Nutrition experts blame government for bad eating habits

Bulls**t.

Americans have a reputation for reckless eating - no secret there. We fill our cupboards with fatty, sugary, high-calorie foods while shunning the nutritious fruits and vegetables that government guidelines urge us to eat.

But what underlies our dubious diets? A controversial new study suggests that federal polices deserve some of the blame because they inflate the cost of healthy food.

The guidelines call for us to consume more potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D, and calcium - and to get fewer calories from saturated fat and added sugar. But meeting those goals inflates our annual grocery bills by hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars each year, the controversial study showed.

For the study - published in the journal Health Affairs - a team led by University of Washington epidemiologist Dr. Pablo Monsivais used a phone survey and questionnaires to examine the economic impact of meeting the guidelines among consumers in King County, Washington...

"It's a common misconception that food choices are solely a matter of personal responsibility," Dr. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and an outspoken critic of the fast food industry, told CBS News.

It is apparently a common misconception that these folks, Nestle and Monsivais, are experts.

Banish them.