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New US Dietary Guidelines Released (2025-2030)
What Americans are Now Being Advised to Eat 

January 7, 2026: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in coordination with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030. This is a major update that will shape federal nutrition programs, school meals, and public health messaging nationwide.

Federal officials have described this update as one of the most consequential resets of U.S. nutrition policy in decades, marking a shift away from highly processed foods and toward whole, nutrient-dense, traditional foods.  The key message being “Eat real food.”

The full Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030 can be read here (full URL): https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf

What the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines Recommend

1. Eat real, whole foods as the foundation of the diet
The guidelines emphasize eating minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods and reducing reliance on packaged, refined, ready-to-eat products that dominate the modern food supply.

2. Prioritize protein intake
Protein intake recommendations have increased, reflecting recognition that adequate protein supports metabolic health and may help displace highly processed carbohydrates. Protein sources may include animal- and plant-based foods.

3. Emphasize fruits and vegetables
A wide variety of fruits and vegetables are encouraged as core components of a healthy diet, alongside adequate hydration.

4. Reduce highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates
The guidelines advise limiting foods that are packaged, prepared, or ready-to-eat and high in refined carbohydrates, added sugars, sodium, and industrial additives.

5. Limit added sugars
The guidance states that no amount of added sugar is considered part of a healthy diet, recommending no more than 10 grams of added sugar per meal.

6. Include whole-food sources of fat
The guidelines acknowledge traditional, whole-food sources of fat — including meat, full-fat dairy, butter, beef tallow, and avocados — a notable departure from decades of guidance that broadly discouraged these foods.

7. Limit saturated fat intake
Despite the shift toward whole foods, the guidelines continue to recommend limiting saturated fat to no more than 10% of daily calories.

8. Alcohol consumption should be reduced
Rather than setting numeric limits, the guidelines advise Americans to consume less alcohol for better health, and to avoid alcohol entirely in certain circumstances, including pregnancy.

This approach more closely resembles traditional and pre-industrial dietary patterns that existed before the rise of ultra-processed foods, and aligns in many ways with long-standing real-food and ancestral nutrition frameworks.  The guidelines are advisory and do not prohibit any foods. They are intended to inform individual choice and guide federal nutrition programs, not mandate personal dietary decisions.

Why This Matters

For decades, federal nutrition guidance emphasized low-fat, highly processed substitutes — a period that coincided with rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. The 2025–2030 guidelines represent a notable shift back toward food quality, simplicity, and traditional dietary patterns.

While A Voice for Choice Advocacy welcomes the renewed emphasis on real food and reduced reliance on ultra-processed products, we continue to believe that strict limits on natural saturated fats may remain overly restrictive and not fully reflective of ancestral or traditional diets. Although the guidelines now acknowledge whole-food sources of saturated fat such as butter, full-fat dairy, and meat, they continue to recommend limiting saturated fat to no more than 10 percent of daily calories. Saturated fats are found primarily in natural animal foods, not in highly processed seed oils, and in institutional settings these limits often result in replacing whole-food fats with more refined substitutes.

As with healthcare, nutrition is not one-size-fits-all. Informed choice, transparency, and respect for individual needs must remain central to any public health guidance.

If you found this information helpful and appreciate the work A Voice for Choice Advocacy is doing, please support us by making a donation today.

C

Christina Hildebrand
President/Founder
A Voice for Choice Advocacy, Inc.
[email protected]
www.AVoiceForChoiceAdvocacy.org