US Health Secretary Kennedy flips food pyramid to emphasise red meat and whole milk

WASHINGTON - In a striking reversal of past nutrition guidance, the Trump administration released new dietary guidelines on Jan 7 that flip the food pyramid on its head, putting steak, cheese and whole milk near the top.

The new guidelines urge Americans to prioritise protein and avoid the sugary, processed foods that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said are poisonous to health.

“My message is clear: Eat real food,” Mr Kennedy said at a briefing rolling out the guidelines, where he positioned them as the key to preventing chronic disease and improving Americans’ health.

After years of being advised to avoid eating too much red meat and foods high in fats, Americans are now being told to embrace them. The document, which is far shorter than previous versions, codifies some of Mr Kennedy’s frequent talking points, like recommending that people cook with butter and beef tallow despite the fact that scientific evidence does not support doing so.

On other points, the guidelines do not stray far from mainstream nutrition advice. They encourage Americans to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and stop short of explicitly saying that people should eat more saturated fats, though Mr Kennedy had pledged to “end the war” on them.

And they make no direct mention of seed oils, a frequent target for Mr Kennedy, who has repeatedly claimed – without evidence – that they harm health.

The guidelines have been endorsed by the American Medical Association, a group that just days ago sharply condemned Mr Kennedy’s upheaval of the childhood vaccine schedule.

At the briefing, Mr Kennedy also thanked the American Academy of Paediatrics for partnering with the administration, an organisation that is suing Mr Kennedy over his changes to vaccine policy.

The American Heart Association issued a lukewarm statement of support for the new guidelines, voicing concern that they could lead people to consume too much saturated fat and sodium.

While the guidelines say people can season their meats and vegetables with salt, they also recommend avoiding salty, processed foods and do not change the limits on sodium.

As the Health and Agriculture departments’ official guidance on what to eat and drink for good health, the guidelines shape the foods served in schools, hospitals, prisons, military bases and through federal assistance programmes. They are updated every five years and rarely change in substance.

But Mr Kennedy was dismissive of the recommendations of an expert committee tapped to oversee the guidelines during the Biden administration, instead turning to a new set of handpicked experts who worked in secret over the last few months.

Mr Kennedy had criticised previous guidelines as being influenced by food industries, but five of the 10 current scientific experts disclosed recent financial relationships with beef, dairy or pork industries, or food, infant formula, supplement or pharmaceutical companies.

The guidelines focus on priorities from Mr Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement, emphasising protein, which most Americans already get enough of. They advise adults to consume 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day – 50 per cent to 100 per cent more than what federal health officials have previously recommended for people’s basic needs (0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day).

There isn’t solid evidence that everyone needs to consume this much protein. But many experts already recommend similar amounts for people who are trying to lose weight or are strength training to build muscle.

The new guidelines say that people can get protein from animal sources like red meat, poultry, seafood, eggs and dairy, and plant sources like legumes, nuts and seeds, and soy. While research suggests that getting more of your protein from plant rather than animal sources can reduce risks of cardiovascular disease and earlier death, the new guidelines don’t steer people toward plant proteins.

They also take a hard line on added sugars, telling people to avoid sugar-sweetened beverages and to limit other sources of the sugars. They also recommend that children do not start eating added sugars until they are 10 – much later than previous guidelines, which recommended avoiding added sugars until age 2.

The new guidelines recommend significantly cutting back on highly processed refined carbohydrates, which they define as white bread, flour tortillas and crackers.

Mr Kennedy has long condemned ultraprocessed foods – typically defined as those with ingredients not commonly used in home kitchens – which have been linked to a range of health conditions including obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

While the new guidelines do not directly use the term ultraprocessed foods, they do recommend avoiding a more vague category of “highly processed” items such as chips, cookies and candy that have added sugars or sodium, and those that contain certain additives including artificial flavours, preservatives, petroleum-based dyes and low-calorie sweeteners.

For months, Mr Kennedy and Dr Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, had said that the new guidelines would end the so-called “war” on saturated fats, prompting consumer health groups and nutrition experts to worry that the new guidelines would recommend that people consume more saturated fats.

That move would put people’s health at risk, experts said, since saturated fats have been shown to raise cholesterol levels and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The administration kept the saturated fat recommendation unchanged, suggesting that no more than 10 per cent of daily calories should come from the fats.

But the guidelines also include the contradictory advice to prioritise foods that are high in saturated fats, such as red meat, full-fat dairy products and butter and beef tallow. Consuming one 8-ounce rib-eye steak, for example, would put many people over their daily saturated fat limit.

On alcohol, the guidelines are vague, recommending that people consume “less”, but offering no concrete guidance on what that means. Previous guidelines had recommended that men have no more than two drinks per day and women no more than one. NYTIMES