Under the guidelines, Americans should eat three servings of dairy products a day and include full fat without added sugar, a shift from decades of advising Americans to favour skim and low-fat options over whole milk. Photo / 123RF
The United States Government released new dietary guidelines that call for Americans to limit highly processed foods, such as those high in added sugars and sodium, and that endorse products that had once been discouraged by many nutritionists, such as whole milk, butter, and red meat.
The recommendations emphasise eating whole foods - such as fruits and vegetables in their original forms - and foods rich in protein and whole grains.
They call for avoiding packaged, prepared or other ready-to-eat foods that are salty or sweet - such as many chips, lollies and biscuits - as well as staying away from sugar-sweetened beverages - like soft, fruit and energy drinks - and some artificial sweeteners.
Under the guidelines, Americans should eat three servings of dairy products a day and include full fat without added sugar, a shift from decades of advising Americans to favour skim and low-fat options over whole milk.
They should eat ample protein, from animal and plant sources - including red meats nutritionists had long told Americans to limit.
They should have no more than 10 grams of added sugar per meal, a more specific limit in an effort to make it easier to understand than previous guidance advising less than 10% of daily calories from added sugars.
The guidance comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy jnr has made overhauling the nation’s food supply a priority of his Make America Healthy Again agenda, aimed at addressing chronic disease and childhood illness.
He has claimed the industry is mass poisoning this generation of children, and his messaging around food has found broad appeal, unlike his handling of vaccination policy.
Nutrition experts generally praised some of the main changes, such as the move away from processed foods, while a few raised concerns about promoting some fatty foods. The guidance also generally received a warm reception from some major Maha allies.
“My message is clear,” Kennedy said at a White House press briefing. “Eat real food.”
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are updated every five years to recommend what people should eat and are considered a cornerstone of federal nutrition policy.
The document to promote health is written by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department.
The guidelines influence federal nutrition programmes and the foods served in school lunches and to members of the military, officials said.
Kennedy has often criticised the food pyramid, an iconic visualisation of dietary guidelines that was introduced more than 30 years ago and has since been replaced with a symbol of a plate showing how much of various food groups should be eaten in a meal.
The Administration released an inverted, revised pyramid with images of steak, a block of cheese and a carton of whole milk at the top, showing Americans should prioritise proteins, dairy, healthy fats and produce in their diets.
Grains now represent a small portion of what the Government recommends Americans should eat instead of consisting of the highest number of servings in past iterations.
The American Medical Association, which this week fiercely criticised Kennedy’s moves to upend the childhood vaccination schedule, praised the dietary guidelines as offering “clear direction”.
Some nutrition experts have applauded the idea of encouraging Americans to move away from hyper-palatable, industrially produced food products - which previous federal guidelines were more cautious to call out.
Federal data shows more than half of the calories Americans consume come from ultra-processed foods, which studies have identified as risk factors for obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
“For these guidelines to recommend their consumption be reduced is a ground-shaking change in how USDA and HHS have approached the guidelines,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of Tufts University’s Food Is Medicine Institute.
In December 2024, an advisory committee of health and nutrition experts that typically helps shape the dietary guidelines did not take a hard stance against ultra-processed foods, saying there was limited data and the products lack a clear definition.
Some nutritionists criticised that approach. Marion Nestle, a retired professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, called it “excessively cautious”.
Some nutritionists have said there’s been confusion over the term “ultra-processed” which has led to demonising products that contain some healthy nutrients, including certain bread and yoghurt. Kennedy’s health agencies, along with USDA, are working to establish a uniform definition for ultra-processed foods.
The American Heart Association commended the guidelines for its focus on whole foods and reduction of processed ones.
But the group expressed concern over recommendations that include red meat, urging the prioritisation of plant-based proteins, seafood and lean meat, and also encouraged Americans to rely on low-fat and fat-free dairy products.
The guidelines had previously endorsed - and continue to endorse - whole milk for babies and young toddlers to help meet calcium, potassium and other nutrition needs. They had encouraged older children and adults to avoid whole milk because of concerns over saturated fat.
Whether to change the approach to saturated fat has been among the most contentious issues with the revisions to the nutrition guidelines.
Some top health officials have argued that saturated fats - which nutritionists have long warned Americans to minimise, citing evidence of negative health effects - have been unfairly disparaged. Kennedy said that the Government is “ending the war on saturated fats”.
The guidelines are not changing the recommendation to limit saturated fats to less than 10% of daily calories. Instead, the Trump Administration is calling for more research to determine which types of fats are beneficial in the long term.
An Administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said Kennedy’s mandate was to “follow the best available science”.
“It was not the intention to do anything activist in this document,” the person said. “And where there are issues, where we have personal disagreements, or, frankly, there’s scientific disagreements, we are welcoming a conversation with researchers.”
Health officials presented a more forceful defence of saturated fats while announcing the new guidelines and conceding the current cap was not changing.
“We are telling young people, kids, schools: You don’t need to tiptoe around fat and dairy,” Marty Makary, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, said today.
Here are other takeaways from revisions to the guidelines.
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