Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030 (Eat Real Foods)

The new version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 offers a significant change from previous versions.  The core of the new guidelines is to go back to "real food", not "processed and packaged" food. It encourages a commonsense focus on healthy eating rather than a set of "limits" or "maximums."  In this short series of articles, each week will will look at an overview of one of the recommendations.  This is an introduction to these guidelines, you will find the full version of the guidelines online at:  https://realfood.gov/#resources

These articles are sourced from an Epoch Times article: The Science Behind the New Dietary Guidelines. 

Eat Real Foods, Avoid Highly Processed Foods

The new focus on eating whole foods rather than highly processed foods is common sense.  Many of our nutrients that are essential for physical life, such as antioxidants and vitamins, are found in whole foods, but there are also numerous unknown nutrients in whole food.  A quick request from AI shows that just recently discovered substances such as Vitamin A5, Queosine, Leucine, Trimethylglycine, and Betaine are just a few.  Eating Whole Foods helps ensure that people don't miss out on essential nutrients.

Processed food is food altered from its natural state such as adding substances to it to enhance preservation, convenience, or taste.  Earlier guidelines did not clearly tell people to reduce or limit their intake of ultra-processed foods, the new guidelines clearly do.

In fact the new guidelines comes with a scientific foundation report that defines highly processed foods as any food or drink primarily made from food extracts such as refined sugars, grains, starches, and oils, or containing industrially manufactured chemical additives.  Using this definition in the United States highly processed foods and drinks account for about 60 percent of the calories eaten by Americans.  In the scientific foundation report research found that eating more highly processed foods is linked to to increased risks of: all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.  And there is a dose-dependent relationship meaning that the more highly processed foods people ate, the greater their health risks.

Does this mean you can’t enjoy highly processed foods?  No.  Think of it this way.  To an alcoholic or a drug addict avoiding the addictive substance is the best approach.  For the rest, limiting intake to minimal or moderate amounts is suitable.  For those who are addicted to highly processed foods, sugars, and fats, avoiding the addictive substance may be the best approach; at least limiting it to minimal amounts is an objective worth pursuing.

NEXT:  Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030 (Eat More Protein)

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