New US Dietary Guidelines a missed opportunity for human and planetary health – ProVeg International 

ProVeg International joins nutrition experts and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in expressing concern at the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) issued on January 7, 2026. 

Published every five years, the DGA provides guidance for federal food programs including school meals programs in public schools. While containing some evidence-based recommendations, several updates raise serious concerns that could have major implications for public health, particularly given that federal food programs serving millions of Americans, including children, are required to align with the DGA. 

“Taken together, the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans diverge from established nutrition science, previous DGAs, and international best practices, including guidance from the EAT-Lancet Commission and the World Health Organization.^{1 2} They risk weakening the scientific foundation of the DGA and entrenching dietary patterns associated with the burden of higher chronic diseases, missed sustainability gains, and growing health inequities,” Anna-Lena Klapp, nutritionist and Head of Research at ProVeg, argues.

Complete absence of food system sustainability considerations

The 2025-2030 guidelines again do not consider sustainability, which contradicts scientific evidence and goes against the current trend of new food-based dietary guidelines worldwide.³ A missed opportunity that denies clear evidence that our food system has a significant impact on the climate and the environment. Plant-based proteins have a significantly lower environmental footprint compared to animal-sourced foods, contributing to a more sustainable food system.⁴ A fact completely ignored in the new DGA, which does not highlight the role plant proteins play in a healthy sustainable diet.

“The overconsumption of animal-sourced foods, and intensive animal agriculture contribute to the major global challenges that humanity is currently facing, including climate change and biodiversity loss, and public health,” Anna-Lena Klapp states.

Contradictory advice
The DGA guidance places meat on top of its inverted food pyramid, signaling that meat consumption should be prioritized in a healthy diet. However, on average meat consumption in the US was at 85 kg per person in 2024, according to data by the USDA,⁵ which is already 5 times higher than the EAT-Lancet recommendation. It also fails to include a recommendation to limit red and processed meat consumption, which features in European national dietary guidelines such as Spain, the Nordics and the UK, due to evidence demonstrating the link with non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

Additionally, while legumes are included as a source of protein, the guidelines do not give priority to plant-based protein sources, contrary to the advice of the rigorous Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s scientific report that was submitted to US agencies in 2024 and the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet updated in October 2025 highlighting the importance of plant-rich diets for healthy, sustainable, and just food systems.

The DGA also maintain recommendations to keep saturated fat intake low, but highlight food examples high in saturated fat—such as butter, beef tallow, red meat, and full-fat dairy—both in its text and in the inverted food pyramid.^{6 7}

Finally, the DGA fails to recognize fortified soy milk as a viable alternative to dairy, despite high rates of lactose malabsorption in the US and among many racial and ethnic communities.^{8 9} The guidelines continue to present full-fat dairy as an essential food and the primary source of calcium, while ignoring calcium-rich plant sources like leafy greens, nuts, and seeds.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

For media inquiries, email [email protected].

For scientific data about the benefits of plant-based eating, see our Food System Data website.

About ProVeg International

ProVeg International is a food awareness organization working to transform the global food system by accelerating the transition to a sustainable global food system by making plant-rich foods and alternative proteins more accessible and appealing.

1. EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems. 2025. Healthy, Sustainable, and Just Food Systems: The Updated Planetary Health Diet Framework. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01201-2
2. WHO Regional Office for Europe (2021) Plant-Based Diets and Their Impact on Health, Sustainability and the Environment: A Review of the Evidence (Internet). Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; available at https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/349086/WHO-EURO-2021-4007-43766-61591-eng.pdf (accessed 15 March 2025). Google Scholar
3. Klapp A-L. Towards more balanced dietary guidelines: connecting climate, culture, and nutrition. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. Published online 2025:1-11. doi:10.1017/S0029665125100670
4. Poore J, Nemecek T, Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers (2018). Science 360, 987–992.
5. USDA (2025): Meat Supply and Disappearance. Available at: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-domestic-data [Accessed: 09.01.2026]
6. Rockström, J., S. H. Thilsted, W. C. Willett, et al. (2025): The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. The Lancet 406(10512), 1625–1700. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01201-2
7. Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet 2019; 393: 447–92.
8. Definition and Facts for Lactose Intolerance. NIH, 2018. Available online at: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/lactose-intolerance/definition-facts
9. Recommendations to address the shortfalls of the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet from a plant-forward perspective
   Klapp, Anna-Lena et al. The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 9, Issue 1, e23 – e33