Part of this is because they recommend foods like red meat, butter and beef tallow—foods that have been linked to cardiovascular disease and that nutrition experts recommend for people. limit in their diets.
These recommendations are important: they affect food assistance programs and school lunches, for example. So this week, let's look at the good, the bad, and the ugly advice Americans are being given by their government.
Government dietary guidelines have been in place since the 1980s. They are updated every five years, and the process usually involves a team of nutritional scientists who comb through scientific research for years. The group will first publish its findings in a scientific report, followed by a final conclusion about a year later. Dietary Guidelines for Americans published.
latest recommendations covered the period 2020 to 2025, with new guidelines expected in the summer of 2025. The work has been going on for many years; That scientific report intended to inform them, was published back in 2024. But the release of the guidelines was delayed by last year's government shutdown, Kennedy said. said last year. They were finally published yesterday.
Nutrition experts waited with bated breath. Nutrition science has changed a bit over the past five years, and some expected to see new recommendations. Research now shows, for example, that there is there is no “safe” level of alcohol consumption.
We're also starting to learn more about the health risks associated with some ultra-processed foods (though we still don't have a clear understanding of what they might be or what even counts as “ultra-processed”). And some scientists expected the new guidelines to be a factor in environmental sustainability, says Gabby Hedrick, associate director for food and nutrition policy at the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
They didn't.
Many of the recommendations are reasonable. Guidelines recommend a diet rich in whole foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. They recommend avoiding highly processed foods and added sugar. They also emphasize the importance of dietary protein, whole grains and “healthy” fats.
