As a lifelong Missouri farmer and a former nutritional science teacher, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) has a bone to pick with the 2015 Dietary Guideline’s Advisory Committee’s (DGAC) report.

In a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Hartzler and 70 House colleagues said the report strayed “from purely nutritional evidence and venturing into areas like sustainability and tax policy.”

“This year they are recommending to decrease the consumption of red meat,” said Hartzler in an interview. “They’re very much trying to minimize and marginalize the eating of meat and we know by science that lean meat can be and should be part of a healthy diet.”

Rep. Hartzler says the agencies making the final guidelines need to make them “solely on what is good for the human body, solely on proven science and not on any political agenda.”

In this interview, Vicky also talks about the Reducing Federal Mandates on School Lunch Act she is co-sponsoring, actions the House is considering on WOTUS, and the Country of Origin Labeling issue: Interview with Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)