The New U.S. Dietary Guidelines Signal a Shift Toward Real Food
Every five years, the U.S. updates its Dietary Guidelines, a process that has historically sparked debate as nutrition science evolves and earlier advice (like the low-fat era) gets reconsidered.
But we were excited to see that instead of fixating on calories or blanket fat avoidance, the new guidance places emphasis on food quality, adequate protein, and cutting back on ultra-processed foods and added sugar, ideas that align closely with how we approach health and longevity here at mindbodygreen.
Protein is no longer an afterthought
One of the clearest shifts is a stronger emphasis on getting enough protein consistently, especially as we age.
Meals are encouraged to be built around protein and animal sources like eggs, dairy, poultry, seafood, and meat are finally highlighted as safe and high-quality options, offered alongside plant proteins such as beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds.
This matters because animal proteins provide highly bioavailable amino acids plus nutrients like B12, iron, zinc, and omega-3s, critical for nutrients for muscle, metabolism, energy, and cognitive health, that are harder to achieve adequate amounts of through plant protein alone.
For most people, a simple upgrade may look like this: prioritize complete protein at every meal, not just dinner. The guidelines upped the protein recommendation from 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight a day to 1.2 to 1.6 grams. Many experts we talk to here are mindbodygreen recommend eating up to 1 gram per pound of body weight.
Prioritizing fats from real food
Rather than demonizing fat, the guidelines place more emphasis on fat quality.
Fats that naturally occur in foods, like those in eggs, meat, seafood, olives, avocados, nuts, seeds, and full-fat dairy, are distinguished from refined, industrial oils commonly found in packaged foods.
Full-fat dairy gets its own special spotlight, as the guidelines move away from low-fat options and acknowledge that full-fat options without added sweeteners can be a nutritious source of protein, fats, calcium, and fat-soluble vitamins that support bone health and satiety.
The overall recommendation for saturated fat has not changed, though: keep intake at less than 10% of total daily calories.
Stronger language on sugar & ultra-processed foods
If there’s one area where the guidance sounds much firmer than in the past, it’s on added sugars and heavily processed foods.
Diets built around packaged, ready-to-eat products, especially those high in sugar and refined carbs, are clearly discouraged in favor of home-prepared, minimally processed meals.
The guidelines state that no amount of added sugars or non-nutritive sweeteners is considered part of a healthy diet, and even recommends that added sugar be completely avoided in young children (hard, I know, as a parent).
While we love a sweet treat from time to time, most people do overdo it with added sweeteners, often without even realizing it.
This means:
- Choosing whole fruit over juice and sweetened drinks
- Treating packaged snacks as occasional, not foundational
- Reading nutrition labels carefully
- Keeping added sugars low for metabolic & long-term health
- Cooking meals at home as much as possible
Plants still play a key role
Protein may be getting more attention, but vegetables, fruits, and fiber-rich plant foods remain essential. We are strong believers in balancing a high-protein diet with adequate fiber, and are glad to see an emphasis on whole forms of fruits and vegetables and minimally refined grains to support gut health, immunity, and overall resilience.
A note on alcohol
While alcohol recommendations used to be specifically limited to no more than one drink per day for women and two for men, they are now more generalized: drink less alcohol for better overall health.
Considering the Surgeon General's warning this time last year, the “1 for women, 2 for men” daily rule simply doesn’t pass the test anymore.
What about carbs?
These recent guidelines point out that diets lower in carbohydrates may benefit individuals with certain chronic diseases, displaying an openness to low-carb approaches for metabolic health.
This is one of the first times federal guidance explicitly acknowledges that a lower-carb diet can improve outcomes for people with metabolic disease. For most people, complex, whole food carbs are part of a healthy diet, but it’s progressive to see the metabolic health pandemic get some attention from a food as medicine standpoint.
The takeaway
The gist is to eat mostly real food, prioritize high-quality protein (including animal sources, if they work for you), choose fats that occur naturally in real foods, keep added sugar low, focus on patterns, not perfection.