RFK Jr.'s new food pyramid

0:00RFKJR, HHS secretary, recently announced new federal dietary guidelines declaring war. Today, our government declares war on added sugar. Also ending war. We are ending the war on saturated fats. In his tenure as head of HHS, RFK has ended the war on protein and declared war on ultra-processed foods and on the old food pyramid. You can see the food pyramid here. It's upside down, a lot of you will say. But it was actually upside down before, and we just righted it. The Trump administration has pushed companies to eliminate food dyes and in the first bill signing of the new year says schools can now serve whole milk.

0:44Whole milk and it's whole with a W for those of you that have a problem. Coming up on Today Explained, the push from the top to revamp the American diet.

1:03This is dead. You're listening to today's flame. I'm Noelle King with Jane Black. She's a food journalist and co-author of the Consumed Newsletter. Jane, welcome back to the show. So the government unveiled a brand new food pyramid last week. What's in it? Well, so there was a lot of hype about this. And, you know, their big message was we are now focusing on whole nutrient-dense foods. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, my message is clear. Eat real food. In fact, the Dietary Guidelines have actually always recommended whole foods. The language wasn't as clear as it is now. And I think that change in language is good.

1:50And I think people are really excited about it. The new food pyramid is wacky because if you can picture the old food pyramid, remember grains were at the bottom. That's the biggest. And then at the top was saturated fats, you know, eggs, butter, meat, that kind of thing. And basically what they've done is they flipped the entire thing upside down. We are ending the war on saturated fats. So now at the top you have cheese and eggs and steak and whole milk and, yes, also fruits and vegetables. and at the bottom in the tiny point of the pyramid are whole grains. There's one thing that I personally have been obsessed with.

2:27So I'm looking at it right now. I have it up in front of me. Okay, so there's a turkey or a chicken. There's a steak. There's a salmon steak. Looks good. Looks good. There's what appears to be a plastic container of ground beef. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? There is a plastic container of ground beef. You should eat your burgers. That feels wrong. With cheese on top. That feels wrong to me. Tell me what I'm missing because this is the part. I hear you on protein, but also we've all had lean meat drummed into our heads that something about the plastic container of ground beef is really sending me.

2:58What is the message it is sending me as it sends me? So the reason you're confused is because there are a lot of conflicting messages here. One of the reasons people really hate nutrition science is because it's always changing, right? It's like, you can drink red wine. No, you can't drink red wine. And everybody just turns off. The only thing that anyone has been consistently saying to us for nearly 50 years is don't eat too much saturated fat. Yeah. Let me tell you right off the bat, these days fat is not where it's at. Saturated fat is unhealthy. It raises cholesterol levels in your body and increases your risk of heart disease.

3:39Now, the pyramid seems to be saying something completely different. And what's really interesting is that in the recommendations, if you read into them, it says the exact same thing it's always said, which is that 10 percent of your diet should come from saturated fats, no more. At the same time, they're saying, yeah, go ahead and eat your cheeseburgers. But they're not kind of reconciling how those two things happen at the same time. When asked, what has RFK said about that? Because it is the most obvious point here. And I wonder, I mean, I think RFK takes this stuff seriously. How is he trying to square it?

4:17They really haven't tried to square it. So the back story here is that for months there was this drumbeat that they were going to end this limit on saturated fats because they think that meat and eggs and dairy are good for us. At the last minute, they just took that back. and from off-the-record conversations, it seems that they just didn't want to have that kind of controversy and they were afraid that if they changed the limit on saturated fat, that would be the big story coming out of the guidelines, that instead of us talking about whole foods or us talking about increasing the amount of protein we should eat, everybody would be talking about the change in saturated fats.

4:59So they decided to just leave it, recommend what they wanted to recommend, and now we're in a bit of a muddle. All right, so this is very interesting. Then, as you say, we have kind of a flippage here. And so what ends up down at the bottom? What are the foods that now get short shrift? Grains. Grains. So, you know, say, kiss your favorite pasta goodbye. When you're here, you're family. Before, in the Obama administration, we didn't have a pyramid. We had something called MyPlate, and it looked like a plate, and it showed you how much of your plate was supposed to be fruits and vegetables, meat, and grains.

5:35In that iteration, half were supposed to be whole grains. Now it's just whole grains, no refined carbohydrates, and even fewer of them than before. So that's the first thing. The second thing is sugar. And today our government declares war on added sugar. I mean, I don't think anybody disagrees that we all eat too much sugar. But they have cut back the limit of sugar that people should be eating. And make no mistake, none of us were meeting that when it was higher. And in addition, they have said that children under 10 should have no added sugars at all. So no Halloween, no birthday parties, no Christmas cookies, nothing.

6:19No chance. I mean, I'd love to see how that's going to go. Yeah. Good luck, parents. So the Trump administration, very interestingly, from the jump, has expressed priorities on food in a way that strikes me as different from previous administrations just because there's been so much focus on them. Like, I remember Trump saying Coke needed to change its recipe, I think, to go back to real sugar from corn syrup. Truth Social. I have been speaking to at Coca-Cola about using real cane sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola.

6:59This will be a very good move by them. You'll see. It's just better. The FDA was banning a type of red dye early on. So does this set of recommendations play into what else we've seen from the administration? so far? I think that what we can say about this is that it makes official the war on ultra-processed foods. They're not using the word ultra-processed. They're using the word highly processed. That is for technical reasons because they don't have an exact definition of ultra-processed foods, but basically you get what they mean. They mean don't eat Fritos, don't eat Pop-Tarts, don't eat things that have these unpronounceable ingredients.

7:42And they are saying it loud and clear. And that's new. And I think that, frankly, that's a win for Maha. And I think that's a win for Kennedy. The other thing that they have talked a lot about, just as strongly as ultra-processed foods, I think, is working with unbiased science. I mean, one of their favorite terms is gold standard science. And they want randomized controlled trials. And they don't want scientists that are bought off by industry. And what's really interesting about that is that in this report, they go to great trouble to show that they are rejecting some 50 % of the recommendations that were made by an unbiased group of scientists, not influenced by industry.

8:28And then when you look at the references they have for the science saying you should eat more meat, you should eat more dairy, lo and behold, those studies are funded by people like the National Cattlemen's Association or the National Dairy Council or the Texas Beef Council. So it's a very, you know, it's very interesting. There's good, there's bad, but I wouldn't say that they are delivering on all the promises that they have been talking about. Hmm. All right. So my understanding has always been these guidelines are guidelines. Nobody's going to tell me how to eat. I am an American. What do they actually change then?

9:06The guidelines have always been an internal document. They have been guidelines that direct what schools can put on the menu at school lunch and what kinds of foods are served in military canteens. So they will affect those. And I think there are a lot of questions about how people are going to do that. I mean, you and I have talked about school lunch before. It's not like they have a giant budget. So now how are they going to afford a lot more meat and put that on the plate? So there will be some interesting things to watch as these are rolled out. Jane, you've been writing about science and politics and food for a long time.

9:43And you will know, because we've talked about it, that American presidents, spouses, administrations have been trying to get us to improve our diets for years. There was Michelle Obama and the vegetable garden. And this goes back a long way. Do you think RFK Jr. is accomplishing more than those who came before him or has the potential to? Well, I think that he has really gotten people's attention. He has gotten people's attention on the right, and he has gotten people's attention on the left. And that is remarkable because certainly in the past, the language or the tone of whatever they were saying sort of was received by one side or the other more readily.

10:23So that's one thing. So I think that's important. And I think a mass movement and a mass caring about food is essential. I think that he will get more attention on things that people want to do. So if you put steak and hamburgers and cheese at the top of the pyramid, people might follow that more than they're going to follow saying eat low-fat, you know, dairy with no sugar because it's fun to follow it. Overall, I think that change just really takes time. You know, we all know that when we try to change what we eat, it's really hard. That's why New Year's resolutions rarely work out, right? And I also think that this particular administration is talking the talk, but they're not actually doing a lot at this point to make it easier to eat those whole foods or to make those whole foods more affordable.

11:15So you can tell people that ultra processed foods are bad, but if they're still the cheapest and most convenient thing at the grocery store, a lot of people are going to still buy them.

11:30That was Jane Black. She's a food journalist and she co-writes the newsletter Consumed. Coming up, predictions for how we will eat in 2026, including one of my own.

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15:24I like to eat, eat, eat real food. I'm Liz Dunn. I'm a food journalist. I write the newsletter Consumed, and I also am a contributor to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. All right, so you wrote a piece called Seven Food Predictions for 2026. Why don't you roll through them for me now? Okay, without further ado, what comes after peak protein will be more protein. Sugar-loaded drinks will be everywhere. The supplement market will see its biggest year ever. The grocery business will continue its V-shaped reinvention. Phones will eat first. Restaurants will need to adapt to GLP-1s. And big food will be in big trouble.

16:17Big food will be in big trouble. All right, we're going to get there. But first, let's start with protein. Peak protein will yield more protein, she says. Now, listen, I will tell you honestly, I have leapt aboard the protein bandwagon with almost no information. I went full-on protein last year. I feel good. It seemed to help. Why do you think that people are going to go further, double down on this? So you're definitely not alone. Protein was the mega theme of 2025. I did more reporting on protein than I thought would have ever been possible. I feel like everyone's talking about protein right now.

16:53So I thought I'd share my go-to protein sources. We're making a 92 gram protein shake first thing in the morning. I can't hit my protein! One kilo of cottage cheese! The question that I got more than any other as the year came to a close is, what's next after protein? Like, what's the next protein? And I really feel like we're not ready for what's next yet for a few reasons. One is that the supermarket has sort of reinvented itself for protein delivery. So whether it's zero sugar yogurts or meat sticks or protein boosted waffles, like the protein is out there and it's everywhere calling to us.

17:35people really continue to associate protein with fitness and with strength and power, all great positive things. And maybe most importantly, the new federal dietary guidelines up the recommended allowance of protein. And so this is just going to add fuel to the fire. All right. Prediction number two, more sugar in drinks, which hardly seems possible. What do you see coming? This one does seem a little paradoxical because there is a lot of sugar hating out there. But, You know, the country is not a monolith. And so there are a really sizable number of people who are drinking and enjoying super sugary fast food and coffee chain beverages.

18:17So drinks like this have been around since the Frappuccino, but I think probably the best example of how they've really grown is a chain called Dutch Brothers. It's a coffee chain. It's one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in America. And its growth is being driven not by coffee coffee, but by these big, sweet, cold coffee drinks. I got the iced maple latte. They also have a banana bread mocha, which I've tried and loved. Let's see. Ooh, they put a lot of caramel. Oh my gosh! That is so delicious. Everybody from Taco Bell to McDonald's is experimenting with what they call beverage innovation, how to add more of these drinks to their menus.

18:59And that is for two reasons. One is, you know, consumers are really tightening their wallets and they're looking for ways to have an indulgence without maybe ordering an entire fast food meal. And then on the business end, these drinks are really, really profitable. They're cheap to make. You can charge a fair amount for them. And so I expect to see fast food chains to continue to really push them.

19:29Okay. You say that the supplement market is going to have a good year. Explain yourself. So supplements are a$70 billion market in the U.S. Really? Huge, huge market. There's a few reasons why this market has been exploding and, again, why I think it will really continue to explode in 2020. One is the Make America Healthy Again movement, which really buys into supplements as a concept. Here's my supplement protocol as a non-toxic girlie. Clearer skin, healthier hair, a sharper mind. These are grass-fed beef liver tablets. I like to say that it's anti-big pharma, pro-big wellness. So there's a lot of faith in the idea that the right mix of supplements in your diet could cure really anything.

20:17I mean, you may remember Robert F. Kennedy suggesting that vitamin A was a good alternative to vaccination for measles. So that's just kind of an example of this type of thinking. And then, you know, social media has just been a real accelerant for this industry. If an influencer that you follow says that she swears by magnesium to help her sleep, like that's probably really going to encourage you to give it a try. When I see them on the Instagram, I scroll past them really fast because I know I am a person who is highly susceptible to the supplement market. And at this moment, I do not want to take part in it.

20:53What about the grocery business and its continued V-shaped reinvention? What does this mean? Well, so I don't know about you, Noelle, but when I grew up, my family shopped at Stop and Shop, which was, you know, we went once a week. It was a something for everyone grocery store, carried all the big packaged food brands. Yeah, we did shop right. Yeah, exactly. The prices are good, but they're not great. But they're kind of your main street grocer. Now those mid-price grocers like Kroger's or Stop and Shop or Albertsons, they're really losing share to discounters. So Walmart sells about a quarter of the groceries in America today.

21:34Costco, Aldi, Dollar General, all of those discounters are really growing as people are willing to sacrifice name brand groceries or having a deli counter or maybe a larger selection for really, really deep value. And then the other end of the V is the very premium end of the market. I'm thinking about places like Erewhon. Are you familiar with Erewhon? I sure am. Never been in one, but I know what it is. This is the most expensive grocery store in the country. And we're going to go check it out because I'm in disbelief. Last time I got lunch at Erewhon, I accidentally spent$70. So let's see if we can do it for less today.

22:12And Erewhon says it's going to be expanding into as many as 20 cities in the coming years. Not quite as high end as Erewhon, but also in the more premium space. There's brands like Sprouts, which is a natural fruits grocer, which is also really expanding rapidly. And so that's sort of the other end of this V where you see people seeking really deep discounts on one end and then on the other end of the spectrum splurging on sort of high end premium grocery categories. All right. So you say phones will eat first. What I mean by this is that, I mean, listen, it's not new that people choose where they eat in part based on the Instagram ability or they're taking pictures of their food or pictures of the interiors.

22:56But I was really shocked to see a recent trend report released by the online bookings platform OpenTable, which had a little tidbit that I just thought was staggering. 77 % of Gen Zers and 79 % of millennials said that they consider a restaurant's Instagram or TikTok worthiness when deciding whether to eat there. That's a lot. Yes, it is. That's a big factor in the decision making. I would expect to see like really sort of viral appealing menu items and I guess decor touches that really lend themselves to photography. So this is going to continue to be a really important factor in how people think about where they're dining.

23:36The other big important factor, as your list points out, is GLP-1s and the fact that everybody who sells food is going to have to adapt to what GLP-1s are doing. So who's adapting in 2026 and how? Now, if you're a restaurant and something like 1 in 10 or, you know, 1 in 5 potentially, eventually, diners are on a drug that cuts their desire for big portions, that's something that will have to really influence how you design your menu because restaurants need to continue to try to make the same amount of revenue, even if people want smaller portions. All right. And then finally, big food is in big trouble.

24:18You know, over the years, the big packaged food companies have really been able to reformulate their way out of pretty much any diet trend. So low fat, low carb, gluten free. There's a way to make a very profitable packaged food that fits all of those trends. Today we're going to be trying Cheerios protein cereal. You guys are going to want to try these. I found these protein infused waters. They're so good. What we're seeing now in terms of how people are thinking about the food they're eating is that they're really skeptical of highly processed foods. So that's a really new and different challenge if you're a packaged food company.

24:58How do you continue to make profitable products that are not processed, which is sort of the whole engine of how you made them profitable to begin with? I think that there's going to have to be a real reckoning at these companies to figure out how they continue to perform for shareholders and remain profitable as these eating habits are changing dramatically. Can I give you my prediction? I would love your prediction. Okay. This year, kiwis with the skin on are going to become very big. Eating? Like, as in eating kiwis? Yeah. You know, my brother-in-law does that. I just started. It doesn't seem right, Noelle.