alt Hacker NewsEat Real Food
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If you’d like a less condensed version of this, I highly recommend reading “In Defense of Food” by Pollan. It covers all the changes in nutritional science and food packaging that have led to the poisoning of the populace by the food industry, and it lays out a set of rules for what to eat and how to eat it in more detail.
Way too much scroll jacking for me to be honest, probably the worst site I’ve seen of their team, but still for government site not bad
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has put out a statement in response: https://www.eatrightpro.org/about-us/who-we-are/public-state...
I really don't like web site designs that take control of things like my mouse wheel. This site isn't just scrolling down, it's advancing the presentation which in most places is moving down.
I couldn't finish scrolling to the bottom of this site. The performance is awful and all of the animations are extremely jarring.
Nutrition is important, but this administration's health policy under RFK Jr. is an unmitigated disaster.
"Eat real food" yet they seem to roll back regulation including but not limited to food safety?
My impression is that most nutritional research is just p-hacking on extremely noisy data. The only consistent outcome is that eating too much for an extended period of time is extremely unhealthy, regardless of what you are eating. Unfortunately, this runs contrary to the "more is better" mentality of US consumers who throw a hissy fit if food portions are not gigantic.
Instead of more meat, eat more eggs. Eggs are as good a protein source as meat, down to the same amino acid groups (unlike other protein sources, like plant-based). People used to worry about cholesterol but that has pretty much been put to rest by now.
I dunno about this. The problem mainly affects low-income families and residents of food deserts, and now the government is trying to put everyone on a keto diet. It just seems like they're not fixing the problems where they happen.
I'd almost pay attention to the message, but Kennedy has no credibility with me. Giving up 90% of animal protein has made me leaner with vastly lower cholesterol.
This is straight up the best US government campaign website I’ve seen. Kudos to whoever made this!
It's interesting to see the commentary on processed meat and inverting the pyramid. T
It feels a bit Orwellian in some way - Oceania is always the enemy, Saturated fat was never the enemy.
Meat is ok, I try and consume fish and chicken with the odd bit of beef, but the amount of chemicals that goes into processed meat like sliced ham would make a chemist blush.
I wrote a light hearted blog piece just before the new year on giving up processed meat if anyone is interested:
https://tomaytotomato.com/no-ham-anuary/
Also mandatory South Park clip:
The big issue I have with this is no kale or oatmeal in the pyramid image. And rice seems to get a bad rank too. How many fat Asians do you see? People diss oatmeal (lames, tbh) cause of “leaky gut” but is that even a real thing? There’s also glyphosates but quaker is nongmo according to the label. Anyway, I see “leaky gut” and I think quack. The pyramid should have more kale, truly.
I love how this is still quite far off from the Harvard Food Pyramid..
But why use one of your best resources for research..
https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-eating-pyra...
Credit where credit is due, going back to whole-foods and single-ingredient foods is the correct decision for everyone, and is often cheaper. But you can tell it's with a heavy focus on meatpacking, and it's known there's heavy lobbying going on.
Is that a bad thing? I'd rather people eat single ingredient foods and foods without labels (fruit, veg) than neon green cereals. I guess my point here is that it's a little sad the 'right' outcome was as a result of heavy lobbying.
The correct order should have been greens > proteins > carbs for an overweight nation.
I liked the new guidelines given here [1]. However, I disagree with the protein target recommendation. Feels way too much for a normal healthy adult with reasonable activity.
> Protein target: 1.2–1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
It's fascinating that my new gut reaction to the combination of "health" and ".gov" is now deeply negative.
That was not the case a decade ago.
I really don't see how this is so different than what nutritionists have said for years. This reads as if the guans before was to drink soda and eat fat free candy all day. The three sentence dietary guidance still holds:
1. Eat food 2. Not too much 3. Mostly plants
Though the government's position seems to be at odds with #3. I would encourage more beans and greens, personally.
What was that animation? It looked like 3 stock images coming together briefly, then flying off again, then the page scrolling.
Regardless, there's nothing here (aside from the odd scrolling layout of the page itself) I can disagree with. I'm already following this "diet" in the most part anyway, and that's without consciously thinking that much about it.
The accessbility of this website is deplorable. There is no way anyone responsible for this website has our best interests in mind
I question the premise. Why would you ask a government what's healthy to eat? That's a question for your doctor, your community, or medical institutions and universities, people who study that kind of thing.
In a way, "eat real food" functions less as scientific advice and more as a cultural signal. It could be seen as a rejection of industrialized diets and all the complexities around that. The idea of "Eat Real Food" might be a better default when you are hungry and looking for food. I guess time will tell.
There's some inconsistency between the pyramid graphic and the written guideline. For example whole grains are moved to the tip of the pyramid. But the written guidelines say 2-4 servings a day.
Kellanova, formerly known as the Kellogg Company, got the message and are now making Pop-Tarts with extra protein ;)
https://www.poptarts.com/en_US/products/new/pop-tarts-protei...
Good God! There's too much scrolling involved. Is this some cunning way to make me exercise?
Sounds like big government getting into people's lives to me.
Snark aside, american food culture is geared towards people working hard manual jobs, rather than desk work. It was fine in the 70/80/90s when people were still doing that kind of job, but times have changed. If you're burning 2k calories at work, you need a high calorie, high salt meal to replenish what you burnt/sweat out.
I would also gently point out that a "balanced" meal is generally better than a protein heavy meal. It also is highly dependent on your genetic makeup. I am much less sensitive to carbs compared to my Indian friend, My family also doesn't have a history of type 2/1 diabetes.
I'm also not sure how this is going to be balanced with farm subsidies.
What I am missing in this pyramid are brain worms. Brain worms are real food! Don't fall for the ultra-processed glue sniffing practice all scientists wrongly had been recommending you. Have a proudly american-made brain worm instead.
> For decades we've been misled by guidance that prioritized highly processed food, and are now facing rates of unprecedented chronic disease.
Is this true ? I don't think the blame is to place on the previous guidance but people just you know food engineering and natural laziness, no ?
Think it's telling that all the things shown first and most prominently in their food pyramid just so happen to have massive lobbies. Beef, Egg, Diary & chicken.
Doesn't seem terrible but that already makes me very suspicious of the reliability of this
Hijacking the scroll wheel, even in 2025, is still unbelievably annoying. Please stop.
Coffee might be bitter and unpleasant at first, but like vegetables, you'll get used to it over time. Don't just seek out what suits your taste. You can't live like an elementary school student, right? Why not try eating vegetables first before judging what's good or bad? I'm not advocating vegetarianism, though.
Carnivore diet from 2022-2024 and now carnivore by day, keto at the dinner table I can't begin to list the health problems that completely disappeared or went into remission for me. Lapse and I'm a ball of misery for three days. Happy to have gone to carni/keto, wish I'd done that twenty years ago. The best time to enjoy my health would have been 20 years ago, the next best time is now. Glad to see this.
The most important dietary intervention most people need is just eating less. The content of what they eat is secondary. It's not unimportant, it just matters less when you are still wildly overweight.
Go vegan <3
Seems like bog-standard stuff doctors and books have been recommending for decades now. Canada has had a food plate like this [1] for a long time. It's a good step forward but I wonder what the actual implications are. How many people didn't already know this, how much does it change behavior and how will it impact other government programs?
All the deep state stuff aside, I switched to 100% unprocessed meals for a month sometime ago after finding out I was becoming insulin resistant.
It worked I feel better and a few other things... My eye sight improved and my beard, leg and arm hair increased, noticeably.
Eric Topol is a better scientist than you favorite wellness expert. Here he talks about protein: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/our-preoccupation-with-prot...
Did anyone notice that if you hold right or left arrow button in the last section you can see rfk jr image appearing
Anyone know how I can contact https://ndstudio.gov/ ? their talent form is broken
This is the only good idea that has or probably will come out of this administration, and it’s still flawed:
- Despite folic acid in processed foods causing ADD and other problems in those with MTHFR mutations like me, folic acid does help prevent birth defects.
- The U.S. doesn’t produce, transport, or store sufficient quantities of organic fresh food to feed the entire country, nor would schools all have access to it.
Yea! Fat and red meat are back in style! And not a smidgen of talk about moderation! Woo-hoo!
This guy is my hero:https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/01/florida-man-eats-diet...
Are these protein guidelines legit? I’m 200lbs (I’m tall) so they’re recommending 100-150g of protein per day. That feels like a lot…
According to https://cdn.realfood.gov/Daily%20Serving%20Sizes.pdf, their recommendations do not meet their calories goal. Eg, for 2000 calories, you can eat 4 egg, 3 cup of milk, 4 slice of bread, 2 apple and 3 tbsp of oil per day.
Total calories will be 1,608 kcal/day.
It's a very depressing diet menu.
Why would I trust these recommendations? Much higher quality dietary information is available from much more trustworthy sources than the US government du jour.
Half the pyramid is dairy+meat, that's a pass for me. I do not eat those and my yearly health checks are as boring as a tax seminar on a Friday afternoon.
I always wish they would include a sample menu for one week that hits the daily recommended dose for every vitamin, mineral, fat, etc... without going over some calorie limit.