Skip the whole milk. Pass on soda. Drink beer?

"Fruit smoothies are usually high-calorie versions of fruit drinks and, therefore, are not recommended," the report says. Likewise for whole milk, which contains high amounts of fat.

Besides Popkin and Willett, other members of the group were Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.; Balz Frei, an Oregon State University biochemist; Dr. Benjamin Caballero, an obesity researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Lawrence E. Armstrong, a physiologist at the University of Connecticut. Frei is a scientific adviser to Unilever.

The American Beverage Association says the report "has many factual shortcomings that are at odds with the USDA Dietary Guidelines -- including the misguided suggestion that it's healthier to drink more alcohol than sweetened beverages and, in some scenarios, drink more tea than water."

"It also has a minuscule role for skim milk or low-fat milk in the diet," the association's statement says. "And there is no credible scientific rationale for limiting diet soft drinks to four servings per day."

Lisa Kadic, a dietitian and longtime consultant to the food and beverage industry, took issue with the report's contention that studies suggest some alcohol in moderation has health benefits.

"It did look like alcohol was being positioned as a better choice than (non-diet) soft drinks," she said.

While many studies have suggested some benefits from moderate alcohol, such advice has long been contentious because of alcohol's risks.

An expert on nutrition and food policy who had no role in the report, New York University biologist Marion Nestle, said the panel's recommendations generally make good sense.

"If I were advising someone to lose weight, I'd start with soft drinks and juice drinks. Get rid of them," she said.

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