Among the problems the shutdown of the federal government is causing is a delay in the publication of new dietary guidelines designed to keep the public safe and healthy.
The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services had said they would publish the guidelines by the end of September, which marked the end of the federal fiscal year. When that deadline was missed, the departments said they would have the guidelines ready by the end of October.
Now the guidelines are expected sometime in December, according to Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has touted the revamp, which is required by federal law to happen every five years, as an opportunity to change eating habits and bring government guidelines into line with his personal Make America Health Again (MAHA) agenda.
The guidelines carry far-reaching implications for school meals and an array of federal nutrition programs. The guidelines also impact what doctors recommend to patients and what can be purchased on food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The USDA and HHS have already spent much of the year working on the new guidelines. Although many Americans may not read the guide, which currently runs 164 pages.
Criticizing the current dietary recommendations, Kennedy has blamed poor diet for driving many of the nation’s biggest health challenges. He’s promised vastly simplified guidelines that put fresh emphasis on whole foods — including consuming more saturated fats from meat and dairy products
“There’s a tremendous amount of emerging science that talks about the need for protein in our diet and more fats in our diet,” Kennedy said during a July event with representatives from the ice cream industry.
Kennedy’s promise to drastically reshape the guidelines could put billions of dollars in yearly spending at stake, spurring intense speculation and lobbying across the food industry, where every change can have significant financial consequences.
The promotion of more saturated fats would represent a particularly sharp departure from the current recommendations, which have advised seeking out fat-free or low-fat dairy foods and limiting saturated fats to 10 percent of a person’s daily diet, primarily because of safety concerns about the heart and cardiovascular health.
The potential changes have alarmed some nutrition experts, who argue that there are significant and well-established links between consuming red meat and risks to heart health. The recommendation to limit saturated fat is one of the longest-standing recommendations in the federal dietary guidelines, according to nonprofit nutritional health advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
But Kennedy and MAHA advocates have dismissed those concerns, rejecting the current scientific consensus as flawed and unduly influenced by corporate interests. Kennedy has been getting advice from the food sector on how to rewrite the guidelines.
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