00:00The next set of dietary guidelines for Americans is coming soon, and they could look very different this time.
00:07Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said in the past they're streamlining hundreds of pages into just four, promising simpler, cleaner advice on what to eat.
00:20It's dietary guidelines that President Biden gave us, 453 pages long, and it's just an industry-generated document, the same industry impulse.
00:30That put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid.
00:33We are creating a four-page document that can be locally sourced so that that will drive the school lunch program.
00:44Actually, the current guidelines were issued in 2020, shortly before the end of President Donald Trump's first term, and they weren't 453 pages long.
00:54Instead, a scientific document supporting the guidelines was 164 pages.
01:00Regardless, every five years, these guidelines get an update, serving as the federal government's official nutrition playbook.
01:08They're not really written for the average American to read cover to cover, but they shape everything from school lunches and military meals to snap and wick benefits, impacting what millions of Americans eat every day.
01:21To build them, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a team of scientific experts, spends years reviewing research and writing its recommendations.
01:32This year's 421-page report was submitted to the Secretaries of Health and Agriculture, who announced in March they began a line-by-line review.
01:41Overall, it stayed pretty consistent with previous reports.
01:45The committee's report emphasizes flexibility and cultural adaptability, with a new core plan called Eat Healthy Your Way.
01:54It's designed to align with more diverse cuisines and dietary preferences, and compared to the 2020 plan, it slightly reduces starchy vegetables while encouraging more dark green vegetables and whole grains.
02:07But overall, the committee highlights that Americans still fall short of recommended dietary patterns, and urges the HHS and USDA to collaborate with people like communication scientists to change eating behavior at multiple levels.
02:23But that's where some experts worry that Kennedy's public comments and claims don't necessarily reflect mainstream nutrition science.
02:31His focus for the soon-to-be-released guidelines is to tell people to eat whole foods.
02:36He favors whole milk and foods prepared in beef tallow, which is high in saturated fats.
02:43UC Berkeley interviewed professor and nutrition research scientist Kevin Klatt, and he said that's not so simple, because our modern food environment makes those choices much harder than they sound.
02:54Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also said in a March press release, we will make certain the 2025 to 2030 guidelines are based on sound science, not political science.
03:07Gone are the days where leftist ideologies guide public policy.
03:11We'll have to wait for the official guidelines to be released this fall, but the administration's Make America Healthy Again strategy promises the updated guidelines will align with science, data, and health recommendations in a more user-friendly format.
03:26With Stray Arrow news, I'm Kennedy Felton.
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