Full-fat dairy and protein targets: what the federal dietary guidelines issued in 2026 changed

In January 2026, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) issued the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030, the 10th edition of the federal government's core nutrition advice for people in the United States. It replaced the 2020-2025 edition, released on December 29, 2020. The new edition's message, in the words of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, is "eat real food": build meals on protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats and whole grains, and cut back sharply on highly processed foods. It also departs openly from the advice of the scientific committee appointed to inform it.

What the new edition recommends

Protein comes first. The guidelines tell Americans to prioritize high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods at every meal, from animal sources such as eggs, poultry, seafood and red meat as well as from beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds and soy. They set a goal of 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, adjusted to a person's calorie needs.

For dairy, the advice is to include full-fat products with no added sugars, at three servings a day in a 2,000-calorie pattern. For cooking fats, the guidelines name olive oil first and list butter or beef tallow as other options, while keeping saturated fat in general to no more than 10% of daily calories. They add that the question of which fats are best for long-term health is not yet settled and calls for better studies. The daily serving goals are three of vegetables and two of fruit in a 2,000-calorie pattern, and two to four servings of whole grains, with a significant cut in refined carbohydrates such as white bread, flour tortillas and crackers.

The guidelines advise avoiding highly processed packaged, prepared or ready-to-eat foods that are salty or sweet, and sugar-sweetened drinks such as sodas, fruit drinks and energy drinks. They also advise limiting foods and drinks with artificial flavors, petroleum-based dyes, artificial preservatives and low-calorie sweeteners.

How it compares with the 2020-2025 edition

The new edition also gives advice by life stage. It says babies should get only breast milk for about the first six months, with iron-fortified infant formula when breast milk is not available, and that potentially allergenic foods such as nut butters, eggs, shellfish and wheat can be introduced at about six months. It says no amount of added sugars is recommended for children ages 5 to 10, that they should avoid caffeinated drinks, and that full-fat dairy is important for children's energy needs and brain development. For pregnancy, it names iron, folate and iodine as top priorities.

The break with the advisory committee

Each edition is informed by a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The 2025 committee's scientific report was open for public comment from December 11, 2024, to February 10, 2025. It found that a healthy pattern for people age 2 and older is higher in vegetables, fruits, beans, peas and lentils, nuts, whole grains, seafood and vegetable oils higher in unsaturated fat, and lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, refined grains and saturated fat. It recommended emphasizing beans, peas and lentils while reducing red and processed meats, and suggested specifying unsweetened fat-free and low-fat dairy milk. The committee said it had been tasked with examining the evidence through a health equity lens, with the aim of making the advice relevant to people of diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.

The departments rejected that approach. In a document they call the Scientific Foundation for the new edition, which lists the committee evidence they accepted as well as the evidence they rejected, they say equity considerations matter for putting policy into practice, but that using them to filter the evidence "reverses the proper sequence of scientific inquiry." They also argue that the committee "consistently advocated plant-based dietary patterns" and deprioritized animal proteins, and that it did not recommend clear limits on highly processed foods. They concluded that adopting the committee's report would not meet the public's need for objective guidance, and commissioned additional evidence reviews from experts hired through a federal contracting process, with external peer review coordinated by the National Institutes of Health's Office of Nutrition Research.

What applies now

On November 12, 2026, DietaryGuidelines.gov, the joint USDA and HHS site, described the 2025-2030 edition as "the current guidance" and said the 2020-2025 edition remained federal guidance until the new one was released. The guidelines have been updated and issued every five years since 1980.

The guidelines are general advice, not individual medical advice. They tell anyone with a chronic disease to talk with a health care professional about whether to adapt them, and parents to ask their infant's health care professional about food allergy risks and vitamin D. The FDA's separate order removing the dye Red No. 3 from food is covered in our explainer on that decision.