America’s dietary guidelines have undergone an overhaul. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture unveiled a new food pyramid on January 7. The guidelines place full-fat meat and dairy, olive oil and vegetables at the top of an inverted triangle. While the cereals and fruits fell to the bottom.
Many experts were concerned that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would raise the cap on the recommended amount of saturated fat in the diet, but the guidelines still specify that no more than 10 percent of calories should come from saturated fat. These types of fats have been linked to health problems such as heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Now, ultraprocessed foods including refined grains, are responsible for these and other chronic illnesses. And, for the first time since the guidelines began in 1980, they do not set daily alcohol limits, which has been linked to various cancers.
Previous versions of the Dietary Guidelines have been lengthy technical documents but the new advice is summarized in six pages. Such guidelines govern the contents of meals served in schools and to the military, and influence the foods covered by federal food assistance programs.
Scientific news spoke about the new dietary guidelines with Marion Nestlé, professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. Nestlé is the author of What to eat now and other books and food policy blogs.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How do the new dietary guidelines differ from previous recommendations?
Nestle: They are totally radical. They simply threw out 40 years of dietary guidelines and replaced them with recommendations that date back to the 1950s. My slogan is: they are confusing, they are inconsistent, they are contradictory, they are ideological and they are very retro. There’s something really great about them. They say, “Eat real food.” It seems ridiculous that this is revolutionary, but it is, and that’s great. But eating real food isn’t the main message of the guidelines.
Instead, it brought the protein message to the forefront. It comes first in the dietary guidelines, and it comes first in the pyramid that accompanies the guidelines.
By protein, they mean full-fat meat and dairy, which is surprising because it flies in the face of years and years of evidence. They claim it’s based on scientific evidence, but they don’t produce it, so I don’t know what it is.
What I see is a set of dietary guidelines that are a very clear win for the meat, dairy, and alcohol industries and a loss for ultra-processed foods. It’s very good. I have no problem with that one.
The ideology: “We are no longer going to declare war on saturated fat. We are going to declare war on sugar instead.” – That’s very good. People would be better off eating less sugar, because it contains calories and no nutrients to speak of. And one thing Americans don’t need more of is calories without nutrients.
So they want people to eat nutrient-dense foods. I am for it. Who will pay for this? You know, these guidelines govern school meals, and to have these kinds of foods in schools, they’re going to have to pay a lot more, because the way our system is set up, these foods are more expensive than ultra-processed foods. Where will the money for school meals come from?
What are the strengths of the new guidelines?
Nestle: Recommendations for eating less ultra-processed foods. In reality, dietary guidelines have always been against highly processed foods because they called for foods lower in fat, sugar, and saturated fat.
I think people would be much better off eating less ultra-processed foods and eating whole foods. I am very much in favor of this, but not of increasing the production quantities of meat and dairy products. We need to tackle climate change and sustainability issues here. Beef is the most climate-changing food we have, and dairy cattle aren’t much better.
What are the weaknesses of the new guidelines?
Nestle: They are confused. They say on the one hand that you should eat more meat and high-fat dairy products, and on the other hand that you should limit saturated fats to 10 percent or less of calories. This is going to be very difficult to do. Meat and dairy products are the main sources of saturated fat in the American diet. It is therefore a contradictory recommendation.
The recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables is contradicted by the figures given: three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit. This is about half of the fruits and vegetables recommended in previous dietary guidelines.
Does it make sense to prioritize protein?
Nestle: The idea of encouraging people to eat more protein makes no sense because people are already eat twice as much protein as you need. You can argue that these guidelines say you should get your protein from real foods, not ultra-processed foods, but people already get their protein from real foods, not ultra-processed foods. Protein is never a problem in the American diet.
They emphasize meat proteins. From what I’m reading, the big priority is meat and dairy with vegetables. [coming behind]. And this attitude is due to the fact that plant proteins lack certain amino acids and are not as close to human protein needs as animal proteins. But we know it since Frances Moore Lappé’s speech Diet for a small planetwhich dates from the early 1970s, according to which you only need to eat two different kinds of vegetables or grains. Diets traditionally based on grains and beans meet amino acid requirements perfectly and are far healthier for people and the planet than excessive beef consumption.
How have the roles of fats and grains in the diet changed under the new guidelines?
Nestle: They want you to eat healthy fats. And by healthy fats, they mean olive oil, butter, and beef tallow.
The number of servings of whole grains has been reduced. It was six servings of cereal; make half of it whole grain – so three servings whole grain, three servings refined grain. These guidelines focus a lot on refined grains, which they should, because they are classified in ultra-processing indices. I can’t tell if they wanted whole grains to be the part you’re supposed to eat the least of.
The graphics, very pretty, are difficult to understand. It would seem that you shouldn’t eat anything at the bottom of the pyramid. I’m not sure this is what was intended. They clearly want you to eat whole grains. That’s a pretty strong recommendation. But then it’s blurred by the pyramid.
There are some fun things you can do when it comes to eating fat to meet your essential fatty acid needs, but all three examples they give are extremely low in essential fatty acids. They are not known for their essential fatty acid content. If you want essential fatty acids, for that you need seed oils, and those, of course, are not mentioned. This is where ideology comes in.
Are these recommendations supported by nutrition science?
Nestle: I would say that ultraprocessed foods are largely supported by science. And then some of that science, some of the most impressive parts of that science, was made public after the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee submitted its report. These continue to confirm that people who eat a lot of ultra-processed foods take in more calories than they otherwise would, a lot more calories. This is now confirmed. I think the evidence supports this very well.
Does the evidence support the promotion of increased consumption of high-fat meat and dairy products? Difficult to know. I think from a climate change sustainability perspective, absolutely not. From a human health perspective, the whole saturated fat issue is debatable, but either way, eating a lot more meat and dairy is going to pile on the calories, unless you are absolutely convinced that these foods are so satisfying that people won’t want to eat anything else and won’t want to overeat. That remains to be seen. We have no research showing this.
