Food & Nutrition
2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Hosts Fourth Public Meeting
Last week, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) concluded its fourth public meeting to inform the development of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. During the meeting, the DGAC discussed revisions to protocols, the addition and removal of protocols, and shared new systematic review draft conclusions. Key updates from the meeting included the introduction of a new protocol on diet simulations for the first time in the DGA process, a new protocol to examine how foods lower in nutrient density can fit into dietary patterns, as well as new protocols on vegetables, fruits, and vegan dietary patterns. The Committee also shared several protocol revisions, including to its systematic review to examine dietary patterns varying in ultra-processed food (UPF) and growth, body composition, and risk of obesity, noting that the Committee will be reviewing UPF classifications systems outside of the NOVA classifications system. The next public meeting is scheduled for May 30, 2024, with updated protocols to be posted online by next month.
FDA Releases Updated List of 2024 Priority Guidance Topics for Foods Program
FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) released an updated list of priority draft and final guidance topics that the FDA Foods Program plans to publish by December 2024. The updated list outlines new guidance topics added to the agency’s agenda since the list of guidance topics was last updated in July 2023. The updated priority topic list now includes guidance on action levels for lead in food intended for babies and young children, draft guidance on the food traceability final rule, draft guidance on voluntary sodium reduction targets for processed, packaged and prepared foods, draft guidance on notifying the agency of a permanent discontinuance in the manufacture of infant formula, and draft guidance on hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for human food. Additionally, FDA published a new website listing regulations the agency plans to publish by October 2024, and longer-term regulations the agency is prioritizing for publication at a later date. This list includes regulations announced in the HHS Fall 2023 Unified Agenda, released in December 2023.
USDA FNS WIC Food Package Final Rule at OMB for Review
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) final rule, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC): Revisions in the WIC Food Packages, is currently at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. The final rule would update the WIC food packages to align with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) and recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) 2017 scientific report, Review of WIC Food Packages: Improving Balance and Choice. The proposed rule, released in November 2022, proposed changes to increase benefits for fruits and vegetables, reduce the amount of juice allowed, adjust whole grain options and requirements, and allow for more non-dairy options, among other items. According to the Fall 2023 Unified Agenda, the agency intends to formally publish this final rule in April 2024.
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