by Deadlines are approaching for another important food-related government function.
The 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans are being worked on to provide advice on what to eat and drink to build a healthy diet that can promote healthy growth and development, help with chronic diseases related to to prevent diet, and meet nutritional needs.
The expert Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, whose members were named in early 2023, met five times, with only one more meeting on September 25-26, 2024, if necessary. If there is a sixth meeting, registration details will be made available to the public close to the date of the meeting.
The committee is made up of 20 nationally recognized experts in food and nutrition.
Since 1990, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services have been required by law to publish the Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years. The recommendations of the expert committee must be given to the Secretaries who make the final decisions. The Dietary Guidelines then became the cornerstone of federal food and nutrition guidance.
“The nature of dietary guidance, which provides advice on foods and nutrients to eat more or less of, remains relatively consistent,” according to the government. “However, some of the specific messages have changed as nutrition science has progressed and as the methods used to review the science have progressed.”
The five-year update of the Dietary Guidelines is now coming to an end and is a scientifically rigorous, multi-year process.
The US Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) identified proposed scientific questions for input from federal experts and the public and then received review by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.
Committee members are tasked with refining and prioritizing the questions, collaborating to develop protocols that describe how they plan to review the science, review and synthesize the evidence based on their protocols, present their scientific findings, and consider public opinion.
The Committee’s work culminates in a comprehensive scientific report on the current state of nutrition science and provides independent recommendations to HHS and USDA.
Upon their report to the Secretaries or when its 2-year charter expires, whichever comes first, the activities of the Committee will end, and the Departments will develop the next edition of the Nutrition Guidelines, guided by work of the Committee, based on existing evidence. federal guidance, federal agency input, and public comments.
The Committee examined the evidence using three approaches: Data analysis, food pattern modeling, and systematic reviews. Each approach has its own rigorous, protocol-based methodology and has a unique and complementary role in examining science. For each approach, staff members from HHS and USDA supported the Committee’s review of the evidence.
This year’s update to the Guidelines has yet to generate much controversy.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the committee examined the fact that about 36 percent of people in the US are lactose-intolerant.
Earlier, the potato industry was concerned about the future of potatoes in this year’s and future Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra sent a letter to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, assuring her that there is no intention or effort to reclassify potatoes as a grain under the guidelines.
The USDA and HHS are responsible for updating the guidelines.
“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is a framework for healthy eating, not a one-size-fits-all model,” the letter said. “ The US population is diverse, reflected in what we eat and how we eat. “
While HHS and USDA acknowledge that most Americans do not follow the guidelines, the US wine industry is concerned about following the World Health Organization guidelines. US dietary guidelines say that men can safely have two drinks a day, and women can have one. Canada’s dietary guidelines recommend no more than two drinks a week, with a poll showing 66 per cent of 21- to 39-year-olds said they would cut back.
The current ninth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) is for 2020-25. For the first time, it includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months.
At the end of the last five-year exercise, HHS and USDA rejected the advice of the final expert panel, which recommended that the guidelines set new lower targets for sugar and alcoholic beverage consumption.
Earlier this year, the German Society for Nutrition (DGE) released new dietary guidelines for Germany, which focus more on plant-based foods and emphasize health and sustainability.
German dietary guidelines call for a 75 percent plant-based diet and 25 percent animal-based diet. The guidelines also recommend plant-based fats such as vegetable oils over animal sources such as butter.
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