These Are Your Dietary Guidelines on MAHA

Episode 27 of Unconfined, in which a CLF dietary maven and a CLF policy wonk deliver the goods on RFK Jr.’s new dietary guidelines.

Pyramid Scheme: Here’s the Skinny on RFK Jr.’s New Dietary Guidelines 

By Tom Philpott                                                                                                                                                                    Subscribe to Host Notes

Since Donald Trump tapped him to run the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr has been itching to put his stamp on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Few consumers follow, much less read, the federal government’s official nutrition advice, which is tweaked every five years. But it’s still a highly influential document, shaping federal meal programs for tens of millions of school children, military personnel, and veterans. Altogether, the federal government spends $142 million on food procurement annually, reports Bloomberg’s Skye Whitley. And Kennedy has vowed to imbue the guidelines with the spirit of the Make America Healthy Again movement he galvanized while campaigning for Donald Trump. That is to say: a big yes to meat, protein in general, and saturated animal fats like his beloved beef tallow; and a big no to ultra-processed foods and added sugar, particularly for kids. 

In early January, after much delay and buildup, Kennedy’s HHS, in conjunction with the US Department of Agriculture, came out with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030. Did Kennedy make good on his promises? What’s in the new guidelines—and what’s different from the previous ones, besides the decision to retrieve the “food pyramid” (last seen in the 2011 version) from the scrap heap of history, in dramatically upside-down form?  

To answer these questions, we’ve assembled two close veteran observers of federal nutrition policy, who also happen to be prized colleagues of mine at the Center for a Livable Future: Daphene Altema-Johnson, a registered dietitian and senior program officer for CLF’s Food Communities & Public Health Program; and Patti Truant Anderson, the  Center’s Policy Director. 

In our conversation, they lay out what changed and didn’t change along MAHA lines; discuss the climate and nutritional implications of the more-meat message; and wonder why the Kennedy crew would greenlight adult alcohol indulgence as “social lubricant” to address the loneliness crisis; but condemn childhood sugar indulgence. Why embrace the post-work happy hour but denounce that canonical cake-centered kiddy social gathering, the birthday party?