The Confusion Behind Nutrition

With all of the health problems the world seems to be facing right now, especially the US, why is there no clear cut answer about what people should eat? The dairy industry claims that if you drink 24oz. of milk every 24 hours then you'll lose weight, but MyPyramid.gov recommends that no more than 30% of your daily caloric intake be from fat. Shouldn't the 24/24 milk campaign metion what type of milk the public needs to drink in order to prevent over-consuming fat and that drinking milk without cutting out other calories won't lead to weight loss? Have you heard about the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acid craze that's going on right now? Because the body can't make these fatty acids, food companies are finding every way possible to supplement them into their products. Fish are known for naturally containing these nutrients, but fish can also have high levels of mercury, so should we eat fish? Soy milk typically has these Omgea-3's and Omega-6's, but often times they supplement more for advertisement purposes, so does the fact that the nutrient is supplemented mean that it is better, worse, or the same as getting it naturally? How much of these nutrients do we really need anways? The more a person learns about world of nutrition, the more confusing it seems to get.
So who benefits from all this confusion anyways? Some say it is the food production companies because they can lure more people into buying their products simply by adding "No Trans Fats!" or "Lower Sugar" on the label. But do hot pockets ever sound like a good idea, regardless of if they have trans fats or not? Hopefully not, but that tag-line on the label can be just enough to convince someone to buy them because all of a sudden the product doesn't seem so bad. Supermarkets also benefit from this confusion because food companies are willing to pay them more in order to have better product placement so shoppers will be more likely to see and buy their foods. The more enticing products a grocery store can have on the corners of their coveted 60in. shelves (eye level for the average person), the greater the odds that people will deter from their shopping list by buying these visually appealing products with catchy additions to the label. The more products you buy, the more money the grocery stores makes, so they love it when you take your time walking around the store and throw extra food into your cart. The third possibility is a little far-fetched, but nutritition scientists are even blamed for the confusion, because without confusion, they would have no one to sponsor their research and therefore be out of jobs. However, it is impossible for nutrition scientists to draw accurate conclusions regarding what types of food everyone should eat in order to be healthy because no two people have the same genetic make-up and there is practically no way to do a controlled experiment involving nutrition because there are too many factors that would need to be taken into account when determining how to decipher results.
The bottom line, which almost all health professionals agree on, is that Americans need to eat more green, do more daily activity, and eat less junk food. Authors Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan greatly advocate for this idea. If you are interested in this topic, I would highly recommend reading their texts, especially Nestle's book "What to Eat" and Pollan's article "Unhappy Meals."