Top health officials and cabinet members gathered in the White House briefing room Wednesday to share the details of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
Officials, including Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, described the new guidance as emphasizing whole foods. The new DGA was represented by an upside-down pyramid, with vegetables, fruits, proteins, dairy and healthy fats at the top and whole grains at the bottom.
"Today, in accordance with President Trump's directive, Brooke and I released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025 to 2030, the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in history," Kennedy said.
But despite Kennedy's previous remarks saying he would be "ending the war on saturated fats" and would call for eating higher amounts of it, the guidelines as Wednesday kept the previous recommendation to limit saturated fats to 10 percent of one's diet.
The new DGA did say, however, that "more high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health."
In several instances, the new DGA recommended Americans "full-fat dairy" products, referring to them as an "excellent source of protein, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals." Full-fat dairy products like cream, butter and cheese are common sources of saturated fat.
Alice H. Lichtenstein, Gershoff Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy, Friedman School at Tufts University, pushed back on this recommendation, saying the disadvantages of full-fat dairy outweigh the advantages.
"Full-fat milk has exactly twice the number of calories of fat free milk. So, if there's no advantage to the fat in the milk, why would you recommend a child consume full fat milk," said Lichtenstein, noting that the other nutrient levels like protein, calcium and vitamin D don't similarly decrease when fat content is lowered.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine criticized the new guidelines as having clear evidence of industry influence, particularly when it came to meat and dairy.
"The Guidelines are right to limit cholesterol-raising saturated ("bad") fat," PCRM President Neal Barnard said in a statement. "But they should spell out where it comes from: dairy products and meat, primarily. And here the Guidelines err in promoting meat and dairy products."
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