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Helena
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Speculation swirls as Trump administration prepares to overhaul dietary advice
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been saying for months that he wants to essentially blow up the U.S. government’s dietary advice and start fresh.
The revamped Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is jointly issued by HHS and USDA, is on track to be released in the next month or two, according to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. As I wrote earlier this week for paid subscribers: Both health officials have recently suggested major changes are on the horizon.
“The nutrition advice through those dietary guidelines must be sound, simple and clear,” Rollins told reporters at a recent event touting SNAP restrictions waivers. “These guidelines will prioritize whole, healthy and nutritious foods such as dairy, fruits, vegetables and meats, and recommend limitations on unhealthy foods.”
Kennedy said: “We’re going to give people … dietary guidelines that are four to five pages written in plain English that people can understand.” (The last version of the dietary guidelines, which were issued in 2020 during the first Trump administration, ran 164 pages.)
“We’re going to get ultra-processed foods off the menus,” Kennedy added.
UPF womp womp: Referencing ultra-processed foods, otherwise known as UPFs, is a big signal here. Last year, the outside expert panel advising the government on the guidelines determined there wasn’t enough evidence to recommend limiting processed food consumption — a conclusion that was considered controversial within the nutrition community. Regardless, it’s now a safe bet that this iteration of the dietary guidelines will make a clear recommendation to limit consumption.
There’s a swirl of speculation, however, about what exactly these simple guidelines are going to say about everything else. One topic of particular interest right now is alcohol.
The buzz: Over at Reuters, Emma Rumney and Jessica DiNapoli reported this week that U.S. health officials are planning to eliminate the long-standing recommendation that women limit alcohol consumption to one drink per day and men limit to two drinks per day, “in what could be a major win for an industry threatened by heightened scrutiny of alcohol’s health effects.”
“The updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which could be released as early as this month, are expected to include a brief statement encouraging Americans to drink in moderation or limit alcohol intake due to associated health risks, the sources said.”
It’s all a bit confusing — is it that the government plans to suggest it’s fine to drink more? Or is the overall message still going to be to limit alcohol, just without the specificity of a one or two drink per day limit? It’s not clear how this will land, and as the story notes, the guidelines are still being crafted so nothing is really locked down. The question of what the guidelines will say about alcohol is a controversy that’s been percolating for a while.
On Biden and beer: If you’ve been around here a bit, you may remember that back in 2023 the Daily Mail ran a sensational story with the headline, “Biden’s alcohol czar warns Americans could soon be told to limit themselves to just two beers per WEEK under strict new booze guidelines.” This went viral and sent a whole bunch of people on the internet and cable news into a full-blown meltdown (and no, we didn’t actually have an alcohol czar).
As I wrote at the time, President Biden wasn’t coming for anyone’s beer, but it was possible that the next dietary guidelines could recommend stricter limits on alcohol, as the advice had been under special review. The dustup came after an expert panel in Canada recommended that Canadian adults limit consumption to two drinks per week — a big change from the status quo. (The Canadian government has not formally adopted this stricter advice, but the backlash has been quite broad.)
Interestingly, in our new “Make America Healthy Again” era no one quite knows where alcohol fits.
As Isabella Cueto at STAT News smartly observed back in January: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies in the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement have no shortage of targets — products, policies, foods and drinks that they see as worsening the nation’s health. Alcohol seems to have so far avoided their outrage.”
Kennedy (and also President Trump) are known to not drink alcohol at all, but the well-documented risks of consuming alcohol (a known carcinogen) have just not been a focus of MAHA messaging.
Reax: Alcohol industry groups aren’t exactly doing a boozy victory lap — at least not yet. Science Over Bias, a coalition of beer, wine and spirits interests, said in a statement: “The Dietary Guidelines for Americans have not been published. The hospitality industry has consistently maintained the view that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans should be determined based on a preponderance of sound scientific evidence, free from bias and conflicts of interest. Information on responsible alcohol consumption has been part of the Dietary Guidelines for decades and has provided useful guidance for consumers who choose to consume alcohol and their health care providers.”
Saturated fat: Alcohol has been getting all the attention lately, but there’s also a lot of tension over what the guidelines might say about saturated fat. The government has long recommended that consumers limit their consumption and opt for mostly unsaturated fats, including both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. It’s possible that this advice will drop out of the guidelines since most MAHA leaders, including Kennedy, believe the recommendation and prevailing science on fat consumption is just plain wrong. They’ve publicly praised companies for switching from seed oils to beef tallow (high in saturated fat) for frying as a way to improve health and reduce inflammation, which has left nutrition experts dumbfounded.
Rollins was recently asked if the saturated fat recommendation would change: “We’re looking at everything right now,” she said. “Everything is on the table. Everything is being discussed.”
The Center for Science in the Public Interest and more than 50 other health groups recently urged the administration to keep the advice intact: “The scientific consensus remains clear: saturated fat is consistently linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated fats, has well-documented benefits for cardiovascular health,” the groups wrote.
On a related note: What will the guidelines say about dairy? It’s quite possible that whole milk and other whole fat dairy products will be treated more favorably (right now the government recommends low-fat). RFK Jr. has been a vocal supporter of whole milk.
What’s at stake: While most Americans don’t follow the guidelines overall, they have major implications for federal nutrition programs and also for consumer perception and marketing. The dietary guidelines process has always been political, but it’s possible that this round will hit a new level of politicization.
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What I’m reading
ICE raids return, sparking labor shortages across farms and hotels (NewsNation). “Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are creating a crisis across key industries as enforcement actions target U.S. farms, restaurants and construction sites,” reports Xavier Walton. “Business owners describe the atmosphere in one word: panic. A temporary pause on worksite immigration raids has ended, and ICE is once again operating at full force. In California and Texas, some farms are operating at only 30% capacity. Some restaurants in Los Angeles are closing early or skipping lunch service entirely. In the Midwest, at least one meatpacking plant saw dozens of workers arrested last week.”
3 dead in listeria outbreak tied to chicken pasta sold at Walmart and Kroger (New York Times). “Three people have died and more than a dozen others were sickened in an outbreak of listeria linked to premade chicken pasta meals sold at Walmart and Kroger stores, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” Claire Moses reports. “The chicken fettuccine Alfredo meals were made by FreshRealm, which issued a nationwide recall of the products. As of Wednesday, 17 listeria cases tied to the outbreak had been reported in 13 states. They were Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. One of the people sickened was a pregnant woman, whose illness led to the loss of the fetus, the F.D.A. said. The recalled meals were sold in the refrigerated sections at Kroger and Walmart under the brand names Marketside and Home Chef, according to the C.D.C. Health officials said they were still investigating the precise source of the outbreak.”
General Mills to remove artificial colors from all its U.S. cereals and foods (Reuters). “General Mills said on Tuesday it would remove artificial colors from its full U.S. retail portfolio by the end of 2027,” reports Ananya Mariam Rajesh. “The Cheerios maker also said it would remove synthetic dyes from all its U.S. cereals and foods served in K-12 schools by summer 2026. General Mills added the change will impact only a small portion of the K-12 school portfolio, as nearly all of its school offerings are made without certified colors while 85% of the U.S. retail portfolio is made without artificial colors. This move comes a few months after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid out plans to remove synthetic food dyes from the U.S. food supply to address chronic diseases and conditions such as obesity among Americans. Earlier on Tuesday, Kraft Heinz said it would not launch products with artificial colors in the United States effective immediately, and would aim to eliminate synthetic dyes from existing items by the end of 2027.”
Is food really better in Europe? (New York Magazine). “With MAHA’s ascendance, claims about the unique horrors of the American diet are everywhere,” writes Erica Schwiegershausen. “Instagram is full of PSAs that your bread is probably causing inflammation and your yogurt could be ruining your gut health. You don’t have to consider yourself crunchy to be suspicious of American grocery stores, with their neon-colored breakfast cereals and allegedly pesticide-tainted produce. Is it so far-fetched to think that Europe, with its walkable cities and universal health care, might also have purer, healthier food?”
How the MAHA food agenda threatens to set women back decades (Self). “In a soft corner of the internet, a subset of mom-fluencers appear to be plucked from an idyllic past. Many forgo the contemporary milieu of processed foods and medicines, crafting meals and snacks entirely from scratch, made from ingredients they’ve grown in their gardens or sourced from nearby farms,” Erica Sloan writes. “These moms are also among the fiercest supporters of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement. The [MAHA report] points the finger at a slew of uniquely modern inventions: ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) and the synthetic chemicals used in our food and agriculture systems, medications from our high-tech pharma industry, and the ‘perverse incentives’ given to big food and pharma companies. But it’s what MAHA isn’t saying that’s most important: Stoking so much fear around these vital industries implies that Americans—more specifically, the mothers of America—need to find a different way to feed their families.”
Democratic lawmakers press USDA for answers on sensitive data collection (NPR). “Democratic lawmakers expressed ‘deep concern’ about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s intent to collect the personal data of tens of millions of federal food assistance recipients and sent Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins detailed questions about the effort in a letter Wednesday,” Jude Joffe-Block reports. “In their letter, the members of Congress said there are already quality control and anti-fraud measures in place to detect SNAP overpayments that do not require the department collecting such data. ‘In addition, USDA’s effort risks irreparably damaging SNAP’s reputation by eroding Americans’ trust in state agencies and EBT processors as good-faith stewards of their personal data, thereby imperiling effective program administration,’ the letter reads. The lawmakers urged the USDA to ‘immediately cease any data collection.’”
SNAP work requirement carve-outs for vets, homeless caught in crosshairs of Trump bill (NewsNation). “Congress could soon put an end to work requirement exemptions for veterans, homeless individuals and youth that were in foster care who receive food assistance,” Aris Folley reports. “While House Republicans preserved the exemptions to work requirements under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as part of their broader package to advance President Trump’s tax cut and spending priorities, Senate Republicans omitted the key language in their version of the bill. The exemptions were initially negotiated as part of a bipartisan deal two years ago. The GOP-led Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee confirmed the provision’s absence would mean the exemptions would no longer be retained for members of the three groups. The move has drawn little attention on both sides of the aisle so far, as other pieces of the Republicans’ megabill take center stage, including significant changes to Medicaid and what some estimates have projected as a multitrillion-dollar tax package.”
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