Whopper of the Week: RFK’s Upside Down Food Pyramid is a Cardiologist’s Nightmare

THIS WEEK'S WHOPPER:

RFK's Upside Down Food Pyramid is a Cardiologists's Nightmare

“There’s a tremendous amount of emerging science that talks about the need for more protein in our diet and more fats in our diet.” Robert F Kennedy, July 2025

IN SUMMARY:

On January 7th, Health Secretary Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Collins announced the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They resurrected the defunct USDA food pyramid from the 1995-2000 guidelines and turned it upside down in order to highlight animal proteins and fats and de-emphase grains. The White House tweeted  an ominous picture of RFK with the caption “We are ending the war on protein.”  There was no war. Americans eat more than enough protein. It is a Whopper to claim, like Secretary Kennedy does, that we need to consume more meat or fat.

Figures 1: Food Pyramid from the 1995 (left) and 2025 (right) US Dietary Guidelines.

WHY IS THIS A WHOPPER?

Lots of Americans are obsessed with protein and social media is flooded with high protein influencers. The 2024 International Food Information Council annual survey of Americans found that 71% want to increase their protein intake, more than any other dietary constituent or vitamin. Many Americans believe they can lose weight by limiting carbohydrates and eating more protein which increases satiety. Multiple studies have shown that high protein diets are actually higher in calories; that can be helpful for certain people, for example the elderly who struggle to maintain their weight due to lack of appetite, or people on GLP-1 agonists with delayed gastric emptying and decreased appetites, but not for everyone. Protein supplements are expensive. For the average American the best way to build muscle is regular resistance training.

The World Health Organization recommends 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight a day, or 0.36 grams per pound.  American adults, on average, eat 81 grams of protein/day, which is already 20% above the WHO recommendation. The new 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines recommend that Americans almost double the amount of protein they consume, to 1.2-1.6 grams of protein per kilogram bodyweight per day. According to The Economist, for an average adult, that is the equivalent of consuming either three lean chicken breast, 17 eggs, or 2.2 lbs of cooked beans. 

The 2025-2030 Guidlelines recommend that animal protein be supplemented with whole milk and dairy products, despite the fact that 65-70% of adults globally are unable to digest milk as adults. The added meat and dairy makes it harder for people to limit their intake saturated fats to the recommended less than ten percent of total calories. “We’ve been researching this for decades, and we definitively know saturated fat — such as butter fat, beef tallow, red and processed meat — are all closely associated with more deaths from cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Kim Williams, a past president of the American College of Cardiology. The protein recommendations, according to Dr. Williams, do not follow “the best scientific evidence available.”  

While, Secretary Kennedy claims there is emerging science about the need for more protein and fats in our diets, Dr. Eric Topol, an American cardiologist at Scripps Research, reviewed the existing scientific literature  and found there is no data supporting the purported benefits of these diets. There are however known increases in the risks of cardiovascular, atherosclerotic  and renal disease. Data has also shownthat two thirds of protein shakes have been found to have high lead levels. Heart disease is the number one cause of death for Americans. One in seven Americans also suffer from kidney disease; the protein and phosphorus in meat and dairy products accelerates kidney dysfunction.

WHY IT MATTERS:

The new dietary guidelines, which recommend big increases in protein, will not "Make America Healthy Again." They could contribute to increases in cardiovascular and kidney disease. Eating more animal proteins would also have detrimental environmental impacts. 

Despite the flashy new Health and Human Services "eat real food" website, there is no quick fix to America’s health. A previous report by Defend Public Health stressed that increasing meat or dairy will not magically result in less chronic disease. The challenge of improving the American diet arises from a complicated interplay of the social determinants of health, including age, income, race and ethnicity, rural residence, and education. These are factors Kennedy consistently fails to address.  

The suggestion that American "eat real food" and protein may not even be economically feasible for the average American given the cost of groceries. Those who stand to gain from these new guidelines may well be the meat and dairy industry and the businesses that market protein supplements. What is clear, however, is that protein is being promoted at the expense of America’s health.
 

Contributors to this post are: Aurora Horstkamp, M.D., Benedicte Callan, Ph.D., Kathylynn Saboda, M.S.