People are mad.
The dietary guidelines just came out, and the new ones are 2025 through 2030, and people are going crazy on the internet.
So, today we're going to go walk through what the dietary guidelines actually say because a lot of people say a lot of things.
So, I'm just going to literally walk you through.
Realfood.
gov.
This is what this is.
This is literally what it is.
So I'm not considering anything.
It's just what they are saying.
So you can see here, first of all, they kind of have this.
Inverse pyramid.
So back in the day, food pyramid is the worst thing in the world, right?
Got rid of that, went to my plate.
Now we're kind of going back to a triangular shaped thing, but it's not quite my plate or the
Pyramid of old, it's kind of inverted.
So, up at the top, which is the base, which doesn't make sense, like pyramids don't sit like that.
But either way, I'm gonna keep my commentary till the end.
At the top, we see protein, dairy, and healthy fats, vegetables, and fruits, and whole grains.
So
We're pretty much saying whole foods is really the theme here that you're going to see over and over again.
But this inverted pyramid says at the bottom should be grains as opposed to the old time where the base of the pyramid was the bottom.
So they're saying the tippy top should be the grains.
So then we have a letter from the dietary guideline team.
So essentially, from the secretaries.
And what they're saying is: the message of this is simple: eat real food.
I'll read selected portions here.
They're saying
To make America healthy again, we must return to the basics.
American households must prioritize diets built on whole, nutrient-dense foods, protein, dairy, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats, and whole grains as well.
And they say, we are in a health emergency.
Nearly 90% of healthcare spending goes to treating people who have chronic diseases.
That is very true every single day.
That's pretty much all I deal with all the time.
But many of these illnesses are not genetic destiny.
They are a predictable result of the standard American diet, a diet which over time has become highly reliant on highly processed foods and coupled with a sedentary lifestyle.
And they say that this leads to 70% of people being overweight or obese, nearly one in three American adolescents between the age of 12 and 17 has pre-diabetes.
And just lots and lots of issues with it.
So they're saying today this changes, the buck stops here.
It's time to eat real food.
They're saying we're putting real food back at the center of the American diet.
Real food that nourishes the body, real food that restores health, real food that fuels energy and encourages movement and exercise, real food that builds strength.
So, real food is the thing they're saying over and over again, right?
So, that's what they're talking about.
If we dive deeper here, they have the signatures there.
Now they're going into the actual recommendations.
So, first is eat the right amount.
They're talking about the calories you eat will depend on your age, sex, height, weight, level, all those different things.
Pay attention to your portion sizes and hydration is important as well.
Choose water over other things.
So, pretty much water and unsweetened beverages.
They're pretty much saying don't drink sugary beverages.
That's good advice.
So
Next, kind of interesting here, they say prioritize protein foods at every meal.
So, this is kind of a big change, saying, hey, we're prioritizing protein.
They say it is very important, part of a healthy dietary pattern.
They recommend consuming a variety of protein foods from animal sources, including eggs, poultry, seafood and red meat, as well as from plant based sources including beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and soy.
And they say swap out deep-fried methods with other methods, which that's pretty standard there.
They say consume meat with no or limited added sugars through fine carbohydrates or starches or chemical additives if preferred.
Flavored with salts, spices, and herbs.
And then finally, they say here the protein service goals are 1.
2 to 1.
6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, adjusting based on your calorie needs.
And so that's a big one, right?
The old RDA recommended dietary allowance was 0.
8 grams per kilogram.
Now they're going up to 1.
2, 1.
6, which is kind of in the range of most people for traditional like bodybuilding and muscle building is where they recommend.
Back in the day, like most Americans are probably getting enough.
They're usually getting around 1.
2 that we eat more protein than in general, but they're saying overall, we want a targeted effort for that.
So that's what they're saying.
Next, they say consume dairy.
When consuming dairy, include full fat dairy with no added sugars.
They say it's a source of lots of good things for you.
And they say three servings per day is the goal.
And piggybacking off of that, then they have a little section here on gut health.
They say your gut contains lots of bacteria.
You should eat things that help bolster that microbiome, right?
So they say.
Things like yogurt can do that, but also fermented things like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, miso, all those things, and additional high-fiber foods.
So they're saying that should be a priority as well: gut health.
So taking in things that will help you there.
Next, they say eat vegetables and fruits throughout the day.
So, eat a variety of colors.
So, that's a lot of times when people say eat the rainbow, right?
Lots of things.
Eat whole vegetables and fruits in the original form, wash them thoroughly prior to eating raw or cooking.
They say frozen, dried, or canned vegetables or fruits with no or very limited sugars can also be good options.
A lot of times, you just have just straight-up vegetables or fruits.
Those are very reasonable to have.
Can flavor them with different salts or whatever.
And they say 100% fruit or vegetable juice should be consumed in limited portions or diluted with water.
That's one thing a lot of times we sell: hey, it's fruit.
But it's still juiced potentially, so can be an issue.
And they say overall, veggies, three servings a day, fruits, two servings a day.
That's what they're going for based on your things.
Next is incorporating healthy fats.
Healthy fats are plentiful in many whole foods, they say, such as meats, poultry, eggs, omega-3 rich seafood, nuts, seeds, full fat dairy, olives, and avocados.
And when they say when cooking with or adding fats to meals, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids such as olive oil.
Other options can include butter or beef tallow.
This is spoiler, this is going to be where a lot of the controversy is.
Next, they say in general, saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.
Significantly limiting highly processed foods will help meet this goal.
And they say more high quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.
We're just going to skip over that.
We'll come back later and go with the rest.
Then they talk about their whole grain section, prioritize fiber-rich whole grains, significantly reduce the consumption of highly processed refined carbohydrates such as white bread, ready to eat or
Pre-packaged breakfast options, flour tortillas, and crackers.
And goal for servings is two to four servings per day, adjusting based on your calorie needs.
So, those are the big consumption things.
Now they're adding a different sections.
They say, hey, limit highly processed foods, added sugars, and refined carbohydrates, which pretty much everyone's going to agree on that, right?
I'm not going to read those line for line, but they're saying, hey, limit those things.
They're saying if you're eating something, it should be less than 10 grams of added sugar, which for a per meal, which is a lot of sugar, anyways.
But they say, overall, watch those things.
There's more things they limit there and say specifically look for.
Artificial flavors, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives, and low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners.
They say we should avoid or limit those.
Obviously, they're saying avoid sugar, sweet, and beverages is a good idea.
But those are the big things that are kind of added to this new section, which is: hey,
Specifically targeting highly processed foods, but also targeting potential food additives as well.
Added sugars, they talk about at the end there.
There's a section here that says we should look out for that.
And they say how to look out for it, right?
So, there's other words that can be used there.
So, things that end in OSE, like sucrose or lactose or whatever, they talk about syrups or sugars, all those things.
And they give you a bunch of different names: cane sugar, beet sugar.
Maldextros, lactose, fruiters, concentrate, honey.
All those things, there's the words to look for, so you can read the labels better, which is wonderful.
I have no problem with that.
And then, some people they say some foods and drinks, such as fruits and plain milk, have naturally occurring sugars.
The sugars in these foods are not considered added sugars, right?
Because they're not added.
Added sugar means additional.
Like, hey, this isn't sweet enough for me.
I need to add a bunch of sugar in.
That's what they're talking about in this section.
Then moving on here, they talk about limit alcoholic beverages.
So before we used to have like, hey, up to one per day if you're a female or two per day if you're a male.
Now they say consume less alcohol for better health.
People should
Avoid it entirely if you're pregnant.
People who are recovering from alcohol use disorder or unable to control the amount or taking medications that may interact.
So, and they say also may be helpful if a family history of alcoholism, be mindful of alcohol consumption and associated addictive behaviors.
So, that's there.
Next is sodium.
Sodium, they talk about general populations, 14 up, should consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day.
However, highly active individuals may benefit from increased sodium intake to offset sweat losses.
Before it was just kind of a blanket recommendation.
Now they hear they give general recommendations, but things will vary based on what you are, how much you're exercising, things like that, which is kind of interesting.
And now, special populations here.
I won't necessarily go deep into there, but they talk about infancy and early childhood.
They talk about for the first six months, you should breastfeed exclusively.
When you can't do breast milk, feed your baby iron fortified infant formula.
And they say, continue breastfeeding as long as possible.
And then they say once or 12 months, switch them to whole milk, cow's milk.
And then they have specific things about introducing things there, which.
Just giving a once over, I'm not sure how much the AAP will necessarily agree with that, which is the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But overall, they kind of give some recommendations there for what they should be eating and general things.
They also talk about.
Introducing foods to infants and toddlers, as I mentioned before, not necessarily the scope of this podcast, but it's there.
They talk about middle childhood, which is more just like: don't give your kids sweets all the time and fast food.
Cooking meals can be helpful, give them a whole food-based diet.
Adolescents, same thing there, nothing totally new or different there.
And then same thing with young adulthood.
They also talk about pregnant women.
In terms of we have increased need for different vitamins and things like iron, folate, iodine, all those things.
And they should once again continue with a nutrient-dense diet and talking about
Talk with your healthcare professional for pregnant patients, like what you actually need.
Lactating women, same thing as well.
And then older adults, they also talk about things that you can't have.
Individuals with chronic disease, this is a new section.
They talk about.
Following the dietary guidelines can help prevent the onset or slow the rate of progression of chronic disease, especially cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes.
If you have a chronic disease, talk with your healthcare professional to see if you need to adapt these guidelines.
And they say: certain individuals with certain chronic diseases may experience improved health outcomes when following a lower carbohydrate diet.
Once again, work with your healthcare professional to identify and adopt these diets.
And then they also have a section for people who consume a vegetarian or vegan dietary pattern.
They talk about: hey, consume your whole foods, all the things maybe.
Supplementing for protein, maybe dairy if you allow it, eggs, beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, tofu, or tempa, all those things.
And they talk about limit highly processed vegan or vegetable foods, which is once again, you can have.
You can have a terrible diet no matter what you eat, right?
So, if you're eating, you can eat vegan and have a very highly processed diet, and/or you can have a very whole food diet.
And they say, do the latter, do a whole food diet.
They say, do be careful about potential nutrient gaps.
In terms of watching out for certain things in terms of vitamins A, D, E, B, B12 for specifically vegans.
Looking for iron they list a whole bunch of them things and they say, Hey, maybe you need to diversify, maybe you need to supplement things to consider as well.
So that essentially is
Just me going through that quickly, because that could take, man, that could take 40 minutes just as it is, but I just wanted to get through those quickly.
A couple of things I did want to talk about specifically that I think will cause a lot of
Consternation, a lot of discussion, that's for sure.
So, the big thing that I want to talk about is incorporating healthy fats, right?
So, incorporating healthy fats, I think it's a cool, cool idea.
I think it's great.
I think it's
Very common idea
But what is a healthy fat, right?
They say here they list lots of things.
So full-fat dairy, olives, avocado, when cooking, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids like olive oil.
Options can also include butter, beef, towel.
And then the next sentence, they say, saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.
So
This is like the most blaring thing where I think there will be lots of controversy, right?
So they're saying, hey, we're sticking with the old science, less than 10% of saturated fat.
We understand that saturated fat consumption tends to line up with increased
LDL and then increased cardiovascular disease.
So they say, keep it earned 10%, but you can also cook in beef and beef tallow and butter.
So it's like one of those things where
If you follow this dietary pattern, right, where we're eating, they include like, hey, you can eat things like red meat and you can have full-fat dairy, all those things.
It's going to be hard to keep that saturated fat under 10% for a lot of people.
I'm just guessing.
So I think that's where a big thing is going.
I'm not saying whether any of this is right or wrong.
I'm just.
Reporting.
Don't shoot the messenger.
This is there.
But I see right away: like, that is a glaring, like, that is gonna be a big contradiction.
Like, that's gonna be very, very hard to hit that goal of 10%.
Underneath.
Now, I understand dairy, specifically cheese versus yogurt.
It seems like yogurt may have different qualities of saturated fat versus compared to cheese.
Like, that's a whole very nuanced discussion I don't really want to have, nor am I qualified to have that.
I'm not the person for that.
But that may be different.
But either way, like consuming that much fat, it's going to be hard to be under 10%.
So that's the first big thing I think about.
Other thing, everything else, like, this is nothing crazy, right?
I think that making
Dairy a priority is interesting.
Making protein a priority is interesting.
No problem with that.
But those are a couple of things that I think will be talked about a lot.
I think limiting.
Processed foods will be wonderful.
I think that's a very good step in the right direction.
The question is: what does process mean, right?
Because is it a whey protein process?
Yeah, it is.
Can it be part of a health-promoting diet?
Yeah, it also can be.
It's a general dietary pattern, right?
They also talk about limiting artificial flavors and dyes, which can be kind of a hot topic, meaning how much does that really matter?
They talk about specifically
Any artificial flavors, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives, they say stay away from those.
I think a lot of people will probably have an issue with that.
I think I can definitely see that.
But
Overall, I think it's a helpful thing, right?
So they're saying, hey, we want to get rid of junk, we want you to eat real food.
And that's great.
The question is now, like,
How do we teach these people, right?
Because nobody actually listens to the dietary guidelines, right?
So, like, back in the day, like, it wasn't dietary guidelines causing people to
Have obesity, right?
Like, nobody, even if we followed the pyramid, which probably has lots of issues, even if you just follow the pyramid, like if you stuck to that, you probably would be okay.
Like, you'd probably be okay because most of that is whole foods, you know, they did they did prioritize grains.
Quite a bit there, which may be not as ideal, but like that could have been okay.
But nobody actually looks at the guidelines and follows them.
So, like, it's great.
We have these, like, what's going to actually change?
Like, probably nothing, right?
Unless we incentivize people to eat.
Well, and have companies to make quality food, we're not going to change anything, right?
Because that's where money goes, right?
So the money is: hey, foods that are cheapest.
Are terrible for you, right?
The pre-packaged, but they're easy because they're subsidized to make that, right?
So we are subsidized.
I mean, the government gives farmers money to grow whatever, whether it's corn or soy or whatever, and then they use that to then process it, make these cheap ingredients and cheap food.
So they're incentivized to do that.
That's essentially what it comes down to.
And so, until we break those incentivizations and those certain ways of making food, like, I don't know what's really going to change.
But either way,
I'm optimistic.
I think this is a helpful step in the right direction.
I think we should be focusing on whole foods, but now, like, the question is, how do we get people to actually do that?
So, not going to belabor it today.
Just going to have a quick one, down and dirty.
These are the guidelines.
This is what they are.
Tell me, do you like them?
Do you not like them?
I'm going to wish hold judgment here because, at the end of the day, I just want people to eat a health-promoting diet.
That works for them, right?
I want people to have a dietary pattern that works for them.
And generally, thinking about eating more whole foods, that's probably going to be helpful.
I think it's great.
But yeah, let me know if you think it's worthwhile or not, or if you think this is, yeah, going to be a disaster or a smashing success.
Either way, just let me know.
But that's going to be it for today.
Thanks so much.
Now get off your phone and get outside.
Have a great asteroid day.
We'll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for entertainment, education, and informational purposes only.
The topics discussed should not solely be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition.
The information presented here was created with an evidence-based approach, but please keep in mind that science is always changing, and at the time of listening to this, there may be some new data that makes this information incomplete or inaccurate.
Always seek the advice of your personal physician or qualified healthcare provider for questions regarding any medical condition.
