On January 7, 2026, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) released the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs). The newly released Guidelines deviate from prior DGAs in both process and content.
What happened
- U.S. law requires that the DGAs be revised every 5 years. From 2022 to 2025, in the customary intensive process, a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), selected for their expertise, researched and compiled a scientific consensus report, providing recommendations to USDA and HHS. The process is transparent and includes opportunities for public comment. Typically, the scientific consensus report then informs the agencies as they develop the DGAs, which may or may not include a new dietary guidance graphic.
- This time, the two agencies explicitly rejected the DGAC’s consensus report. Instead, the agencies developed their own scientific report to justify the newly released DGAs and accompanying new graphic.
Why It matters
- The DGAs aim to shape what people in the U.S. choose to eat. Further, nutrition standards for the foods or meals provided through federal nutrition programs are required by law to be aligned with the DGAs. These programs, including the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and senior meal programs, feed tens of millions of Americans daily.
- The DGAs strongly inform what is taught in nutrition education programs (now severely limited by the elimination of the SNAP-Education program by H.R. 1 of 2025). The DGAs also influence content taught to healthcare professionals and nutritionists, as well as their advice to the public.
- The dietary guidance graphic (from 2011-2025, MyPlate) is meant to be a visual representation of the overall DGA message. Most people’s exposure to the DGAs is through the graphic.
What we agree with in the new 2025-2030 DGAs
- The DGAs emphasize the importance of eating real, whole, nutrient-dense foods.
- The guidelines explicitly recommend that Americans avoid highly processed foods, sugary drinks and excess added sugars. They specify limiting foods and beverages with artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners, and petroleum-based dyes.
- The Introduction to the DGAs articulates the grave dangers of the current American diet, emphasizing the extent of the crisis of poor diet in our nation.
- The DGAs emphasize the importance of eating a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, daily.
- The guidelines advise against drinking sugary beverages and instead recommend drinking water and unsweetened beverages.
- The new DGAs are simple to read with visually appealing graphics and a clean design.
What we are most concerned about in the new 2025-2030 DGAs
- The process of producing the final DGAs was opaque and the guidelines were politicized. Recommendations about what Americans eat are critically important to the health and vitality of the nation and must be made in a transparent, scientifically-sound manner.
- The new DGAs dramatically increase recommended daily protein consumption, which is not supported by scientific consensus. Further, the new DGAs over-emphasize animal-based protein sources. While eating high quality protein is important, the new guidelines may lead people to interpret over-consumption of meat and dairy as sanctioned by science, which it is not.
- While the guidelines retain the recommendation to limit saturated fats to 10% of daily calories, the foods and beverages emphasized (e.g., meat, whole fat dairy) are high in saturated fats and could lead people to excessive saturated fat consumption.
- The new DGAs recommend “no amount of added sugars” for children aged 5-10 years. This is a dramatic change from prior advice to avoid added sugars until age 2. While restricting added sugars may make sense for physical health, this new recommendation overlooks the role sugar plays in many cultural foods and common practices. The lack of flexibility or instructions about how to incorporate sugar occasionally may be counterproductive.
- The new DGAs emphasize meat and dairy without addressing the challenges related to our industrial animal-based food systems in terms of human and environmental costs.
- The new DGAs recommend a diet based on foods that are relatively high cost per calorie. While the Introduction states that the current Administration is working to make food affordable, it provides no information about how that will be done. Other actions, including cuts to nutrition programs, are likely to make access to healthful foods more difficult for many Americans.
- The new 9-page DGAs lack the detailed information needed for policy development and for clinicians and educators who provide nutritional guidance for a wide variety of people and their circumstances.
Concerns about the new dietary guidance graphic
- The graphic prominently positions red meat, butter and whole milk, while minimizing or ignoring legumes, soy, nuts, and seeds. This undermines the critical role of plant-based, high-protein whole foods in Americans’ diets.
- The graphic devotes minimal space to whole grains and whole grain products, which are important sources of fiber and other nutrients.
- The graphic ignores healthy hydration, with no symbol for water, the recommended beverage.
