Dietary Guidelines are not coming out for summer, but maybe before winter
If you are waiting for the promised summer release of the updated food guidelines for Americans, you can stop. The end of October is the new release date promised, according to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the American Department of Health and Social Services.
Food directives for Americans were published for the first time in 1980 and have since been updated every five years. The Department of Health (HHS) and USDA jointly produce the directives.
The scientific report of the Consultative Committee on Food Directives in 2025 (scientific report) was submitted to HHS and USDA secretaries at the end of 2024, with public comments on the scientific report ending on February 10 of this year.
The wait for food directives for Americans since 2025-2030 has been underway since then.
Of course, the change of administration is responsible for the delay. RFK Jr. and USDA secretary Brooke Rollins have something different in mind of their immediate predecessors. Kennedy and Rollins have until the end of the year to publish the updated directives.
The secretary of the HHS told the meeting of the country’s governors in Colorado that “we are going to issue [the guidelines] In December, but we will probably be released at the end of October. Before that, he said that the official line was that the directives were “on the right track” for the summer exit.
Planning his program “Make America Healthy Again” to governors, RFK JR. said that new directives would be “common sense” and “stressed the need to eat saturated fats, dairy products, good meat, fresh meat and vegetables”. He predicts that their update of directives will result in massive change at all levels, and the new guidelines will be an opportunity to “restart and modify the regimes,” he said.
The development of food directives by HHS and USDA implies a step by step by step of writing, examination and revision, supported by a writing team of federal personnel of the two departments.
The food line project project undergoes several examination and review cycles by peers-exam outside the federal government and all agencies with nutritional policies and programs through USDA and HHS, such as NIH, FDA, CDC, ARS, FNS and FSIS.
The last step in this process is the departmental authorization, which ends with the examination and disconnection of food directives for the Americans by the Secretaries of the USDA and the HHS.
Once published, the new edition of food directives replaces the previous edition. The publication of the new edition is communicated to nutrition and health professionals inside and outside the federal government for a large implementation.
The need for food directives was born from the work of the American selective committee on nutrition and human needs from 1968 to 1977. His only president was senator George McGovern, D-SD.
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