The ancient pyramid
On January 7th, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (USDA) announced the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Leading the charge to “put real food back at the center of health” were Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Brooke Rollins, heads of the HHS and the USDA respectively. The fanfare with which they delivered their imperative to “eat real food” via a new food pyramid would suggest groundbreaking advice was being issued to the American people. We have questions about it.
Taking the advice at face value, it’s good advice. We agree that everyone should prioritize whole foods where possible and eat a diverse array of foods daily: proteins, fruits and vegetables, and whole grains (if those things are reasonable for your unique situation). Local Matters educators have trusted the federal government’s previous guidance—the MyPlate—as a template from which to provide quality nutrition and food education to children across Central Ohio since that guidance debuted in 2011.
So why the shift? Is the federal government prepared to advance policies that support it’s mission to “make America healthy again”? If 2025 revealed the food policy priorities of the current federal administration, the intent of the new pyramid is being impaired by the very people introducing it.
Do as they say, not as they do
In October 2025, we wrote about several of the federal government’s disastrous recent changes to the way people access food, and we’re not holding our breath for any major changes to that trajectory. In theory, dietary guidelines are what they say: guidelines. They’re intended as recommendations from the federal government that they think people ought to follow. In practice, those guidelines don’t, and can’t, exist in a vacuum where everyone can utilize that guidance equally. When the federal government tells people what they should prioritize in their diets and fails to advance policies that make that easier for people, they are actively upholding a food system where “eating real food” is defined by the privilege to adequately access it.
What the pyramid says and how science responds
Reading the new pyramid top-to-bottom, left-to-right, animal proteins and dairy are the first thing you see. The federal government alleges that there is a “War on Protein”, despite the average American eating 35-55% more protein than the recommended daily allowance and an avalanche of protein-enhanced products hitting grocery shelves and fast-food menus. The guidelines influence the meals served to kids at school and to members of the military, and affect what is included in federal food aid, which impacts what kinds of food are subsidized and produced. A focus on animal proteins and dairy does not address raising the animals required to meet these recommendations. More livestock means environmental impacts like deforestation and increased methane emissions. In 2021, Cambridge University Press published findings that: “High consumption of meat, particularly red and processed meat, increases risk of CVD (cardiovascular disease), diabetes and some cancers. Further, red meat is a major contributor to environmental harms such as greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss and deforestation. Reducing red meat consumption is therefore an important strategy for reducing chronic disease risk and mitigating environmental damage.”
On December 10, 2024, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released The Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. For the first time ever, the DGAC had recommended prioritizing plant-based proteins like beans, peas, and lentils, and reducing the amount of animal proteins in the average American’s diet. This move would reduce diet-related incidences of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer, which should fit neatly into the administration’s plan to “reestablish food—not pharmaceuticals—as the foundation of health.” So why did the administration ignore those recommendations? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that 7 of the 9 authors of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans previously received research funding or other compensation from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Texas Beef Council, General Mills, the National Dairy Council, the National Pork Board, and others.
Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, said this of the guidelines: “They’re muddled, they’re inconsistent, they’re contradictory, they’re ideological, and they’re very retro. There’s one really great thing about them. They say, ‘Eat real food.’ It sounds ridiculous that that would be revolutionary, but it is, and it’s very good. But the eat real food is not the major message of the guidelines.”
We’re inclined to agree.
