A Political Diet Plan

BRIAN: Marian Burros is a food journalist who, over the course of her career, has written for the Washington Post and the New York Times. Early on, she focused mostly on recipes.

MARIAN BURROS: My favorite recipe story is a recipe that goes back to when I was first married many, many years ago for something called blueberry torte.

BRIAN: I love blueberry torte.

MARIAN BURROS: When I got to the New York Times, it was published in nine years in a row and the editor finally said to me, we’re going to print it in very large letters, large enough for anybody to cut out, laminate it, and put on their refrigerator, but we’re not printing if any more.

BRIAN: But in the early 1970s, Burros also started reporting on politics, food politics. One of her first stories was about the Senate Select committee on nutrition and human needs. It was called the McGovern committee after the chair, senator George McGovern, who she said had been interested in nutrition for a long time.

MARIAN BURROS: I remember years before interviewing McGovern at his house and they were talking then about how even their dog was fed low-fat kinds of food.

PETER: McGovern’s committee formed in 1968, after a CBS TV documentary raised concerns about hunger in America. But in addition to drafting legislation that would radically expand the food stamp program, the committee also started worrying about what Americans were eating. By the mid ’60s, coronary heart disease had reached record levels and a number of scientific studies were starting to link heart disease with high-fat diet.

For nine years, the McGovern committee methodically interviewed the authors of these studies, in addition to a wide range of nutritional experts. Finally, in 1977, the committee was ready to release its recommendations about what Americans should eat.

BRIAN: Up to that point, if the government had anything to say about food it was eat more, drink more, eat more eggs, drink more milk, eat more corn. But in 1977, the McGovern committee said something completely radical. Yeah, Americans should eat more grains, but they also needed to eat a lot less. Specifically, less fat, less sugar, less salt. Which meant of course, that they would need to decrease their consumption of meat, eggs, and whole milk.

MARIAN BURROS: And what happened was, that especially to meat people got wind of this, and they went, I think the terms ballistic? And all of a sudden they were telling the committee that you can’t say that and what are you going to do to the people who raise meat, you’re going to ruin American’s diet. Everything was wrong.

BRIAN: Marian, was the beef industry asleep at the switch? I mean, how did they let such a high profile committee get so far down the eat-less-beef path.

MARIAN BURROS: First of all, lobbying wasn’t what it is today. Secondly, it wasn’t that powerful of committee. And so they aren’t aware of it, there wasn’t anybody up there on the hill to signal them, see what’s going on over here.

BRIAN: So, they were asleep at the switch. Who else took umbrage at this report?

MARIAN BURROS: There were some scientists who took umbrage, I can’t give you their names, but there were people think they’re going out on a limb way too far without the proof that they need to have.

BRIAN: Marian, we’ve got a clip here that I want you to listen to. Its from NBC News and its Dr. Robert Olson. He’s a nutritionist and paid consultant of the American Egg Board, and he’s arguing with Senator George McGovern.

DR. ROBERT OLSON: I pleaded in my report and will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the American public.

MALE SPEAKER: Well I would only argue that senators don’t have the luxury that the research scientist does awaiting until every last shred of evidence is in.

BRIAN: So this committee made up of big names, they hung tough, right, they didn’t cave.

MARIAN BURROS: Um, wrong.

BRIAN: Wrong? Oh darn.

MARIAN BURROS: The meat industry and the egg industry demanded that they be heard, so they had some more hearings in committee and they got across their point.

BRIAN: So how does hearings go?

MARIAN BURROS: The hearings went so well for the new lobbyists, you might call them, that they got just about everything they wanted. For instance, the president of the National Cattleman’s Association was looking for some kind of a compromise on the wording. Senator Dole said to him, I wonder if you could amend number two, making a reference to what the recommendation was.

BRIAN: That was to decrease the intake of red meat.

MARIAN BURROS: And say, quote, increase consumption of lean meat, would that taste better to you?

[LAUGHTER]

Well, leave it to Dole, you know, he’s got a great sense of humor.

BRIAN: He does have a sharp sense of humor, yes.

MARIAN BURROS: Mr. Finney said, decrease is a bad word, senator.

[LAUGHTER]

So what had been eat less meat became eat lean meat, and that made them relatively happy. But I remember when I read it, I was horrified. That was how naive I was in terms of lobbying, et cetera. That somebody could come along, a bunch of guys who raise cows or steer, and tell you to change it to eat lean meat instead of eat less meat? And they capitulated?

BRIAN: And the committee did it, including George McGovern, right?

MARIAN BURROS: Yeah, well he came from a cattle state, didn’t he.

BRIAN: Yeah, that’s right. He’s from South Dakota.

MARIAN BURROS: And they changed some other things as well.

BRIAN: What else did they change?

MARIAN BURROS: And they added this, and I quote here, “Some consideration should be given to easing the cholesterol goal in order to obtain the nutritional benefits of eggs in the diet.”

BRIAN: Ah, so eggs were not as bad as the original report said.

MARIAN BURROS: Not according to this report, no.

BRIAN: So you have covered food for almost half a century.

MARIAN BURROS: Oh my god.

BRIAN: I know that’s shocking, isn’t it. So what would you like our listeners to know about food?

MARIAN BURROS: Well first of all, I think people need to know that food is very political and that a lot of things that happen, or don’t happen, have to do with the lobbying efforts of whatever. And it has an impact on just about everybody, I guess, who gets that kind of money about what they’re going to say about food. So take it all with a grain of salt.

BRIAN: But not as much salt as you might have taken it.

MARIAN BURROS: No, a grain, only a grain.

[MUSIC]

BRIAN: Marian Burros is a retired food writer most recently with the New York Times. We’ll post her famous blueberry torte recipe at backstoryradio.org.