Pulse Crops Minimized in Proposed Federal Dietary Guidelines

The U.S. Dry Pea and Lentil Council and the American Pulse Association believes the proposed dietary guidelines do not accurately reflect the full nutritional benefits of pulse crops.
Tim McGreevy is the CEO of both organizations says while he appreciates that the 2015 Advisory Committee did emphasis eating a plant-based food diet —- the proposal only listed pulses once as McGreevy explains
McGreevy: “The issue comes in that they mention them in the vegetable section of the dietary guidelines but they didn’t mentioned them in the protein as a protein food. Pulse crops are tremendous vegetable protein and one the most-least cost vegetables you can purchase as well as being high in dietary fiber. So we were in the vegetable subgroup but we were left off the list in the protein subgroup. Right now these are just Advisory Committee recommendations and certainly our industry will be putting in comment and we are encouraging others as well to correct this issue.”
Interestingly enough, in the last round of recommendations five years ago — legumes were included in both the vegetable and the protein subgroups.