[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> The official line has been that saturated fat causes heart disease, and that replacing fat in packaged goods with sugar was ok. This is why we have candy in the United States proudly labeling itself as a “fat free food”, and we used to have marketing campaigns touting the weight loss benefit of sugar.

Did US public health organisations actually recommend replacing fat with sugars? I find this very surprising, if it is the case. I wouldn't be surprised if that was instead a practice adopted by industry, despite and against official recommendations.

For example, Wikipedia tells me that diet Coke was first sold in 1982. That must mean that there was, already, a clear awareness of the detrimental effect of sugar, and sugary drinks in particular, on health. That awareness can't have come from the soft drinks industry itself so it must have come from public health officials.

[village-idiot]

USDA guides have historically referred to “sweets” as something to consume “sparingly” without any concrete recommendations around maximum grams per day. Up until 2015 they have provided no guidance around added sugars in other products, including in the 6-11 servings of bread (!!) recommended per day.

In 2015 they finally released a recommendation that sugar make up no more than 10% of an American’s daily calories, which is insane.

Also at a practical level, a recommendation to remove fat from diets is a recommendation to add sugar. A wide variety of foods are just absolutely disgusting if you have neither fat nor sugar, and if you declare that the reduction of dietary fat is the main goal for Americans, the result will necessarily be more added sugar. The dietary guidelines still recommend that Americans eat leaner cuts of meat and switch to 1% milk, as if they haven’t already done that.