The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) are finally here, and it’s kind of a mess. I offered a few quotes here, and I have lots of other thoughts. The first thing that stood out to me is that the current Department of Health does not seem to understand the difference between the DGA and Food Guides, so let’s chat about it.
The Dietary Guidelines For Americans: Report VS Food Guides
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans report is a professional document meant for those who work in or set policy for the food and nutrition space. From these guidelines, educational food guides are created. These guides are free to the public and to people who work in nutrition education to use.
They may include visuals and online tools that help support any American who wants to work on improving their eating habits. Often times, these educational tools are seen in public schools or libraries. The previous nutrition education materials and tools from the MyPlate website are now gone. They’ve been replaced by the “Real Food” website.
Some History
Since the 80s, the department of Health and Human Services appointed a committee of food and nutrition experts to do a literature review and discuss the evidence about foods impact on health and disease. From this scientific report, the HHS develops the official Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In 1978, the USDA and HHS (named the Department of Health, Education and Welfare at the time) appointed a task force of scientists within the two Departments to develop nutritional guidance statements to advise the public on the current knowledge about the relationship of diet to health and disease. The task force reviewed the Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention conferred with with the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, and other scientific bodies, then issued its conclusions in the form of Dietary Guidelines statements based on current scientific views on nutrition and its effect on health.
This process has occurred every five years since. Over the past 40 years, a new committee is appointed to review the current Guidelines and the state of the evidence on diet, health and disease risk. With this review, the committee adds any new research or insight, and develops recommendations for the next set of Guidelines.
Real Food
The newly released Guidelines suggests we need a “total reset” and seemed to suggest that previous guidelines recommended lots of processed foods over “real food”. The statement at the Real Food website:
“For the first time, we’re calling out the dangers of highly processed foods and rebuilding a broken system from the ground up with gold-standard science and common sense.“
Actually, past Dietary Guidelines for American have ALWAYS recommended “real food” and balanced plates, have never recommended highly processed foods. They also were been based on good science.
Rejection of the Scientific Report
Over the years, additions have been made and details added based on the totality of current evidence about food, lifestyle, and health. This time around, HHS decided to fully implement only 14 of the 56 recommendations from the scientific report, partially implement 12 more items, rejecting 30 of them. Let that sink in.
Nutrition science is difficult to do and takes time, and research funding over the years hasn’t been great. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the guidelines have not changed dramatically over these years, although they have certainly been sensible. Yet they have also been blamed for modern health concerns. However the lack of adherence to the guidelines has been well documented in children and adults. Most studies conclude that goals are not met for fruit, vegetables, and whole grains intake.
My Overview of the New Dietary Guidelines: What I mostly agree with
Here’s a quick overview of the new guidelines along with my thoughts. I’ll start with what I mostly agree with.
- EAT THE RIGHT AMOUNT FOR YOU. This is fine – the guidelines always have recommended that you balance the foods you eat with your age, gender and activity level.
- PRIORITIZE PROTEIN FOODS AT EVERY MEAL. I’m okay with the elevated protein recommendation in this new Dietary Guidelines for Americans edition, although throughout the whole report there is little mention of serving size for any food group. There is however a supplemental document in the website that isn’t very user friendly.
- CONSUME DAIRY – Do vegans miss out on health? No, they don’t. But 2-3 servings of dairy a day is a good recommendation based on DASH Diet RCT (the gold standard: Randomized Controlled Trials) studies. Does it need to be whole milk or full fat dairy? No. Some studies have shown that full fat dairy may not have the negative impact on heart health and blood lipid levels, but full fat dairy is still high in calories which should be considered for many adults.
- EAT VEGETABLES & FRUITS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. Absolutely. And frankly I think that 3 servings of veggies and 2 servings of fruit is reasonable and realistic (we don’t even grow enough produce for every American to eat 10 servings a day).
- SODIUM: These guidelines recommend that the general population, ages 14 and above, should consume less than 2,300 mg per day of sodium. This can be challenging but it’s consistent with research.
- GUT HEALTH: They seemed to just be thrown in there for brownie points. Yes supporting your gut with fermented foods along with adequate fiber and hydration is important.
My Overview of the New Dietary Guidelines: What I disagree with
From here, it all goes downhill:
- INCORPORATE HEALTHY FATS: There are a lot of problems here. The report states “When cooking with or adding fats to meals, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids, such as olive oil. Other options can include butter or beef tallow.” They seem to be redefining “healthy fats” based on no real evidence. They cower out of this by stating “More high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.” Actually there is plenty of high quality research – it just didn’t meet their biases. Olive oil is a great choice but it’s not high in essential fatty acids (like linoleic acid – which your body can’t produce and you must get from diet). But soybean and corn oil ARE high in essential fatty acids.
FOCUS ON WHOLE GRAINS – but only 2–4 servings per day. This is a ridiculous amount for many people, especially active adults and growing children. Again, there is no serving size reference either (but 3 servings would be 2 small slices of bread plus 1/3 cup of rice in a day).
“Grains can be part of a real foods diet. Foods like oats, rice and true sourdough are preferred. Refined packaged grains should be limited”.
I guess that means no more pasta? They also suggest you to “Significantly reduce the consumption of highly processed, refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, ready-to-eat or packaged breakfast options, flour tortillas, and crackers.” This seems like a disguised message meant to say ‘carbs are bad, avoid white carbs, avoid cereal, and obviously avoid flour tortillas’.
The War on Sugar
RFK Jr claimed there was a “war on saturated fat” but there wasn’t. There is a scientific consensus that too much saturated fat in the diet doesn’t support health. He also declared his own “War on sugar”.
No health professional would disagree that we should eat more whole foods and eat less junk food. Unfortunately using the term “highly processed” is not always going to achieve the goal intended. While food is nourishment, let’s not forget that food and eating can also nurture and bring joy to our lives.
Here’s what the remainder of the new Dietary Guidelines comment on:
- LIMIT HIGHLY PROCESSED FOODS, ADDED SUGARS, & REFINED CARBOHYDRATES Sure, this is reasonable and has been in EVERY DIETARY GUIDELINE REPORT SINCE 1985! But there seems to be a clear agenda against sugar in general here. This report really doubles down on sugar. They offers conflicting messages – like “avoid sugar”, but also “have no more than 10 grams of sugar per meal”. Or, only eat products that have 2.5 grams of sugar or less per serving”. While they do not mention breakfast cereals here, it’s clear they want you to avoid them. Sugar is made from sugar cane and sugar beets. One could argue sugar is real food that comes from plants (not to mention it’s been around since 8000 BCE . Most people think of it as a sweetener. However sugar has many other properties in food processing (it’s a preservative, helps maintain moisture and color in products)
- LIMIT ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: The report nonchalantly suggests you ‘consume less, don’t drink if pregnant’. They removed the measurable limits on alcohol (even though alcohol is a known toxin, and sugar is not) and ignored the scientific report for a “no alcohol” recommendation. These guidelines do not address alcohol and its link to cancer risk.
Contradictions
There are many contradictions within the report. These guidelines maintain the recommendation to get less than 10 percent of your calories from saturated fat. But they encourage more animal protein and use of beef tallow and butter (all sources of saturated fat) in cooking.
There are statements about limiting foods and beverages that include artificial flavors, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives, and low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners. And to avoid sugar-sweetened beverages, such as sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks. But – one meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugars.
“For example, grain snacks (e.g., crackers) should not exceed 5 grams of added sugar per ¾ ounce whole-grain equivalent, and dairy snacks (e.g., yogurt) should not exceed 2.5 grams of added sugar per ⅔ cup equivalent.”
This is all very contradictory. To manage this, you’d have to only consume plain yogurt (which I often recommend, but also allow variety) and many brands will have to reformulate. Unless this administration plans to enforce policy in the manufacturing of food that meets these criteria, I’m not following how any of this is possible.
For certain you will continue to see more food label claims. Products will tout protein, and you’ll see more ‘reduced sugar’ products. These product changes don’t usually make a food ‘better’. For instance when they remove the real sugar, it’s usually replaced with multiple low and no-calorie sweeteners and other ingredients.
Eating Habits
Over my many years of practice in this field I have mentioned that eating behavior is important. Personally I think behaviors and eating patterns are more important than the minutia of what you eat. Most previous editions did include more information, because nutrition is nuanced. These new Guidelines do not address this. There’s no discussion of eating patterns, physical activity, access to food, food handling and safety, or behavior change.
Good health is about more than simply what you eat. The goal of these Dietary Guidelines and Food Guides are that they support health – and are accessible to all Americans.
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