USDA, HHS

The committee decided to submit recommendations from its final meeting on Dec. 15 as the basis of its report, Kellie Casavale, a nutrition adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services who is working for the panel, said at the session. Any changes now would be minor, she said.

HHS, which is in charge of writing the guidelines, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture jointly appoint the committee, then act on its recommendations after considering public comment. Final guidelines will be released by the end of this year.

The Obamas “have made it a priority to ensure that Americans have access to the information they need to make smart choices about health and nutrition,” USDA undersecretary Kevin Concannon, said at the first meeting of the panel in June 2013, while noting the group is an advisory body only.

In comments to the panel, the Sugar Association, a trade group of farmers and refiners including Domino Sugar-maker American Sugar Refining Inc., said it’s “mystified” by some of the work, and called “added sugars” a misleading term.

Science Based

Recommendations should be based “on the preponderance of scientific information,” the group said in a Jan. 7 statement.

Drinking sugary beverages is tied by scientists to high obesity rates, and local governments such as New York City have deemed sugars a public-health threat. The U.S. obesity rate nearly tripled from the 1960s to 2010 as Americans consumed more sugar.

Efforts to encourage better diets, from raising taxes on sodas to imposing limits on supersize beverages -- backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP -- have failed at ballot boxes and in courtrooms.

One exception: Berkeley, California, voters overwhelmingly approved he nation’s first tax on sodas last year.

A recommendation by the panel to limit sugar consumption probably will be diluted before becoming final later this year, nutrition advocates say. The soda and meat industries already are poring over the diet committee’s work, and the American Beverage Association said in comments that panelists “appeared to be biased toward pre-determined outcomes.”

Economic Incentives

The panel also recommended the government consider economic incentives and disincentives as a way to encourage better eating. To industry, that sounds like soda taxes, which drew a rebuke from the American Beverage Association: “Taxation of food is not within the purview” of the committee, according to comments filed with the panel. The association represents Coca- Cola Co. and other soda producers.