Robert F Kennedy Jr, the United States Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, is set to introduce new dietary guidelines in a bid to end the ‘war on saturated fats’.
The rule changes are set to be announced imminently, despite numerous studies suggesting that too much dietary fat can cause major health complications.
FOODbible has compiled everything we know so far about the updated food recommendations, including what the 71-year-old said, and other products he’s currently at odds with.
What has RFK Jr said about the new guidelines?
On Monday (17 November), the politician made an appearance at the Food Allergy Fund Leadership Forum to reveal that American legislation was possibly changing.
“We’re ending the war on saturated fats in this country,” he claimed. “So, we’re going to publish dietary guidelines that are going to stress the importance of protein and saturated fats.”
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According to a report by The Hill, Kennedy said: “I think that will really revolutionise the food system in the country, the food culture in this country.”
The Health Secretary’s statement comes after he told officials at a meeting of the National Governors Association in July that new, improved dietary guidelines would be ‘common sense’.
He said at the time he wanted to ‘stress the need to eat saturated fats, dairy, good meat, and fresh meat and vegetables’.
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His press secretary, Emily Hilliard, said: “Secretary Kennedy is committed to new dietary recommendations that are rooted in rigorous science.
“The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans will be a big part of the Trump Administration’s commitment to Make America Healthy Again.”
When will the guidelines be released?
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department update dietary guidelines every five years, as per NBC News.
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The refurbished legislation for 2025 has yet to be released, but RFK Jr. said the pro-saturated fat report could be published as early as next month.
Almost a year ago, an expert committee published a report endorsing the existing recommendation for saturated fat, explaining that US citizens should try to get their unsaturated fat from plant-based sources.
However, according to Eric Rimm, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments could ignore the committee’s advice and plough ahead.
“We all are waiting to read it,” he added, according to the outlet.
Current dietary guidelines on saturated fat
Saturated fat is found in a plethora of foods: cured meats, cheese, ice cream, pastries, and sausages, to name a few.
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According to official US dietary guidelines, you should eat no more than 20 grams of saturated fat per day.
This is because it’s ‘important for adults and children over age two to get less than 10 percent of their daily calories from saturated fat’.
However, the American Heart Association recommends adults achieve no more than six percent of their daily calorie intake from saturated fat.
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People who eat less than 2,000 calories per day are advised to limit their intake or replace it with healthier, unsaturated fats.
Seafood like salmon and trout, avocados, olive oil, and nuts such as almonds and pumpkin seeds, all fall into the unsaturated fats camp.
What does evidence say about saturated fat?
Numerous researchers have come out over the years to suggest that eating saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol, AKA ‘bad’ cholesterol.
Too much can combine with fats and other substances, creating plaque that builds in the inner walls of blood vessels, dangerously reducing blood flow.
Speaking to NBC, Dr Clyde Yancy, chief of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said: “If you obstruct blood flow to a heart, you have a heart attack. If you obstruct blood flow to the brain, you have a stroke.
Last year, research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found that a diet high in saturated fat is more dangerous for the heart than a diet high in unsaturated fat.
People on this diet had a roughly 20 per cent rise in fat in their liver and around 10 per cent higher blood cholesterol levels after just 24 days, compared to before they started the diet.
Too much fat in the liver can cause the risk of a person developing type 2 diabetes to skyrocket, the BHF stated.
The study also found protective effects if a person ate a diet high in polyunsaturated fat, a healthy fat that can help reduce bad cholesterol levels in your blood, possibly lowering the risk of a stroke, Heart.org said.
Study lead Nikola Srnic, MD/DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford explained: “Although our study is ongoing, our findings so far suggest that even when you are not gaining weight, different fats can have drastically different effects on our health in a short time frame.”
RFK Jr’s diet
Kennedy has previously said he tends to follow a carnivore-inspired diet.
“I would say it’s dramatically changed my… everything,” the Republican told Fox and Friends.
On a regular day, he will eat meat and gut-friendly fermented foods like no-sugar yoghurt, sauerkraut coleslaw, kimchi, and fermented vegetables.
Other legislation RFK Jr wants changed
The Republicans’ revised dietary guidelines come after RFK Jr made a bid to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of next year.
RFK Jr called the dyes ‘poisonous compounds’ that ‘pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development’.
His statements are contradicted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which stated scientific evidence showed ‘most children have no adverse effects when consuming foods containing colour additives, but some evidence suggests that certain children may be sensitive to them.’
The former environmental attorney has also taken aim at ultra-processed foods in the past and urged Americans to limit consumption of foods with added sugar and salt.
In July, he ordered the FDA to explore how to eliminate a policy that allows food companies to decide for themselves whether additives added to their products are deemed ‘safe’.
“That’s a really, really big deal,” Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, told The Guardian.
“Ninety-nine per cent of compounds in food were added through this loophole.”
Ella Scott