The report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee made three vitally important new recommendations: Americans should consume less than one percent of their calories from trans fat, no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, and at least three servings of whole grains per day. Those explicit numbers will force healthful changes in the federally subsidized school-lunch and other food programs and save thousands of lives a year.

It will be important for the government, when it produces the actual guidelines for consumers based on this advice, to highlight the need to cut down on added sugars, saturated and trans fat, cholesterol and sodium. For most Americans that would mean reducing consumption of soft drinks, candy, foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, egg yolks, and high-fat meat and high-fat dairy products.