The New Dietary Guidelines Are A Step Forward—With Important Caveats

Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are released with great fanfare, often positioned as a major course correction for the nation’s health. The last update occurred almost a decade ago. These newly released 2025–2030 Guidelines are no exception. They frame themselves as a “reset,” calling Americans back to real food, whole ingredients, and away from the highly processed diet that has quietly fueled obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic dysfunction for decades.

On first read, I’ll be honest: I expected worse. On balance, these guidelines are not as problematic as I feared—but they also aren’t as groundbreaking as the headlines suggest.

Graphic via new guidelines at https://realfood.gov/

Whole Foods: The “New” Recommendation That Isn’t New

The central message of the guidelines is simple: eat real food.

Whole vegetables and fruits. Whole grains. Protein from animal and plant sources. Fewer ultra-processed foods. Less added sugar. Fewer industrial additives. This is all… very reasonable.

It’s also what thoughtful clinicians, dietitians, and integrative practitioners have been recommending for years—if not decades. Framing this as a dramatic policy reset risks overstating novelty while understating how long we’ve known better. The one thing most Americans (and sadly now more of the world) can eat a lot less of is highly processed calorie dense, nutritionally poor food. Still, the fact that federal guidance is now clearly calling out highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and added sugars as primary drivers of disease is meaningful—and long overdue.

Sugar Reduction: A Clear Win

One of the strongest and most welcome elements of the new guidelines is the explicit focus on reducing added sugars.

Sugar-sweetened beverages are directly discouraged. Added sugars are framed as unnecessary for health. Even non-nutritive sweeteners are approached with more caution than in past iterations which supports what recent studies have found. From a metabolic, cardiovascular, neurologic, and inflammatory standpoint, this is absolutely the right direction. Excess sugar intake remains one of the most consistent dietary contributors to insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and cardiometabolic risk—and this document finally treats it that way.

Protein: Reasonable Emphasis, Sensible Targets

The guidelines place a renewed emphasis on adequate protein intake, recommending roughly 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day (which approximates the 0.5-0.75 grams/lb daily which I recommend) depending on age, activity, and health status.

Clinically, I support this. Protein sufficiency matters—for muscle mass, metabolic health, immune resilience, and healthy aging. This is particularly important for older adults and for adolescents undergoing rapid growth. Where I remain cautious is not the amount of protein, but the sources being emphasized.

Where I Disagree: Meat, Dairy, and the Saturated Fat Blind Spot

The most concerning aspect of the guidelines is the prominence of animal products, particularly red meat, full-fat dairy, and saturated fat–rich options.

The document explicitly lists butter and beef tallow as acceptable fat choices, alongside olive oil. This is where enthusiasm should pause. While nutrition science is complex and evolving, the preponderance of long-term epidemiologic data still links higher intakes of saturated fat—particularly from red and processed meats—to increased cardiovascular risk and certain cancers.

This does not mean these foods must be eliminated entirely,  but presenting them as nutritionally equivalent to plant-based fats oversimplifies a very nuanced body of evidence. I do support the use of fermented dairy as both a good protein source as well as reinforcing microbiome diversity, which is foundational to health.

In my clinical view:

• Olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, and omega-3–rich seafood deserve clear primacy.

• Red meat and full-fat non-fermented dairy (milk) should remain optional, context-dependent foods—not centerpieces of the dietary pyramid.

• Saturated fat limits still matter, especially for patients with existing cardiometabolic risk.

  
  

Encouraging “real food” should not mean quietly rehabilitating dietary patterns that have repeatedly shown harm when consumed in excess.

What’s Missing: Personalization and Context

One persistent limitation of national dietary guidelines is that they must speak in averages. Real patients are not averages. These guidelines do acknowledge that individuals with chronic disease may benefit from modified approaches, including lower-carbohydrate diets in some cases. Studies show there are people who respond specifically to high-fat/low-carb regimens and others who respond better to low-fat/higher-carb diets. That flexibility is encouraging—but still underdeveloped.

Nutrition works best when it is personalized:

• Genetics matter.

• Metabolic health matters.

• Gut health matters.

• Cultural patterns, preferences, and access matter.

A one-size-fits-all pyramid can never replace individualized care.

The Bottom Line

If you strip away the political framing and the marketing language, these guidelines land in a familiar place:

• Eat more whole foods

• Eat fewer processed foods

• Reduce added sugar

• Get adequate protein

• Be mindful of portions

That’s not radical—but it is directionally correct.

My hope is that clinicians, patients, and policymakers alike understand this document not as a final authority, but as a baseline. True health comes not from rigid adherence to a pyramid, but from thoughtful, personalized, whole-food–centered nutrition that evolves with both science and the individual. On balance, these guidelines are better than expected. But better still is continuing to ask harder questions about which foods, for whom, and in what context.

That’s where real health is built.