by Dr Zoë Harcombe,
Dietary goals for Americans were first set in 1977, following the work of Senator George McGovern’s select committee. The first Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) were set in 1980 and it is now ingrained in US law that these will be published every five years.
The two key guidelines that have most impacted American food policy (and public health) for nearly 50 years were to limit total fat to no more than 30% and saturated fat to no more than 10% of calorie intake. These restrictions were set because it was thought that fat caused heart disease (in middle aged men). My PhD examined the evidence for those guidelines and the beliefs upon which they were based and found that they should not have been introduced – then or now. Other research teams have found the same.
There are three macronutrients: fat, protein and carbs. Protein tends to stay remarkably constant at around 15% of energy intake. The imposition of a fat restriction of 30% meant that the remainder must come from carbohydrate – 55%. When the dietary fat restrictions were set, we didn’t know that 55% carbohydrate intake was safe, let alone healthy. But that was the inevitable consequence of the 30% fat restriction. The 1977 dietary goals for Americans spelled this out in the first goal: “Increase carbohydrate consumption to account for 55 to 60% of calorie intake.” The impact on obesity, diabetes and other chronic conditions of this low-fat, high-carb advice cannot be overstated.
The 2025-2030 report, published on January 7th 2026, is the 10th edition of the DGAs. The first sentence was: “These Guidelines mark the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in our nation’s history.” That was not an overstatement. The next sentence was “The message is simple: eat real food.” Those few words captured what an entire movement has been saying for years. Reading the short document (10 pages instead of the 164 pages of the 2020 report) was joyful.
The original food pyramid became “MyPlate” in June 2011. The pyramid has returned and it’s been flipped upside down, as it was in a South Park sketch. Secretary Kennedy tweeted the clip in case you missed the 2014 classic.
The new guidelines are concise, readable and quite revolutionary, but there’s a big but…
Let’s start with the good news – and there is a lot of good news in the eight guidelines, three boxes and the “Special populations and considerations”:
* The eight guidelines prioritise high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods (and protein intake recommendations have been increased). Animal sources of protein (eggs, poultry, seafood and red meat) are cited ahead of plant sources (beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds and soy).
* Consume dairy, is another message – and not just dairy but full-fat dairy. Three servings a day are recommended and the new pyramid has a carton of whole milk, a pot of unsweetened yoghurt and butter, yes butter.
* The healthy fats section mentions olive oil, butter and beef tallow. The entire 2025 report has no mention of seed oils. Contrast this with the 49 references to oils in the 2020 guidelines, which heavily promoted canola, corn, safflower, soybean and sunflower oils. The long overdue demise of seed oils just happened.
* Grains are way down the list (and at the bottom of the new upside down pyramid). Serving goals are two to four per day – far from the six to 11 servings of beige starches which formed the original pyramid base.
* “Limit highly processed foods, added sugars, refined carbohydrates and alcohol” rounded up the common sense.
* Breastfeeding is emphasised. The toddler diets (one of which was vegetarian) in the 2020 report are gone.
* The section “Individuals with Chronic Disease” has the unprecedented words: “Individuals with certain chronic diseases may experience improved health outcomes when following a lower carbohydrate diet.” While this may seem niche, as the opening statement from the Secretaries notes: “More than 70% of American adults are overweight or obese. Nearly one in three American adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 has prediabetes.” That’s the majority of Americans now eligible for a low carb diet, therefore.
* The document closes with warnings for the nutritional deficiencies that are likely to arise from vegetarian and vegan diets. So much legacy nutritional nonsense has gone.
* By its absence the 30% cap on total fat has gone. The new guidelines make no mention of total fat or the “Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges” which dominated guidelines from 2005 to 2020.
However, the saturated fat cap remains: “Saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.” This is the huge ‘but’, because all the good news in the guidelines is incompatible with that one preserved guideline.
We need a couple of facts about fat at this point. First, all foods that contain fat contain all three natural fats (saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), there are no exceptions. Second, virtually every food (except sucrose) has at least a trace of fat. Hence virtually every food contains saturated fat.
Because fat approximates to nine calories per gram and protein and carbohydrate approximate to four, fat content adds up quickly in calorie terms. While a lean steak may have only 2.1g of saturated fat per 100g, the 18.9 sat fat calories comprise 12% of the total 154 calories. That’s red meat off the menu if the sat fat cap is to be followed. I repeated that exercise for common foods and oily fish, eggs, cheese, whole milk and even low-fat milk are all off the menu. So is olive oil. Fake food passes the sat fat test, however (biscuits, muffins, white bread, donuts, cakes etc.) because natural saturated fat has been replaced with cheap plant fats. Seed oils pass the cap, of course.
This is the gaping inconsistency – the huge flaw in otherwise astonishingly good, concise, revolutionary new guidelines. If the 10% saturated fat cap is followed, all the good advice to eat real food (red meat, oily fish, eggs, dairy, olive oil etc) cannot be followed. If the good advice to eat real food is followed, the 10% saturated fat cap cannot be followed
We don’t yet know how this contradiction might get resolved. Even with this anomaly, the new South Park pyramid is infinitely better than the UK dietary advice. This is called ‘The Eatwell Guide’. I have always called it ‘The Eatbadly Guide’. Our terrible beige, starchy, commercial dominance looks even worse alongside MAHA’s bold real food bounty. Make Britain Healthy Again!
Dr Zoë Harcombe has a PhD in dietary guidelines. A longer version of this article with full references has been published on her website.
http://dlvr.it/TQQdF6
