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As you might have heard, the new U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2025-2030) were recently released, and they got the nutrition world chatting! We at Simple Start Nutrition took our time to read them and all the opinions out there (and there are a lot of opinions) before letting you know our thoughts. We have to say, there are some points we like BUT there are also areas that make us go, umm…..? So let’s dive in so you are up to date on what’s going on with the new…. upside down food pyramid? We’re not sure what to call it….
BUT, before we dive into the guidelines themselves, how about some history (see our full blog HERE for even more info). The US Dietary Guidelines were first released in 1980. We first saw the Food Pyramid in 1992 and again (revamped) in 2005 till 2011 with the title of MyPyramid- the addition of the MY and the reshaping making it seem more customizable for people. From there (I think this is a key point that’s being forgotten) we went to using My Plate instead of the pyramid approach. MyPlate wasn’t perfect, BUT it was less busy and gave us a visual on what our plates should look like at meal time. From a dietitian standpoint, we loved the plate because it was easier to teach to than a weird pyramid with pie pieces in it (seriously check it out here, it’s the middle one). If you worked with one of us you have probably seen the plate! Easier on the eye and easily adaptable to various cultural cuisines, food preferences, and allergies too. Keep that in mind when looking at the new “upside down” pyramid. Funny enough, a lot of the wellness influencers and social media types were bashing on the food pyramid (which we just explained hasn’t been around for 15 years) and now we’re back to a pyramid? Food for thought.
Now, all this talk is just about the picture that goes along with the guidelines.
How about we move on to the actual written guidelines themselves. Currently we’re working off a 10 page PDF for the 2025-2030 guidelines found HERE. The 2020-2025 guidelines (found HERE) are 164 pages. So it’s not a direct comparison, but we don’t need to get into 164 pages of nutrition recommendations, we’ll stay high level:) Let’s break it down to things we like and things we’re not as big of a fan of…
Focus on veggies and fruit! Vegetables are at the top of the upside down pyramid and fruit are right underneath- both take up a pretty big piece of the graphic.
PRO: Woot Woot! Veggies at the top make it look like we should be eating a lot of them, and we should! The recommendations for fruits and vegetables in the new guidelines are 3 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit each day. The recommendations from the 2020-2025 guidelines were 2.5 cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit per day.
CON: The new guidelines say serving, not an actual measurement, which is honestly a little confusing for us as dietitians, let alone the general public.
Bottom line: The guidelines are encouraging vegetables and fruits. Love this! They don’t actually tell you what a serving is (and you can’t tell from the upside down pyramid) so, don’t love that.
Pumping up Protein! The new guidelines read, “Protein serving goals: 1.2–1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, adjusting as needed based on your individual caloric requirements.”
PROS: We like this! Americans have been focusing on protein for quite a few years now, but we might have swung a little too far and are focusing a little too much on protein. This gives people a specific number, or range, to help them aim for enough, but not too much protein. And it’s adjustable. Someone who is actively building muscle or training would be on the higher end, while your typical person would aim for the lower end.
CONS: Most people don’t calculate their protein needs, let alone know their weight in kg, so this is a little too specific. And, personally, we think it’s a little high. The current recommendations are 0.8g/kg, which is a little low. We would have loved to have seen 1.0-1.4g/kg and then what that actually looks like! Plus, the graphic is definitely focused on animal protein, when research is showing plant protein is just as nutritious (if not more nutritious) then animal protein.
Bottom line: More protein is great, but we don’t need that much (1.6 g/kg for a 150# person is over 100 grams per day- that’s tough and unnecessary). And where are the plant proteins? And telling me how much protein I need is nice, but how to do it is more important, and that’s not really explained.
Sugar Time! The new recommendations for added sugar are “While no amount of added sugars or non-nutritive sweeteners is recommended or considered part of a healthy or nutritious diet, one meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugars.”
PROS: The 2020-2025 added sugar recommendations read “a healthy dietary pattern limits added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day.” For someone who eats 2,000 calories, that’s 50 grams per day. The new recommendations would be 30 grams per day (but they don’t address snacks…) That’s fine, we can get on board with being a little more strict. We don’t need added sugar, so reducing the recommended intake is fine by us. The new guidelines also notes how to identify sources of added sugar (what words/suffixes to look for) and emphasises some foods/drinks naturally that have sugar in them aka they don’t count, so that’s helpful!
CONS: Evidence to date considers non-nutrative sweeteners safe, so demonizing them is completely unnecessary. In fact, switching from sugar (if you’re consuming too much) to a non-nutrative sweetener can be better for some people.
Bottom line: Being mindful of our sweets and sugary beverages makes sense and giving us details on how to spot them on the market is helpful too. But not loving the unnecessary shade being thrown at non-nutrative sweeteners when they’re perfectly safe in moderation.
Alcohol guidelines are loosey-goosey. With the new guidelines we’re looking at a blank statement of “consume less alcohol for better overall health.”
PROS: Agreed! Nothing wrong with less alcohol when it’s considered a Group 1 carcinogen.
CONS: This statement can easily be skewed. For example, I’m drinking 6 beers a day and I decrease it to 4 beers a day now. Nailed it! But is that still too much? Our last guidelines specified that for those who choose to drink, they should limit alcohol to 1 drink or less a day for women and 2 drinks or less a day for men. A little easier to navigate in our opinion.
Bottom line: We like the encouragement for people to drink less alcohol, BUT we’d like more clarity here. This makes it hard for us as dietitians to say “drink less” without further guidelines on what the definition of “less” is.
“Healthy Fats”. The new guidelines show butter, beef tallow (Throwback!!), and full-fat dairy at the top of the upside down pyramid. However, the written guidelines stick with the old guidelines stating that saturated fat intake should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.
PROS: Agreed!!! Sticking with less than 10% of your calories from saturated fat is supported by research and EXTREMELY heart healthy.
CONS: Let’s break this down: if your calorie needs are 2000 (for example), that would mean no more than 20 g of saturated fat per day. If you eat a 4 oz burger (80/20) with 1 oz of cheese and a glass of whole milk, you’ve hit your saturated fat quota for the day. So, eat high fat foods, since it’s pictured at the top of the upside down pyramid, BUT don’t exceed 20 grams per day…
Bottom line: The written recommendation is correct, but the visual recommendation is VERY misleading. Low fat dairy, lean meats, and plant based fats should be more prevalent on the graphic.
Speaking of the image itself…
PROS: We do love seeing fruits and vegetables up top so that’s a plus! But poor bananas look like a bad guy almost at the bottom. Love the salmon and the fact that the yogurt is unsweetened.
CONS: We’ve got a lot of cons…. We don’t love seeing whole grains so low on the scale. They are a primary source of energy! Whole milk and red meat are very high and prominent and not ideal for heart health. We also would like to see more/more prominent placement of the alternate protein sources (soy, beans) instead of the saturated fat filled protein sources. Looking at it would make you think you need to eat a lot of beef and vegetables. That might work for a select few, but research strongly encouraged less red meat and full fat items, more plant, whole grains, and seafood is the best approach. But you wouldn’t know that from looking at this. Our biggest complaint: the graphic tells you nothing about how to build healthy, balanced, nutritious meals. The whole issue with the original pyramid was that it didn’t make sense in day to day life, but the My Plate graphic- we LOVED that. Easy for everyone to understand, even kids!
Bottom line: We don’t love the image overall. We’re going to miss the plate image that promoted all food fits, was customizable for allergies/food preferences/etc, and helped with portion size!.
The REAL bottom line: In general, the guidelines are encouraging less processed foods and more whole foods like protein, fruits, and vegetables. This is great! However, it’s sad to say that 9 out of 10 Americans are NOT following the U.S. guidelines. The issue is not the guidelines, they didn’t really need to be changed, we need to get people to follow them!. And there is something to say about access to whole foods, the price of these foods, and the time to cook them. Anyone else roasting a chicken seen at the top of the upside down pyramid for dinner after work? We know we aren’t.
For now, we’ll do our best to make simple changes that fit our lifestyle. Like looking at the added sugar in our favorite granola bar and seeing if we need to make a change, or making sure we have a vegetable with our sandwich at lunch, or sweetening our yogurt with fruit.
Let us know what you think! Do you think there is a better way of learning how and what to eat? Do you like the new guidelines? Talk to us!
We look forward to hearing from you and are always here to help!
Stay Happy and Stay Healthy
Amanda and Chris
This blog was written by Amanda Stahl RD, LDN and Chris Henigan MS, RD, LDN, co-founders of Simple Start Nutrition. For more blog posts and nutrition information follow @simplestartnutrition on Instagram and Facebook. Also feel free to contact us, by visiting our website (simplestartnutrition.com) to schedule an appointment to discuss your nutrition related needs.
References:
https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf
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One thought on “Do You Need to Change How You Eat? Dietitians Explain the New U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Adults”
Excellent description of the new food pyramid vs the old guidelines.
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