The problem with the new US Dietary Guidelines

I've seen quite a few comments in opposition to the new, inverted food pyramid that the USDA released early last month. Most of these comments are from the groups and individuals that wanted the old pyramid the way it was, or who wanted the food pyramid to completely ban not just meat but anything that an animal was involved with in any way. But I've only seen one person who actually mentioned a genuine problem with what the USDA said, and that person is Nina Teicholz who wrote an extremely influential book on diet, called the Big Fat Surprise back in 2014. In this article I'll quote from Nina's substack on the subject; I've been a subscriber to her substack since she started it. When you click on this link, you'll be offered a prompt to read it for free or subscribe. I've never paid a cent.

Getting back to the subject, though, the problem with the guidelines is simple: the math doesn't work. 

See, the food guidelines have always had an absurd emphasis on the reduction of fat in the diet, especially "dat ol' debil" saturated fat, largely due to some studies from the post-WWII days that have been discredited - mainly by not having measurable positive effects - and at least one that reeks of fraud. Both HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary have repeatedly pledged to “end to the war on saturated fat” since they took office. To quote from Nina's article on this:

The cap on saturated fats has been a bedrock piece of advice since the launch of this policy in 1980, and it is why so many Americans avoid red meat, drink skim milk, and opt to cook with seed oils over butter.

Yet I learned from two administration officials that saturated fats will not be liberated after all. The longstanding 10% of calories cap on these fats will remain.

At the same time, the guidelines’ language will encourage cooking with “butter” and “tallow,” both of which are high in saturated fat. It will also introduce a colorful new food pyramid with proteins—including red meat—occupying the largest portion. These are powerful messages, never before conveyed by our national food policy, and are likely to influence consumer behavior. 

Let me put the food pyramid here, from her article again.

Her concern is that it isn't clear from this display that the old low fat diet guideline of 10% calories from fat (CFF) still applies. For individuals on their own, at home or free-living anywhere: Fine. As always, if you ignore it, it can't hurt you. 

But there’s another audience: the roughly 30 million children eating school lunches daily, plus military personnel, and the vulnerable populations—elderly and poor Americans—who receive food through federal programs, roughly 1 in 4 Americans each week. These programs are required by law to follow the Dietary Guidelines. For them, the numerical cap will trump any contrary language about butter and tallow. Cafeteria managers and program administrators will continue to adhere to the 10% limit, because that’s what the law requires.

For these captive populations, seed oils will remain the mandated cooking fat. The encouraging words about butter and tallow will essentially be meaningless.

For someone on a 2000 calorie/day diet, 10% calories from fat means 200 calories in a day; with fat at 9 roughly calories per gram, that's 22 grams/day. Nina goes on to show how little that is in a day. 

• 1 cup whole-fat yogurt for breakfast: ~5 grams

• 1 chicken thigh with skin, cooked in 1 tablespoon butter for dinner: ~12 grams

Total: ~17 grams of saturated fat for two small meals.

or

• 2 eggs cooked in 1 tablespoon of butter: ~13 grams

• 4 oz ribeye steak: ~6 grams

• Broccoli with 1 tablespoon butter: ~7 grams

Total: ~26 grams of saturated fat for two small meals

Her next topic is that the limit on fat impacts another good aspect of the recommendations, to increase protein. 

I’ve also learned that the new guidelines will increase the recommended amount of protein from the current RDA minimum of about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight to 1.2-1.5 grams. This is genuinely good news. Studies show this higher range is far better for weight loss, muscle maintenance, recovery from serious illness, and overall well-being—especially for school-aged children and older adults, two populations whose protein needs have been chronically underserved by current recommendations.

But here’s the paradox: with the cap on saturated fats still in place, this increased protein cannot realistically come from animal sources. A 4-ounce serving of lean beef provides 24 grams of protein but also delivers about 6 grams of saturated fat. Meeting the higher protein targets through beef, pork, or chicken thighs with skin would blow through the saturated fat limit by lunchtime.

So where will this protein come from? The only options that fit within the 10% saturated fat cap are peas, beans, and lentils—plant proteins that are mostly incomplete (lacking at least one of the nine essential amino acids), harder for the body to absorb, and packed with starch. To match the protein in 4 ounces of beef, you’d need over 6 tablespoons of peanut butter—between 500 and 600 calories, compared to 155 for the beef.

This isn't news to pretty much anybody that takes their fitness and health seriously, whether gym bros, marathon runners, distance cyclists, you name it. Vegetarian sources of protein are generally incomplete and require combing sources that complement each other and turn it into a proper mixture of the nine essential amino acids. Most people just reflexively believe that vegetables are good for you; so much that "fruits and vegetables" turn into one word. "Don't forget your fruitsandvegetables!" 

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Nina devotes a few inches of column space to look at the "why" of the updates, especially with the consideration that much of what secretary Kennedy and others had said they wanted to do in the guidelines either never got added or the addition got deleted along the way. It all comes down to silly political decisions. Things like how repeated reviews by teams of scientists around the world have concluded that things like the 10% calories from fat and limiting saturated fat are contradicted over and over again yet they still didn't want to get rid of those. 

"The large, rigorous clinical trials on saturated fats—on 60,000 to 80,000 people worldwide—could never demonstrate that reducing saturated fat lowered a person’s risk of death from heart disease or any other cause."