New Dietary Guidelines Are On The Table

By Mary Budinger / December 20, 2024

The scientific report that kicks off formulation of the forthcoming 2025 Dietary Guidelines is out. It landed like a lead balloon in most nutrition circles. Perhaps the committee did not read the tea leaves in the recent election; the electorate wants to do some shaking up of the status quo. The term “corporate capture” is getting traction. So too is the conversation about making America healthy and how the standard American diet makes us fat and sick.

The scientific report basically recommends we embrace a plant-based diet and seed oils, avoid eggs and the saturated fat of dairy and red meat, embrace fat-free and low-fat milk, eat all the processed food we want, but ditch the big portions. Well, the Big Food lobbyists and Bill Gates would get what they want, but the public? Not so much.

The scientific report is issued by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS). The recommendations in its 400-plus pages are meant to form the basis of the official Dietary Guidelines that get updated every five years. Ordinarily, objections about unhealthy food recommendations pretty much get shrugged off and it’s business as usual. But the timing now is different. The proposed appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to run the Depart of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Brooke Rollins to run the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), signals a coming shakeup in the status quo.

As Secretaries of HHS and USDA, Kennedy and Rollins can freely accept or reject recommendations from the “scientific report.” The report is now open for public comment until February 10, 2025.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

So why would these recommendations be so out of sync with the times? Well, the non-profit U.S. Right to Know looked into that. They report that “13 of 20 DGAC members had high-risk, medium-risk or possible conflicts of interest with industry actors” including Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly who produce the blockbuster weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, food corporations, the National Dairy Council, and professional nutrition organizations that are financed by corporate sponsorships. According to the report:

“The Dietary Guidelines stand as a vital tool for public health. In recent years, however, the DGAC [Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee] nominations process and concerns about conflicts of interest have been the subject of heightened scrutiny and calls for increased transparency. Fundamentally, the DGAs are created through a politicized process that is open to influence by corporations that benefit from the existing food system.

“Research has shown that the food and beverage industries share similarities with the tobacco industry in the actions these industries have taken to downplay the harms of their products.

“With high-risk conflicts of interest still present on the DGAC, the public cannot have confidence that the official dietary advice of the U.S. government is free from industry influence.”

A 2017 congressionally mandated report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, concluded the U.S. dietary guidelines are not currently “trustworthy,” in part due to a “lack of scientific rigor” in the process. The Academy made 11 recommendations; the USDA adopted none of them.

PUSHING A PLANT-BASED DIET

The new recommendations pretty much fall in line with prior Dietary Guidelines since 1980 except that this one makes a big shift toward plant-based proteins taking the primary role. The Meat Institute came out swinging for the opposition:

“Meat products provide high quality protein that is critical for developing, maintaining, and repairing strong muscles; vital for growth and brain development in children; beneficial for providing satiety and maintaining a healthy weight; and essential to prevent muscle loss in the aged. Including meat and poultry in the diet allows consumers to more easily fulfill their dietary needs for protein, iron, zinc, copper, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and potassium – all of which are nutrients the Report has found many Americans are under-consuming.

“For the 95% of Americans who consume meat, the Report’s recommendations are tone deaf and unrealistic. Americans need guidance on how meat fits in a healthy diet. Directives from out-of-touch academics to eat legumes and avoid the nutrient-dense foods they love does not foster improved health and fails to account for the central role of meat within America’s cultural diversity. The Report’s recommendations fail to provide attainable nutritional guidance by marginalizing one of the most nutrient dense, accessible, and culturally relevant foods in the American diet.”

The new recommendations bump up the current recommendation of 1.5 cups of beans and legumes a week to 2.5 cups. Yet historically, most Americans have not been willing to trade their hamburger for beans, peas, lentils, and soy. And the Paleo tribe will scoff loudly at the recommendation to eat more soy. The recommendations do not speak to the fact that plant-based proteins are not as complete as those from animals and also not as bioavailable.

There is a lot of data now to support the limitation of ultra-processed food and its components. However, the committee making the recommendations found limited evidence indicating that dietary patterns with greater amounts of ultra-processed foods are associated with the risk of obesity/overweight in adults. The DGAC recommends future committees study the issue.

Some of the recommendations would confuse even the layperson. The recommendations suggest we limit sugar sweetened beverages, yet say 100% juice drinks are okay. An 8-ounce glass of orange juice has 24 grams (6 teaspoons) of sugar and none of the fiber of a real orange to slow down the insulin rush. Ditto for apple juice.

HOW IT PLAYS OUT

A new set of Dietary Guidelines must be produced by the USDA and HHS every five years at least, according to law.

If Kennedy gets involved in writing the new guidelines, we can expect he will make big changes or throw the thing out altogether. He has been critical of the quality of American food, saying it contributes  to the rise of chronic diseases. Some 70% of Americans are “overweight or obese” with more than half of all U.S. adults having one or more preventable chronic conditions – overweight and obesity, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, liver disease, certain types of cancer, dental caries, and/or metabolic syndrome. These diseases are called preventable because they typically result from lifestyle – food and environment.

Project 2025, which is guiding the Trump transition, suggested the Dietary Guidelines either be reformed or eliminated entirely, along with cutting back the USDA. “There is no shortage of private sector dietary advice for the public, and nutrition and dietary choices are best left to individuals to address their personal needs.”

Mary Budinger is an Emmy award-winning journalist and a certified nutritional therapist (NTP). She lives in Phoenix and writes about functional medicine and nutrition.