origin (including red and processed meats) are the only complete single source of all 9 indispensable amino acids. In order to avoid deficiencies of indispensable amino acids in a plant based diet, different plant-based foods must be combined. For example, beans, high in lysine would combine well with corn (or other whole grains) that are deficient in lysine and high in sulfur amino acids.”