Thoughts on the New Food Guidelines

You’ve probably heard that the White House recently released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030. At first glance there’s a lot to be excited about. These guidelines can affect:

• Food manufacturers

• The restaurant industry

• The agricultural industry

• The alcohol industry

• State and local government organizations

• Public schools

• Hospitals

• Veteran support programs

• Military meals

And of course assisted living!

It’s a big deal. And it’s the first serious change since the 1970’s.

There’s much to cheer about. And some issues with it. I thought I would give you some thoughts on how Robert F Kennedy Jr and the rest of HHS did. Starting with the front cover:

They flipped the food pyramid upside down. This pyramid emphasizes whole food - beef, chicken, fish, and vegetables. Whole grains and cereals are at the bottom of the inverted pyramid indicating that people should consume very little. I love seeing that.

Some other good points include:

• Telling people to stay away from processed foods and eat whole foods

• Stay away from sugar (including sugar substitutes like fructose, sucrose and maltodextrin)

• An emphasis on eating healthy fats and protein

• Refined and packaged grain products should be limited

• Dairy is making a comeback with emphasis on full-fat dairy with little to no sugar in it

• Limit alcoholic beverages

• Kids should also eat this good food

• Pregnant women should consume meat, eggs and fish like salmon, sardines and trout

• Cook in butter or beef tallow

Although I’m not a huge fan of vegetables, I understand it would be pretty complicated politically to exclude them. I’m also not a big fan of fruit and the guidelines seems to emphasize them. Fruit has a lot of natural sugar. Probably ok if you’re young and healthy. Not so much if you’re diabetic, pre-diabetic or insulin resistant which so many Americans are.

They recommend a protein intake of 1.2-1.6 grams per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body weight. That’s 0.55 - 0.73 grams per pound. It’s a whole lot better than the 0.36g/lb per day the previous guidelines put out. I would like to see more like 1gram/lb per day but I realize a lot of people may think that is unrealistic.  People start losing a lot of muscle mass as they grow older. Added protein (along with exercise) can help prevent the decline.

There are some other areas of the new food guidelines that don’t thrill me.

The new guidelines also kept the upper end for salt intake at 2,300 mg/day. Salt is unfairly demonized by the medical industry. Yet if you have to go in an ambulance to the hospital, chances are the EMT will hook you up to a…you guessed it….saline solution. Salt is essential to life. You can exceed these limits

Although they recommend you minimize your sugar intake, they tell you to limit it to 10 grams/meal. That’s 30 grams per day. For reference a Snicker’s Bar is 20g of sugar. Over time that can add up substantially.

And one more thing as long as I’m dumping on the guidelines a bit. They still recommend 2-4 servings of whole grains a day. I recommend zero.

Overall I’m excited that the guidelines have been changed this much. Hopefully a lot will change as a result of this and America’s health will improve. There’s definitely a lot of work to be done. So let’s roll up our sleeves and start evangelizing about the benefits of eating a healthy diet.