It’s time to bury official food guidelines

When I was growing up, the milk was dropped off by the milkman in bottles with metal caps, and when you peeled off the cap, the first thing you saw floating on top – was cream.

When you dipped a cookie into milk like that, you could feel the added weight when you pulled it out.

And then, one day, we were told fat was bad.

So we went to 2 percent, then to 1 percent, and then to that non-fat bluish dishwater that so many of us drink now. All because we were told non-fat or die. And then in Wednesday’s Washington Post, we read that new research finds “the opposite might be true, millions might have been better off had they stuck with whole milk.”

It turns out the original study that condemned whole milk involved only a few hundred test subjects. Whereas the new research followed several thousand patients over ten years, and found that people who took in more milk fat actually had a lower incidence of heart disease.

Now federal nutrition experts are considering changing the official dietary guidelines to say that certain kinds of saturated fat &#8212 like the kind in milk &#8212 are not only not going to kill you but could save your life.

Here’s my unofficial food guideline: Always go for the real thing. If it looks like a plant or a fish, buy it and eat it. If, however, it comes in a box, and you’re buying it because you have a coupon, bring it to the potluck and let your friends eat it.

And as for the government’s food pyramid, maybe it’s time to just use it as an actual pyramid to bury the official food guidelines once and for all.