More beans and less red meat: Nutritionists weigh in on US dietary guidelines
Americans should eat more beans, peas and lentils and cut back on red and processed meats and starchy vegetables, while continuing to limit added sugars, sodium and saturated fat.
That’s the advice released on Tuesday by an expert panel of nutritionists charged with advising the U.S. government on the 2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines that will form the cornerstone of federal food programs and policies.
But the twenty-person panel did not weigh in on the growing role of ultra-processed foods that have been linked to health problems, and say there is not enough evidence to tell people to avoid them. And the group has refrained from updating controversial guidelines alcohol consumptionand leaves that analysis to two outside reports expected to be released soon.
Overall, the recommendations for the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans sound familiar, says food policy expert Marion Nestle.
“This looks like every other set of dietary guidelines since 1980: eat your vegetables and reduce consumption of foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat,” Nestle said in an email. “This specific statement says nothing about balancing calories, when overconsumption of calories, especially from ultra-processed foods, is the biggest challenge to Americans’ health.”
The nutrition panel concluded that a healthy diet for people aged 2 years and older includes more vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish and vegetable oils that contain more unsaturated fats.
It is lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, refined grains and saturated fat. It can also include fat-free or low-fat dairy products and foods lower in sodium, as well as plant-based foods.
The panel, which met for nearly two years, was the first to focus on Americans’ nutritional needs through what they called a “health equity lens,” said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity expert at Massachusetts General Hospital who served on of the group. That meant that when recommending healthy diets, factors such as family income, race, ethnicity and culture had to be taken into account. It will ensure the guidelines “reflect and include diverse populations,” she said in an email.
Ultra-processed foods include the snacks, sugary cereals and frozen meals that make up about 60% of the American diet.
The panel reviewed more than forty studies, including some that showed links between ultra-processed foods and becoming overweight or developing obesity. But nutritionists raised concerns about the quality of the research, leading them to conclude that the evidence was too limited to make recommendations.
That decision is likely to clash with the views of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who has raised questions potential conflicts of interest among members of the Dietary Guidelines Panel and vowed to crack down on ultra-processed foods that contribute to chronic diseases.
The panel also did not revise recommendations that suggest limiting alcohol intake to two drinks or less per day for men and one drink or less per day for women.
In 2020, the last time the guideline was updated, the government rejected the advice of scientific advisers to recommend less alcohol consumption.
Two groups — the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and a committee of the government agency that oversees substance abuse — are expected to release reports in coming months on the effects of moderate alcohol consumption as a basis for the guidelines.
The advisory panel acknowledged that most Americans’ diets do not meet current guidelines. According to the report, more than half of all U.S. adults have one or more diet-related chronic health conditions and 18 million U.S. households have insecure food sources.
“Diet-related chronic health problems and their precursors continue to threaten health across the lifespan,” the report concludes. “That doesn’t bode well for the future of healthcare in the United States.”
The scientific report forms the basis for the dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years. Tuesday’s recommendations now go to HHS and the Department of Agriculture, where officials will draft final guidelines to be released next year.
Starting Wednesday, the public has 60 days to comment on the guidance. HHS and USDA officials will hold a public meeting on Jan. 16 to discuss the recommendations.
The new guidelines, which will be finalized by the incoming Trump administration, are consistent with decades of federal efforts to reduce diet-related diseases in the U.S., said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest .
“Overall, I think these are well-articulated recommendations that the new administration could well adopt,” Lurie said.
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