The Truth About the 2025 U.S. Dietary Guidelines

The United States government just released the new Dietary guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 edition. And today I'm going to dive into the overview of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and whether these changes were positive or potentially harmful and what this really means for consumers. Before I get into it, I do want to address that. I, in addition to being a dietitian that has been helping people use food as medicine for the last 11 years to improve inflammation and insulin resistance and and underlying issues that are leading to an increase in chronic disease and adverse symptoms, I, prior to being in functional medicine, studied the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. I got my master's in Public health nutrition. And when you study public health nutrition, it's essentially going to graduate school studying the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and population based interventions that help communities at large with improving their health through through nutrition. So a lot of dietitians, they study nutrition, they get a Master's in nutrition, which is diving further into clinical nutrition in graduate school. Whereas I went the public health route. I was in Washington D.C. for the release of the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines. I was working for an organization called the center for Science in the Public Interest, which is the largest nonprofit in Washington D.C. that doesn't accept outside funding from food companies in order to prevent them from swaying their nutrition input. And they are constantly, they're considered the watchdogs in Washington D.C. constantly petitioning the United States government to improve the guidelines and set standards that actually contribute to improved human health. With that in mind, I want to get into the Dietary Guidelines that were just released to be able to walk through my thoughts, my take and takeaways for what it really means for us as a country. When you go to the new website, you start with Real Food starts. Here is the first words that you see and it goes on to say 50% of Americans have pre diabetes or diabetes. 75% of adults report having at least one chronic condition. 90% of US healthcare spending goes to treating chronic disease, much of which is linked to diet and lifestyle. 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. This is an extremely powerful way to kick off the the website realfood.gov is actually now the URL and to me this screams messaging that has been needed from the United States government for decades as our highly processed food consumption and the lack of proactive and very aggressive messaging has been lacking on a government basis. I remember in my master's program looking at all the money that are, that's spen on public health campaigns and, and being like, where is all this money going to when we continue to get sicker and sicker? You look at the obesity maps. With trending rates of obesity skyrocketing in the last three decades, with the release of the first dietary guidelines happening in 1980, basically since the Dietary Guidelines have been released, the health outcomes in the United States continue to get worse. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that the Dietary Guidelines are solely responsible for the increase in the chronic health epidemic that we are faced with. But I've seen a lot of dietitians saying that the Dietary Guidelines have played no role in the chronic disease epidemic because no one follows them anyways. That could not be further from the truth. I completely disagree with the idea that the Dietary Guidelines have not contributed to worsened health in our country. They absolutely have fundamentally contributed to rising rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, 1% rise in infertility every single year. The list goes on and on. With the lack of health that our country has and the very lack of ability to actually address the underlying problem, and the very vanilla messaging that makes it seem like, oh, just just reduce your calories to 10% or less of added sugar per day instead of saying things like, there is no actual like health role for added sugar in the diet and if you're going to consume it, have it in less than x amount per meal, which is what the new guidelines are recommending. So for, for years, actually, if we just even go into added sugar, for instance, added sugar. There was an increase in added sugar consumption that started happening in the 80s and this is thought to be tied to Harvard researchers in the 60s had published a research paper that they were paid to publish by the sugar that place the blame on fat and away from added sugar in the role of heart disease. So this research completely shifted all of the blame on dietary fat, which is what then influenced so much of public health and recommendations and food marketing and what food companies were putting into their food. And so there was an increase in added sugar consumption that was happening in the 80s. The FDA predicted in 1986, they said that sugar consumption would level off and then decline in the next few years and that there was nothing that they needed to do about it. Then in 1999, the center for Science in the Public Interest, the organization that I worked at while I was in graduate school, they and a few other health groups petitioned the FDA to set a daily value for sugar intake and to list on food labels the amount of added sugar set to have the added sugar line on the nutrition facts label under total sugars, and then also to have percent daily value in a serving, because they didn't used to have either of those things. It took until 2016, 2016, for added sugar to be added to the nutrition facts. So this took 17 years for the United States government to actually listen and make those changes, to add the added sugar. So that I don't know if you remember, I'm sure you remember, but when you would go to the grocery store and you would look at a yogurt and you looked at total sugars, you didn't know how much was from added sugar and how much was the naturally occurring sugar from the actual dairy. And so then they. They added that separation of saying added sugar in this amount compared to the total amount of sugar. So that took 17 years for the government to proactively put something into place for people to see how much added sugar was going into their diet, and then for them to have a percent daily value to say, okay, this is how much I want to strive for in comparison to the total percent of what I should be consuming every day. So that took 17 years. It wasn't until the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans that the United States government formally recommended limiting added sugar to a specific amount, which was less than 10% of calories per day. And then it wasn't until 2020 to 2025, that was the first time that the United States government actually had a limit for added sugar for children under two. That was the first time that they said children under 2 years old should not have added sugar. And then in 2020, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which is the committee that the government appoints, these are nutrition experts that the government appoints to say, look at the last five years of research and all of everything about nutrition and tell us the recommendations you would make for changing these guidelines. And then the Dietary Guidelines can officially decide to go along with the committee that it's hired, or it can go against the committee that it's hired. So in 2020, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, this group of nutrition experts that's appointed by the government, they recommended that added sugars should be reduced to 6% of total calories for the recommendation. But the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines did not make that change. They ignored the recommendation to say the. The latest science tells us that total added sugar consumption should be 6% or less of total calories, and they kept it at 10%. So when, when I'm seeing dietitians and other health care experts saying that the dietary guidelines have not contributed to worsened health outcomes in the United States. There is nothing further from the truth. Nothing further from the truth. The lack of proactive stance about refined grains, which have been recommended for the last 30 plus as 50% of your grain consumption, meaning only 50% is recommended to be whole grains. And then it's okay for the other 50% to be refined grains. The lack of responsible messaging around added sugar consumption. The inability to acknowledge the role that added sugar plays in our chronic disease epidemic, which is why so many dietitians that are even my age weren't even taught about added sugar consumption in school. Right. It was a. It was very, very limited because it wasn't until the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans came out saying that people should limit their sugar consumption. Here's what that evolution looked like. If you look at the 1980 and 1985 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, here's the recommendation from the government, avoid too much sugar. And then you have the 1990, the 1995 and the 2000 dietary guidelines that say, use sugar only in moderation. Then that was in 1990. In 1995, choose a diet moderate in sugars. And then the 2020 dietary guideline says, choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugar. And then the 2025 dietary guideline said, choose and prepare foods and beverages with little added sugar. And then the messaging in 2010 was, reduce intake of calories from added Sugar. And then 2015, the recommendation was consume less than 10% of calories from added sugar. The first time that there was ever a specific amount recommended. And 2020 was the first time that it said consume less than 10% of calories from added sugar and avoid added sugars for children under two. When you compare that to what these new guidelines are saying for added sugar, it says, how are they addressing added sugar? Added sugars are no part of eating real foods and are not recommended. The new Pyram encourages avoiding added sugars entirely, especially for children, while allowing naturally occurring sugars found in whole fruits in plain dairy. Now, I know that some people will argue that it's not realistic for anyone to never consume added sugar. And I completely understand that. But we need a nutrition body, a nutrition government, part of our government recommendations around nutrition, to take a stance, to say there is no health benefits of added sugar and it is contributing to worsened health in our society. They actually specifically under limiting added sugar say, while no amount of added sugar or non nutritive sweeteners is recommended or considered to be part of a healthy or nutritious diet, one meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugar per day. So I think that it's that the messaging has not been there around added sugar and many other things that we're going to dive into, but the added sugar one in particular. So from a high level, what I want to start with is the fact that taking an aggressive stance to say things like real food starts here. And then these are the health outcomes that we're faced with as a society. And for the first time, we're going to call out the dangers of highly processed foods and added sugar and refined grains and all these things that have been actually tolerated in our United States dietary guidelines in the past. And then when called out, like in 2020, when they started calling out less than 10% or, sorry, 2015 when they started calling out less than ten percent of added sugars, it was still very vanilla messaging. Right? It wasn't specifically stating that added sugar play no role in a healthy diet and other things for a nutrition organization. Like this is. I feel like when you are a nutrition entity setting this, the tone for the entire country that saying this is what we consider to be ideal, although we know that the ideal isn't what everyone will be able to strive for is important. Instead of setting the bar so much lower to say it's okay, we're going to continue to say it's okay to have, you know, moderate amounts. Even though moderate amounts is so ambiguous. Right. It doesn't actually tell us. I actually did a study when I was working at the Cleveland Clinic where we pulled hundreds of people that had, you know, the bias was that they had more of a health bias because of the list that we were targeting, but asking them for what they considered to be moderation for added sugar, for red meats, for alcohol, et cetera. And everyone had a varied level of what they thought moderation was. Because the word moderation doesn't actually help with improving people's awareness around what is moderation and how much do I strive for. And so if you think that having, you know, like a serving of added sugar or candy and cookies at every single meal, one time, just one time per meal, is moderation, then that's what you're gonna stick to, for, for your habits and justifying them. Okay? So overall, one of the. The biggest positives from these new guidelines is around limiting added sugar and also the second being ultra processed foods. So ultr. Processed foods, highly processed foods are addressed for the first time, stating that they are contributing to worsened health and specifically saying eat real food means eating real foods, choosing foods that are whole and or minimally processed and recognizable as food. These foods are prepared with few ingredients and without added sugars, industrial oils, artificial flavors or preservatives. Now, of course, the prior dietary Guidelines have been calling out things like let me just compare. This is what the the 2020, 2025 Dietary Guidelines has recommended, focus on meeting food group needs with nutrient dense foods and beverages and stay within calorie limits. An underlying premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that nutritional needs should be met primarily from foods and beverages, specifically nutrient dense foods and beverages. Nutrient dense foods provide vitamins, minerals and other health promoting components and have no or little added sugar, saturated fat and sodium. A healthy dietary pattern consists of nutrient dense forms of food and beverages across all food groups in recommended amounts and within calorie limits. And then they go into the specific components of that vegetables, fruits, grains, at least half of which are whole grain, meaning they're considering nutrient dense whole foods to be half whole grain and then half refined grain Dairy, including fat free or low fat milk, yogurt and cheese and or lactose free versions and fortified soy beverages and yogurt as alternatives Protein foods, including lean meats, poultry and eggs, seafood, beans, peas and lentils and nuts, seeds and soy products, oils including vegetable oils and oils in foods such as seafood and nuts. So it's not that the prior guidelines weren't eat real food, but I think that the messaging is much more clear that this is what we mean when we say a nutritious diet, real food, mainly processed ingredients, without all these additional components, the message is clearer. And so I think that even though of course in what I just read, they're saying nutrient dense foods provide vitamins and minerals and, you know, deserve the most out of what you're putting into your plate. This messaging, it's like, okay, I can understand that and I'm understanding the importance of eating real food. The other thing that I would say is that as a whole, I feel like I have never seen so many people talk about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It used to be the least sexy topic ever. And the number, I mean, maybe this is just the algorithm serving me, but the number of people posting about their perspective on the Dietary guidelines. My whole Instagram feed has been flooded with it over the last few days and I have never seen like anyone posts about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans being released. At least very minimal. As far as the number of people that I had previously seen. And again, that could be because of the algorithm change. But I also feel like a positive is that there's a conversation that's being had. I'm friends with a few people that are on boards of very large processed food companies and of course have shared my very honest perspectives of the role that those companies have played in contributing to the healthcare epidemic, the chronic disease epidemic that we're currently faced with. And I have heard from a few of them that there are a lot of positive changes that are being made that will change how the company is formulating products and the products that they're releasing and some of the changes that they're making within their formulations because of the conversation that's being brought to the table around the food and health care crisis that we're faced with. So I think that just like from a large overview that these changes, whether you agree with all of them or not, and I'm going to get into some of the ones that I disagree with as well, but I think that these changes are extremely necessary to point out. Real food has to be the center of the plate in the most obvious and apparent way that it's leading to this healthcare, this chronic disease epidemic, and that we have a highly processed food and broken system that is contributing to worsened health outcomes. And then that puts pressure on these companies. And I just think that with the increase in conversation with people carrying more about the dietary guidelines, with more of these companies then thinking about the implications that that has for their bottom line, which is frankly, you know, really all that they care about. But if they can, if the conversation is so prevalent that it creates a shift in what they care about because they care about their bottom line, that they're like, okay, this is what consumers are demanding. This is a consumer led effort, right? This is a grassroots effort starting back to the days of Michael Pollan writing his books about, you know, the simple food rules that he talked about in Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules and so many of his other books. That was, that was, you know, these like crunchy people going to Whole Foods. I mean, that was us. I was going to, to Whole Foods. Before it was Whole Foods Wild Oats, then Whole Foods Purchase the Mustard Seed. You know, I spent my like any event in high school wanting to go to the Mustard Seed, this like very local crunchy place. My parents were like shopping there for all of our supplements. This was, these were not normal things. These, these were very much going against the grain. And these consumer led initiatives are changing the way that this is becoming socially acceptable and becoming something that is too hard to ignore. Where you're seeing more and more influencers posting about getting their labs drawn, caring about the quality of their ingredients, high performers talking about how this is the only way that they can maintain the executive functioning and cognitive function and energy and focus and all the things in addition to then the messaging around longevity and health optimization. There's a huge shift that's happening and frankly the food companies and the healthcare companies and the government have been the last to change. So the fact that this change is now happening from the top down I think is very positive as a whole, whether you agree with the administration, whether you agree with any of the messaging around some of these changes. And I'm going to get into some of the ones that I disagree with. So number one, ultra processed foods are being addressed. This is extremely important. There was a lot of debate about this prior to these guidelines be being released. A lot, a lot of pushback around these, the ability to actually call out ultra processed foods because a lot of dietitians and you know, people that were against this were saying that it is unfair to call out ultra processed foods because this is all that people have access to in lower income populations saying that it's impossible to actually specifically state ultra processed foods because there's different stages of processing and even something like a protein powder is technically considered a stage four ultra processed food. And I don't disagree with those points, but I think that calling out ultra processed foods is the first way that we start to change the food system with the companies that are paying attention to being called out with the actual changes that this is going to require on a deeper level, which I'm going to get to because I, I want to talk about that as well. So ultra processed foods are being called out. Added sugar is being called out in a much more aggressive way. The third change is that they have increased the protein recommendations. So the protein serving goals are 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, adjusted as needed based on your individual caloric recommendations. This is up significant and it is very consistent with the latest research. So this isn't necessarily saying that you have to get all of this from animal proteins, but that 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. There's great evidence behind this for the benefits of improving and optimizing your muscle protein synthesis as you age. So that muscle continues to be a target as you age. Knowing that as Women especially with changes in hormones and that sort of thing. But this also happens to men as anyone ages that the ability to gain muscle declines and that muscle loss rapidly increases for every decade after your 30s, protein is really the only macronutrient that helps to offset that. And so prior to this, a lot of the nutrition recommendations have been around adequacy, adequacy as far as maintaining versus true optimization. And so this change for increasing in protein I think is centered around true optimization and is frankly completely in alignment with a lot of the nutrition recommendations that I have been making for the last 10 years and working with 25,000 people to optimize their blood sugar, their inflammation, all of those things. And I will say that I have reviewed thousands and thousands of labs from people that are sitting in front of me, whether it's my work in conventional healthcare, in hospitals, or it's in the nutrition business that I've built, where we have served 25,000 people. And in reading people's labs and looking at their biometrics, looking at their scans, as people increase their protein from 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight to the new recommendations of 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram, their ability to see changes in those DEXA scans, meaning their body fat going down, their muscle mass going up, their changes in cardiovascular labs, inflammation labs, insulin resistance labs, all making improvements. And so I think that increasing in protein is very important. Do I think that, that the upside down pyramid should have red meat in like such a big version at the very top as our primary source of protein? Absolutely not. I don't think that there's anything wrong with incorporating red meat in a healthy diet. And have I, you know, typically will recommend, even in the being collective in our meal plans, we have like one to two servings of red meat and maybe even two to three servings per week, sometimes in combination then with tofu, with wild salmon, with so many other form lentils, tons of beans and lentils because of that combination of getting those benefits. Now some people that are hyper responders to things like red meat or that have APOE4 mutations, those sorts of things, then I definitely think that maybe you could, you know, remove red meat entirely from your diet. I started my career actually working in a lifestyle medicine department that was under one of the programs, was under Caldwell Esselstyn, who wrote Forks Over Knives and did the Forks Over Knives documentary with Colin T. Campbell that was all about Dr. Essison's first book was he was the first cardiologist in the country to show that you could prevent and reverse actually heart disease using a plant based diet. And so I'm not saying that plant based diets don't have a role. I absolutely think that they can in an individualized matter. But I do think that the fear mongering around meat as a whole, just in seeing so many people, and of course in reading the research, but in seeing so many people that actually are integrating quality sources of meat into their diet in a responsible way, that they're not like eating a carnivore diet with, you know, steak at every single meal, that continue to improve their lab values over time. Okay, the next big change is limiting grains. So the new guidelines recommends limiting grains to two to four servings per day, which I think is an enormously important change. I am not in the camp of low carbohydrate diets, as in 50 grams of carbohydrates per day, like keto style. I do believe that low carbohydrate diets do play a role. When I say low carbohydrates, I mean more of the, I'm not talking about keto, but higher threshold than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day. And for some people, obviously keto can have benefits. So I'm not trying to say make blanket recommendations, but the government recommendations around grains have been absolutely out of control. Let me just read to you what the dietary guidelines have recommended previously. From 1980 to 1990, grains were recommended. Eat a variety of foods, including whole grains and enriched breads, cereals and grains products. Enriched means that the product has been refined, it's a refined grain, and then they've enriched it, they've added some B vitamins and nutrients to it to, you know, quote unquote, improve the nutrition profile. So the recommendations from 1980 to 1990 were eat a variety of foods, including whole grains and refined breads, cereals and grain products. Because we could easily switch out that word enriched for refined and it would be the same. 1990 to 2000, the recommendations were eat 6 to 11 servings of bread, cereals, rice and pasta per day. Have several servings of whole grains, breads and cereals daily. When people come into me eating 6 to 11 servings of carbohydrates, some of which are whole grain, some of which are refined grain. This means one serving is one slice of bread, a half of a cup of rice. These are, that's one serving equivalent. I believe that the serving, one serving equivalent would be a small bagel. This is not what will contribute to improved health? I don't know about you, but if I were to eat 6 to 11 servings of grains per day, half of which were white bread, white pasta, and other refined alternatives, I would continue to gain weight, I would continue to increase insulin resistance. I would be part of the 50% of the population that has type 2 diabetes and pre diabetes. When people say that the Dietary Guidelines cannot be blamed for the healthcare appetite that we've been faced with, this is another example of the fact that this could not be further from the truth. These were the recommendations as chronic disease and obesity rates were really skyrocketing between 1990 and 2000, then 2005 to 2020, the guidelines changed to say, eat six servings of grains per day. One serving equals one half cup of rice, cooked rice, pasta or cereal, or one slice of bread. At least half of the servings should be whole grain grains. So 6 servings per day was the recommendation, half of which are whole grains, meaning that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans up until the newest release were still including refined grains as part of their recommendations. So the new guidelines are now recommending two to four servings per day, which I believe is closer to the recommendations needed now for some very active people and for some women even that are experiencing various hormonal issues. I do think that going up to 6 servings servings could be beneficial, but not for the majority of the population. So if you're incorporating two to four servings per day, you can get that from a variety of sources. And that is only the carbohydrates that we're talking about from grains. So that doesn't factor in, then the additional carbohydrates that are coming from the dairy and the fruits and other things. So it sounds like it's lower carb focus than it actually is. Two to four servings per day. If we're having four servings of whole grains in one day, that would be the equivalent of having a piece of whole grain bread with your breakfast. With a serving of fruit, you could have for lunch a sandwich with whole grain bread. Let's like go the bread route. A sandwich with whole grain bread, two slices of bread, and then for your dinner, have a half of a cup of rice alongside another piece of fruit. Fruit, just for context, like that would. That would be the two servings of fruit and the four servings of whole grains per day that are being recommended. I think this is very positive. And I also think that when we look at the removal of refined grains being recommended from the United States nutrition recommendations. This could not be more important. This is like I have never understood how the United States government could be recommending refined grains. Okay, the next change, added sugar. We talked about the reduction or the more specific messaging around added sugar. While no amount of added sugar or non nutritive sweeteners is recommended or considered part of a healthy or nutritious diet, one meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugar. Then added sugar. In kids we have much. This is a big change. The old recommendations were added sugar is less than 10% of calories per day starting at age 2 and avoiding foods and beverages with added sugar for those younger than the age of two. So now the recommendation is for no added sugar for under the age of 2 still, but they've extended that actually until 10 years old saying no amount of added sugar is recommended. And I don't think that means that you don't ever eat added sugar, but it does mean that no amount is recommended because it isn't necessary for a child that is 10 years or younger. We're seeing this enormous rise in the chronic disease epidemic in children. And I know that some people will argue that, you know that you can have health at any size and all those things. But when you look at the downstream effects of this and non alcoholic fatty liver disease happening so much earlier in the rising rates of, of pre diabetes and type 2 diabetes in children that are ages 10, 11, 12 years old, I think that this is a very positive change. Healthy fats have definitely been more of an emphasis in this dietary guideline. I think that's also a positive. They state healthy fats are plentiful in many whole foods such as meats, poultry, eggs, omega 3 rich seafood, nuts, seeds, full fat, dairy, olives and avocado. When cooking with or adding fats to meals, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids such as olive options can include butter and beef tallow. Now the one thing that I do think is problematic here is that they're recommending, they say prioritize oils with essential fatty acids such as olive oil. And olive oil is so low in essential fatty acids. So essential fatty acids are omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. And olive oil does have some omega 6 and it has very small amounts of omega 3s. But it is interesting that they chose olive oil as the source of essential fatty acids just because there are better sources of essential fatty acids that could have been listed there. And I don't necessarily think that there needs to be a call out on butter or beef tallow. So I'M gonna get to saturated fats in a second. But I personally would not be like going out of my way to recommend. I still predominantly recommend monounsaturated fats from things like extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, seeds, those sorts of things. And if people are incorporating small amounts of butter or beef tallow and they're still staying within the saturated fat recommendation, that's fine. I just don't see the need to really call it out. I think that the reason that they're probably doing it is to able to reverse the demonization around fats that has been so pervasive in our society. If you look at the total fat recommendations from the history of the Dietary Guidelines that was compiled by the center for Science in the Public Interest, they state that the Dietary Guidelines had recommended avoid too much fat. From the 80s to the 90s, then 1990 to 2000, the recommendation was choose a diet low in fat, less than 30% of calories suggested. And then in 2000, choose a diet moderate in total fat, aim for less than 30% of calories. And then from 2005 to 2020, the recommendation was keep total fat intake between 20 to 35% of calories for adults. In 2005, the recommendation was mostly mono and polyunsaturated fats. But then they actually dropped that specificity in 2010. And then from 2010, 2020, they stuck with just keeping total fat intake between 20 to 35% of calories for adults. With the specific it's a separate line for saturated fat fats. So I do think that overall, the obviously emphasis of healthy fats and not being so afraid of them and those sorts of things is beneficial. The old messaging from the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines stated that a part of a nutrient dense diet is oils instead of healthy fats. They called it oils and they said oils, including vegetable oil and oils in foods such as seafood and nuts. So this is another big change is that there's no call out of eating vegetable oils. In fact, they do recommend not eating. They say somewhere that they recommend not eating industrialized oils. Yeah. Under the actual website. What does eat real food mean? Eating real food means choosing fats that are whole or minimally processed. These foods are prepared with few ingredients and without added sugars, industrial oils, artificial flavors or preservatives. So that's also the first time that that has been called out. And that way from a saturated fat standpoint, they are sticking to less than 10% of fat intake being saturated fat. I think that this is positive that they've stuck with that. I do think that the research on saturated fats needs to continue to evolve because some studies do show that in a lot of the latest science that saturated fats are not all one bucket, that there's different types of saturated fats that can lead to different outcomes from a health standpoint, but they are sticking to less than 10% of calories being from saturated fat. Um, and also mentioning that with decreasing highly processed and ultra processed foods that that will help to decrease total saturated fat consumption. Now, a lot of people I'm seeing say that with the increase in recommendations around butter and beef tallow and red meat and just like more emphasis around that even just in the graphic on the pyramid, that it becomes then very difficult to actually achieve that less than 10% saturated fat target. And I don't disagree with that at all. I think that a general American might see the pyramid and think, oh, I'm just going to like eat a lot of butter and beef tallow and red meat now and whole milk and they'll easily be at 20% of their calories from saturated fats, which would not be a beneficial change to their diet. And also America eats more meats than any other society. So I don't think that an emphasis on the red meat and I would have loved to see more emphasis around beans and lentils, which are from a visual standpoint, I mean, on the actual pyramid, because there is not much of that. And I do think that that is important as well. So the saturated fat I think is positive that it stayed at less than 10%. And I think it's also positive that they're not demonizing fat as much as prior guidelines. But I do think that the way that they did it on the actual pyramid or inverse pyramid was probably to like, you know, they wanted to hype the, create a lot of buzz around this, which they absolutely have succeeded at. And I hope that that doesn't come at the expense. Understanding the ramifications of eating too much saturated fat, meaning 20 or 30% of your diet is saturated fat, with also the caveat that there. I do believe that the research, there will be more research and has been more research showing that not all saturated fats are created equal, that saturated fats from highly processed foods may not be as problematic as some of the saturated fat from things like full fat, coconut cream and other things. Now in my nutrition programs, like in the being collective in the meal plans that my dietitian took and I create every week, we include things like Coconut cream and some of our smoothies and we include red meats and things of that nature. And we stick to 10 to 12% of saturated fat intake and are able to hit that even with incorporating things like red meat and coconut cream into some of the nutrition plans. But again, with the combination of a lot of beans and lentils and tofu and other plant based proteins that are extremely, extremely important, they're the foundation of overall methods metabolic health. Okay, the next thing is a call out on gut health. This was extremely positive. This is the first time that the United States government is bringing gut health to the messaging and to the conversation. There has been so much research coming out on the gut microbiome over the last 20 years. So it's about time that gut health be incorporated into the nutrition messaging. For so long, it was just about calories in versus calories out without any of these nutrition scientists or doctors or anyone all at actually factoring in the role that different foods play on different strains of your bacteria that impact your overall risk of various diseases. So they've added a section that says your gut contains trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms called the microbiome. A healthy diet supports a well balanced microbiome and healthy digestion. Highly processed foods can disrupt this balance. While vegetables, fruits, fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi and kefir and high fiber foods support a diverse micro microbiome which may be beneficial for health. This is huge. The fact that they're talking about even a diverse microbiome may be beneficial for our health could not be more important. And I actually, as I'm saying this, just want to confirm. Let's see if, because I didn't look here, let's see if kimchi. I'm just doing a control f search. Kimchi or sauerkraut. Yeah. None of these fermented foods were included even in the last round of the guidelines. There's no mention even of fermented foods. Let me just search. Fermented. Yeah. So no acknowledgement of fermented foods and no acknowledgement of the microbiome at all. So extremely important change there. Sodium and electrolytes. So they actually, before stating the 2,300 milligram per day limit for sodium, they say sodium and electrolytes are essential for hydration. And then they get into the fact that you want to lean into less than 2,300 milligrams per day. But I think actually starting with sodium and electrolytes are essential for hydration is important because there Also has been so much demonization around sodium, which as especially people that are active and sweating, like you need the sodium and electrolytes to actually fuels your energy and in so many things. And a lot of, you know, the risk of high blood pressure is largely genetic, whether you're going to be impacted by sodium or not. And so I think that more specific messaging around this is also positive, saying sodium and electrolytes are essential for hydration and then getting into the recommendations for limiting sodium to a specific amount. So those are my overall extreme positives. I would say that the one thing that I do completely agree with is that red meats should not be as prominent on the inverted pyramid as I wish that there was. Just like larger images of beans and lentils. The other thing that I would say is, is that people are calling out conflicts of interest. So the committee has a large amount of conflict of interest with people that are on the Dietary Advisory Committee who are either a part of or have been a part of or received money from the dairy and the meat industry more so than ever before. And I do believe that that is very problematic. We ideally want a dietary Guidelines that is not swayed by industry and that would be the goal. Now this is extremely rare in the field of nutrition and health, where research and people in academia are not accepting money from outside industry to support their research or other things. So I believe that it is in the best interest of us to have a committee that isn't highly swayed by industry. But I also feel like, does that even exist is the question. The other thing that I would say is that the corruption of the Dietary Guidelines, like I said, Advisory Committee has run very deep in every round and they just started disclosing conflicts of interest. In the last Dietary Guidelines that was the first time that was ever released. Prior to that, we had no idea actually of what the conflicts of interest were. But when I was in Washington D.C. for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines release, I was at a meeting at the NIH in 2014 and it completely opened my eyes to how much the food industry is consciously feeding our chronic disease epidemic in broad daylight at science based organizations. So I was at the NIH for the Dietary Advisory Committee meeting, sitting like in the audience for that. It was a very small group of people. I was there as a, a complete spectator. And that was before the release of the 2015 guidelines. There were about 20 people that were in the room that presented to the Dietary Advisory Committee that are those nutrition experts. And they each had a specific amount of time to give their oral Testimony in support of the food or beverage that they were there to represent. Let me tell you some of the organizations that were there. The American Beverage association, the National Confectioners association, which is now the American, or previously was the American Candy association, the Sugar association, the national association of Margarine Manufacturers, Manufacturers corn Refiners Association, McDonald's Inc. The Dan Company, the American Meat Institute foundation, the United States Potato Board. And then of all of those people, they had one testimony from one dietitian and one doctor who were each there to advocate for more plant based guidelines. Everyone else was part of the industry and they were there. You know, there was a moment that I was like, wow, the food industry is really setting the agenda for America's nutrition recommendations that are causing, causing us to get sicker, fatter, more depressed, more infertile, dying younger and stealing the vitality from our kids, really all for the sake of profit. And that was when a representative came up from the American Candy association, which is now, you know, the name has changed to National Confectioners association, who said that it's important for people to have candy and sugar in their lives because it leads to higher levels of happiness and joy. Now if you look at the National Confectioners association, they consider themselves to be a mission driven advocacy organization. Their core values on their website are happiness, responsibility, leadership, trust and community. The confectionery industry alone contributes $37 billion in retail sales annually. And that makes them a very powerful organization. So what the government hasn't factored in enough is that like, you listen to an organization like this and you pay now or you pay later. And we've been choosing to pay later. So prioritizing the agenda that was set for the industry that contributes $37 billion for the economy ends up costing us on the back end of our healthcare costs that are, you know, $4.3 trillion in healthcare, 86% of which are spent treating chronic diseases. So I believe that there is still a big issue with the fact that a lot of these representatives were there from the meeting and dairy. A lot of these people are, you know, receiving money from the mean and dairy industry. But I do think that one positive is that there wasn't so much of a representation from like highly processed food companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi. You know, the American Journal of Preventative Medicine published a report showing that 96 national health organizations accepted money from Coca Cola and Pepsi. That included the American Diabetes association, the National Institute of of Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. It's like if you just think about between the year of 2011 to 2015, Coca Cola and Pepsi, they publicly opposed 28 bills. And they supported one of the bills that they opposed. 12% were for soda tax. 4 were for supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program regulations, meaning that the bills were trying to regulate what people could purchase on their food stamps, which is technically called snap. And they were opposing that bill. And one was to limit portion sizes sold of soda in New York City or in New York, not New York City. And then you look at the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics, which also received soda industry funding, they issued a statement actually declining support for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed limit on soda portions, arguing that nutrition education should be emphasized and that it's not about regulating how much soda a person can actually consume. So this is just an example of like how deep these organizations are within our federal guidelines, within our federal organizations. And I'm saying that this is a, this is an issue, whether it's that 90% of the people for this round of the Dietary Advisory Committee have accepted money from the meat and dairy industries, or it's the sugar and refined grain associations. It's a problem. And I don't know what the solution is because I just don't know how many researchers there are out there and maybe there are a lot that just aren't accepted a lot of money. And I will say that for me as a person that has been building an online platform for the last many years, that my business model is extremely different in that I, you know, have not grown my Instagram and email lists and social media and podcasts to then endorse various brands. So I have never done a brand partnership, I shouldn't say never because it was many, many, many years ago that I accepted like a few thousand dollars from Simple Mills and C Foods when they were just getting started, say like in the last seven years, have not accepted money as a brand partner. Now I do have certain financial ties to companies like Wenatal, the prenatal company that I'm a medical advisor for. I don't get paid by them, but I own like a very small percentage of their, their company as being a medical advisor and contributing to their formulations. And so there are like a few of the. That's actually my deepest financial. They actually give affiliate links for, for when you use my code being Bridget. And I asked to not get affiliate compensation because I just try to remain as non biased as possible, which obviously means that you have to develop really good nutrition programs and support people at a deep level in order to have a business that can succeed and can pay my team of dietitians and the people on my nutrition team. But there's. Even if you're an influencer, this is how I've thought about it. Even if you're an influencer that's receiving, let's say, money from the dairy industry or something and they contribute to a large percentage of your income every year, or you're taking money from, let's say like a grass fed beef organization or something along those lines, it will inevitably sway the point of view that you have even on like the Dietary Guidelines for Americans coming out, because you're going to naturally try to defend the companies that are contributing to a large portion of your income. Another downside that I'm seeing pointed out is about how there isn't enough emphasis on fiber. And I completely agree that fiber is the most important nutrient for supporting gut health, for, for just overall healthy diet, for decreasing our risk of pretty much every single chronic disease. And I think that fiber could have been emphasized even more on this inverse pyramid. There are a lot of fruits and vegetables, but I think some of the other sources of fiber could have been shown a little bit more prominent, especially just images of beans and lentils and things. But I do want to highlight that the 418 page scientific report that, you know, frames the dietary guidelines and goes into the research absolutely highlights the importance of dietary fiber and decreasing risk of disease. And they actually this time break it out into different carbohydrate quality sources, which is the first time that this has been done to this extent. So they have the carbohydrate quality saying that carbohydrate quality is a major determinant of chronic disease risk. Refined grains and high glycemic index diets are prevalent in the United States and globally. And fiber intake in the population is consistently lower than recommendations, with people eating less than 15 grams per day for most adults on average. And then it goes on to say that because our fiber consumption is so low, these factors have been shown to contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer. Whereas evidence suggests that whole grain carbohydrate and dietary fibers are protective. So this is really important because it highlights that there is a role of whole grain grains. There is an enormous emphasis that needs to be had on fiber and also highlights the evidence saying that for whole grains, 17% lower risk of for mortality and 15% lower risk of cardiovascular disease at high grade. And then goes into 13% lower risk of colorectal cancer at moderate grade and 15% lower risk of obesity and 33% lower risk of type 2 diabetes at low grade. They showed that higher consumption of fiber at 30 grams grams per day is increase in whole grain consumption would be associated with a 6% reduction in all cause mortality, 8% reduction in cardiovascular disease, 7% reduction in obesity, 6% reduction in colorectal cancer and 24% reduction in type 2 diabetes. It goes on to do this for fiber, saying that total dietary fiber is associated with a 17% lower risk for mortality and other diseases. And then it also calls that out for refined grains, increased risk of all cause for mortality and then for the glycemic index. So then it concludes whole grains and fiber were consistently associated with reduced risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and CRC, 15 to 33% lower risk in dose responsive fashion. So I think that it absolutely is important for us to emphasize the role that fiber plays. I do think that they did this. I just think that it could have been more prominent on the actual invert pyramid itself. Now the next criticism is people that are saying that the pyramid has not been used in the last 20 years, which is also a very valid point. The pyramid has not been used in 20 years. Actually, I think it's 21 years. Specifically that was when they had moved on to my plate, where they changed from the outdated food pyramid that recommended six to 11 servings of grains, half of which are refined, and other recommendations, to then changing to MyPlate, which, you know, changed some of the actual inherent recommendations. But it was really the graphic that changed the most. And you know, I've seen some people say that, like on the State of the Health website, it says for decades we've been misled by guidance that prioritize highly processed foods and are now facing rates of unprecedented chronic disease. Which is true because that has been happening for decades. Even if we did switch to MyPlate 20 years ago, even in MyPlate, they weren't necessarily calling out the added sugars and refined grains and those sorts of things, like they really should have been in that MyPlate picture. So I think that it's less about the picture and more about the actual serving sizes and recommendations within each of these categories that matter the most. But I did see, you know, Dr. Jessica, who is a public health expert and dietitian, she had said that, you know, the fact that they have the outdated pyramid at the top of the dietary guidelines website is patently false. That we have not been misled for decades, guidance has never prioritized highly processed foods. And I think that the argument here is that by not addressing the issue with highly processed and ultra processed foods in any other guidelines, that that has in some ways created encouragement or room for more opportunity for people to consume them. But I do think that also that inverting the pyramid and then saying that they've changed the pyramid is also absolutely an intentional marketing Pl that I'm sure was designed to develop more attention and awareness. And is it bad to develop more attention and awareness and also call out some of these things that have been wrong within the Guidelines for the last two decades? I mean, I guess that's open to personal belief, but I think that what they have done very effectively is created a lot of conversation around the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is in a lot of ways helpful because more people today than ever before have seen and are like probably digesting videos and content around the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in a way that has never happened before. Another thing that I'm seeing people call out is that most people never follow the Dietary Guidelines anyway, so who really cares? It's not going to impact how I personally eat. And on the Dietary Guidelines, the last round of them, it showed that on page four of the guideline brief, that's 164 pages, when they look at adherence of the US population to the Dietary Guidelines over time as measured by the average total Healthy Index, Healthy eating index score, that 59 was the score that they gave for 2015, 2016. So 59 of 100. And so people are following some of the guidelines, but not all of them, that's for sure. The next thing that I'm seeing is a lot of call out around how it doesn't really matter what the guidelines say, that access to food matters more. So I'm going to keep eating what I eat eat. And that this is a waste of everyone's time because at the end of the day, we should be talking about food access to underserved populations. I think that this perspective misses the mark a bit because when we think about the Dietary Guidelines as a whole, they actually impact our federal nutrition funding for federal nutrition programs, which includes the SNAP Program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This used to be called Food Stamps. It also impacts the School Lunch and Breakfast program, and it impacts Women, Infants and Children program. So the Dietary Guidelines really sets the tone for those programs. And also as Dr. Tim Spector had just highlighted in a video that I saw him do, he's, you know, one of the top nutrition researchers in the field and he's out of the UK and he said that the United States recommendations around nutrition, it sets the tone for other countries as well. So it is actually a really big deal not only for us and for the underserved populations, but then also for other countries. So when it comes to the school lunch and breakfast program, for instance, a company may have a specific amount of added sugar in their pizza sauce, for instance, that they sell direct to consumer and then they may reduce it to be able to fit within the nutrition guidelines for the school lunch and breakfast program that's largely influenced by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Same with the Women Infants and Children program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And so what I think that the positive here is that by having higher standards from our national organization that that can lead to improvements in what is being sold or given to people of lower income status that are relying on these federally nutrition funded programs. So having higher standards may help to improve the school lunch and breakfast program. And also it's putting pressure on the companies who are providing these to change the formulations to invest in scientists that can make the foods less hyper palatable and actually nutrients nutrient dense. Because like I said, these companies don't care about anything but their bottom line. But if their bottom line is tied to improvements in population health and what the school lunch and breakfast program is serving, then that is a enormous win for our overall society. Now a lot of work still needs to be done on improving our subsidies so that healthier organic foods are less expensive and then the cheapest foods aren't the least expensive foods. And I'm hoping that that also comes down the line. But I think that this is an overall net positive for, for downstream impacting access to nutritious foods for more people. Okay, let me know if you thought that this was helpful if you want me to do a part two, because like I said, there is 400 pages of documentation on the Dietary Guidelines. I do believe that I have really specific insight on this. Not only helping as many people as I have in reversing various health issues in viewing their labs based on the nutrition changes that they're making and staying up to today on the research. I also, you know, teach in academia and have for the last seven years that I taught an integrative and functional nutrition course that I co created at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. In addition to, you know, having my master's in public health nutrition and having this experience in Washington D.C. for the the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. So if you want a part two, let me know if this episode was helpful, please share it with a friend or family member. Please like and subscribe to the channel that you're listening. Listening to this through, whether It's Apple, Spotify, YouTube, it makes an enormous difference for the content that we're continuing to put out, especially with not currently taking any brand partnership, money, those sorts of things that make an enormous difference. Thank you for being part of the Being Bridget show and I will see you next time.