What MAHA’s dietary guidelines mean for US Food and Agribusiness
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released revised dietary guidelines for Americans. The new food pyramid is heavily influenced by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.
The guidelines’ dietary advice aims to address the public health challenges attributed to the American diet, including the prevalence of chronic diseases in the U.S. population. The guidelines are condensed in a shorter form than past editions with scientific evidence for their rationale in an appendix.
The new dietary guidelines have an overarching message of “eat real food, avoid ultra-processed foods” and have made headlines for changes in emphasis relative to previous dietary guidelines. How the new guidelines for a healthy diet affect the food system and the food industry remains to be seen.
The new dietary guidelines’ emphasis on eating “real food” and reducing processed foods and ultra-processed foods is more explicit than past versions of the dietary guidelines. In addition, the increased emphasis on protein, including red meat, is a notable change. Ultra-processed foods includes foods including non-nutritive ingredients as well as added sugars, sodium, “unhealthy fats” and refined carbohydrates.
The dietary guidelines typically influence school lunch and other government-funded food purchase and nutrition programs and, if Americans take the dietary advice to heart, could impact the food industry and agricultural production.
Dairy products are positioned well in the guidelines, including full-fat dairy products and whole milk referenced favorably for the first time in decades. These products align with the “real food” emphasis and the focus on “healthy fats”. The call-out to reducing added sugars could affect the sugar industry, whose import volumes have already declined. Seed oils and other vegetable oils escape specific mention, but may suffer competition from beef tallow and dairy fat being characterized as “healthy fats”. Whole grains remain an emphasis point, and the new dietary guidelines recommend avoiding refined flour.
The recommendations for protein intake are significantly increased from previous U.S. dietary guidelines. Also notable, the guidelines don’t differentiate between beef and other red meats versus leaner cuts and seafood, nor the HHS Secretary Kennedy’s declaration about the “end of the war on saturated fats.”
The new dietary guidelines for Americans sets a new course in U.S. nutrition policy, prioritizing animal-based proteins and fats minimally processed whole foods. If paired with additional government programs and incentives, they could trigger long-term changes in agricultural production and the food industry.
Download the full report for Rabobank’s analysis of the new dietary guidelines and their potential impact on the food industry.
Report Author
JP Frossard
Analyst, Consumer Foods
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