Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a polarizing figure in both politics and healthcare, so much so that even members of his famous family have distanced themselves from him.
It’s remarkable, therefore, that the new dietary guidelines produced under his watch debuted to much applause and comparatively little gnashing of teeth.
Bones have been picked, to be sure: most notably the recommendation to increase protein consumption, given that most Americans already eat plenty.
And there is consternation about what seems like a watering-down of guidelines on alcohol use, with generic advice to consume less. (Many people had hoped for a stronger stance against alcohol, and had reason to hope that it would be forthcoming, given Kennedy’s past struggles with addiction and President Donald Trump’s total abstention.)
But the guidelines’ strong warnings against sugar, additives and highly processed foods won praise, as did their simplicity.
Pared down to 10 pages from previous iterations that exceeded 100 pages, the guidelines are meant to be accessible to the general public, Kennedy said. They aren’t as simple as celebrated food writer Michael Pollan’s advice to “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much,” but they’re close, if you substitute “plants” for “meat.”
Pollan, who has been critical of the dietary guidelines in the past, hasn’t yet weighed in on the new ones, which will serve as the nation’s nutrition standards for the next five years. But plenty of other people have. Here are some notable responses.
— Dr. Anthony Pearson, known on Substack as “The Skeptical Cardiologist,” wrote, “I have been a frequent critic of the various iterations of the DGA that have been produced every 5 years by the federal government, but I actually think this version represents an improvement that corrects many of the problems with prior versions.”
In particular, he said, “The new guidelines finally eliminate the nonsensical recommendation to preferentially consume skim or low-fat dairy products.”
For more than a decade, he’s been telling patients that, consumed in moderation, high-fat dairy does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, cardiometabolic disease or obesity.
— Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor (Emerita) of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, called the guidelines a “mixed bag.”
“These guidelines are big wins for the meat, dairy, and alcohol industries (alas). The loser: ultra-processed foods (yes!). The recommendation to reduce highly processed foods (a euphemism for ultra-processed) is the one great strength of these recommendations. Following that advice might help Make America Healthy Again. But the rest must be viewed more as ideology than science, and also must be interpreted in the light of this administration’s destruction of what was once a reasonably effective public health service (CDC, FDA, NIH) and system,” Nestle wrote on her “Food Politics” blog.
— Dr. Ben Carson, who was present at the White House news conference announcing the guidelines, shared his support on social media.
— Emily Oster, founder of ParentData and an economics professor at Brown University, agreed with the guidelines that full-fat dairy is fine, writing in The New York Times, “if anything, full-fat dairy is associated with lower obesity rates.”
Increased protein consumption, however, will likely only benefit people who work out with weights, she said. “When you lift weights, you create microscopic tears in your muscles that the body uses protein to repair. But when you consume more protein than you need to repair muscle, the excess protein is treated like any other calorie sources.”
— Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who helped develop the MyPlate recommendations that the new guidelines replace, also took issue with the advice to eat more protein, especially red meat, and said the new guidelines are wrong to encourage the consumption of butter and beef tallow. “Seed oils are very good for people, especially canola and sunflower oils for cooking. They are high in unsaturated fats, and thus seed oils are way better than beef tallow,” Emanuel wrote for The Free Press.
But Emanuel commended the recommendations to avoid ultra-processed foods, to consume full-fat dairy, and “to eat more plant proteins, more fruits and vegetables, seafood, whole grains, and nuts.”
— Also in The Free Press, nutritionist and author Nina Teicholz called the guidelines “startling and revolutionary” for reversing the demonization of saturated fat and meat. But she notes a contradiction in its daily cap on saturated fats: 10% of calories.
“There’s no way to eat even eight ounces of rib eye, much less cook it in butter and tallow, while keeping saturated fats under 10% of calories — or about 32 grams for an average 2,000-calorie-per-day diet. Anyone actually following the 10% cap will need to continue cooking with seed oils while limiting whole milk and red meat," Teicholz wrote. (She wants the cap lifted altogether.)
— Stanford professor and podcaster Andrew Huberman said he was happy that sourdough bread and oatmeal are still on the approved list, and that, for the most part, the guidelines look “spot on.”
“Maybe up the veggies a bit, add low sugar fermented foods like sauerkraut & this is great,” Huberman wrote on X.
— The American Heart Association said it commended the guidelines’s “emphasis on increasing intake of vegetables, fruits and whole grains while limiting consumption of added sugars, refined grains, highly processed foods, saturated fats and sugary drinks,” but expressed concern about the potential for excess salt and red meat consumption because of the advice. The association also broke with the guidelines regarding full-fat dairy, saying it still encourages “low-fat and fat-free dairy products, which can be beneficial to heart health.”
— The American Medical Association kept its response positive, saying in a statement that it will work with Congress “to incentivize nutrient dense foods, expand food labeling efforts, define ultra-processed foods, and increase investment in nutrition research.”
— Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, released a statement supporting the guidelines’ “clear focus on child nutrition guidance that supports healthy eating patterns for children, with a focus on whole, minimally processed foods.”
“Every day, pediatricians support families in developing healthy eating habits, and we commend the DGAs’ inclusion of the Academy’s evidence-based policy related to breastfeeding, introduction of solid foods, caffeine avoidance and limits on added sugars.”
And in perhaps the least surprising reaction of all, the Meat Institute enthusiastically endorsed the new guidelines on X.