Earning some praise from outside experts, including the American Medical Association, the new guidelines are the first iteration to directly address highly processed foods. With an emphasis on “whole, nutrient-dense foods”, its goal is to lead to a “dramatic reduction in highly processed foods loaded with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats and chemical additives.”
While the guidelines don’t provide a clear definition of what highly processed foods are or how consumers can identify them, they do offer some broad examples at various points, including store-bought “chips, cookies and candy” and “white bread, ready-to-eat or packaged breakfast alternatives, flour tortillas and crackers.”
new triangle
In an effort to steer Americans toward healthier choices, the new guidance unveils a new(ish) visual aid — a food pyramid that’s upside down, thus resembling a funnel.
The move explains at least one puzzling trend: Over the past year, Kennedy and other Trump administration officials have repeatedly referenced the food pyramid — though only to mock and disparage it, often with inaccuracies.
“The dietary guidelines that we inherited from the Biden administration were 453 pages long,” Kennedy said in August, referring to the 2020-2025 guidelines, which are 164 pages long. “They were driven by the same commercial impulses that put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid.”
At the unveiling of the new guidelines on Wednesday, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Macri lamented that, “For decades, we have been fed a corrupt food pyramid.”
Not only were Froot Loops never listed in the food pyramid, but no food pyramid has been included in the federal dietary guidelines for over a decade, raising the question of why the administration was repeatedly attacking an inactive polyhedron. The original food pyramid was introduced in 1992, significantly revised in 2005, and removed entirely in 2011. Since then, the guidelines have used MyPlate as a visual aid, intended to provide a simple illustration of the foods people should eat, in their recommended proportions, on a plate.
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