The New USDA Food Pyramid: What Changed and What Didn’t?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: We have been super critical of the USDA dietary guidelines in the past. But whenever the newest guidelines came out for 2025 to 2030, we wanted to take time, slow down and actually read. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Them, not react to headlines, not rage about the past, but actually look at what changed, what didn't. And what do we all need to do with these new guidelines? [00:00:25] Speaker A: Well, the good news to me is, is they're really short. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah. They're back to the way they were when they first came out in 1980. Back to 10 pages. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the, the guidelines that this is replacing was, I think you said, about 160 pages long. [00:00:45] Speaker B: 165. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Nobody's reading that, you know, nobody. And in my hand here, I have the current guidelines that are very readable. And we just want to take a minute and let, let's go over what they did. What did they do? [00:01:02] Speaker B: Well, we want to start by just looking at what changed. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:05] Speaker B: And we're going to pick a couple of things. By the time we wrap this up, we'll give you some key takeaways that you can, that you can take home with you. But first off, I think the most important thing and made you smile. Made me smile. The most important thing that they changed in these dietary guidelines is real food. [00:01:27] Speaker A: They did, they, they put that, I mean, like almost in bold. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Was eat real food. And for most of you who have been watching us for a long time, y' all know that we, that's what we do. We do real food. I tell my kids all the time, what do I say to them? I say, if it is what it always was, it's probably okay to e. And this 10 page document supports that. And I was it, it did make me smile. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah. In the guidelines, they even highlight that the United States is in crisis from diet related chronic diseases. And specifically they say that 90% of all health care spending is spent on treating diet related chronic disease. [00:02:21] Speaker A: That is incredible. Whenever you're talking about trillions of dollars being spent on health care and it's really related to our food. So what that says is maybe this is going to make a positive step. Maybe it's going to make a positive step forward in our really, really high health care costs as well. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And with the, with the focus on real food was also the maybe focus against avoidant avoidance. They use the word avoid for highly processed foods. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah. The things that come in packages, the things that have been broken down, refined. [00:03:09] Speaker B: They specifically say refined carbohydrates, added sugars, can. Chemical dyes, petroleum based products. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah. They were, and they were very specific. And that was really encouraging to, to me specifically reinforcing the, the narrative or the framework to eat real food. And we know Americans that we're sitting in drive throughs, we're getting packaged foods pre cooked. The, you know, the TV dinner grew up basically, and it turned into everything comes out of a pac. Convenience, convenience. But we, we really need to. And they even actually kind of addressed it in here about getting, getting back in our kitchens. There's a portion of it in here. I don't know if you, if it struck your, you know, sensors or whatever where it's talking. They're talking about the adolescence and get your kids in the kitchen and teach them that making food can be fun. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:14] Speaker A: And I, that was really encouraging. Maybe next we could work on getting home EC back in school. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:20] Speaker A: You know, so that we can, you know, while they're at school, we could add to some of the things they're learning at home. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So this focus on eat real food, avoid highly processed food is real progress. Like, real progress. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Big step forward. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:38] Speaker A: We did what we, we. I think we should cover another big step forward in the. Before we move on to the next thing in the past podcast where we talked about the food pyramid and, and it looks like this. And all the grains were at the bottom. 11 servings of grains a day, which was ridiculous. And we kept saying, you turn that thing upside down and what's on the top needs. What. What's on the top of the little point needs to be the base. Yeah. Right. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Well, guess what they did. [00:05:12] Speaker B: They flipped it. [00:05:12] Speaker A: They actually flipped the thing over. They've turned it upside down. That's literally the graphic image they're using. And I couldn't be happier. Yeah, I think it's great. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yep. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Because that's what so many people have been saying. Flip it upside down, then we can move forward, make some progress. [00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And that is the second thing we wanted to say. The second change is protein is emphasized. So protein used to be at the very tip top. I mean, the very tip top was fats. And it basically just said avoid it. But protein was right there. And now with the pyramid flipped upside down, proteins and vegetables, you know, vegetables and that. That provides the, the widest part of the pyramid. And the, even the language inside the document really focuses on protein. [00:06:07] Speaker A: There was a hit job on red meat and proteins in this country over the past some 20, 30, 40 years. And you know, the, it shows because we have all been eating what they told us to eat. Thus the chronic disease. And now this is how liberating for the ranchers and the dairy farmers and the chicken ranchers. And you know, I said that on purpose. And the, the, yes, our products are good. We're farming good food and it's been demonized for so many years that people don't want to eat it or they're worse, they're afraid to eat it. And now they've. This document coming out of the USDA just liberated it. Eat protein. And not just a little bit of protein, you're saying? [00:07:05] Speaker B: No, they, in the document they listed as grams per kilogram body weight, yada, yada, blah, whatever. For me, at 160 pounds, what that means is, according to the guidelines, about 100 grams of protein a day. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Okay. But most of us aren't looking at what, how many grams of protein are in something that we would usually eat. So use something that we all usually eat and give us some examples of how much I need to eat and how much I'm getting from that. [00:07:41] Speaker B: An egg is 6 grams. [00:07:43] Speaker A: So you just said you need about a hundred. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:45] Speaker A: Is that what you said? [00:07:46] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:48] Speaker A: And one egg is six grams. Okay. We're gonna have to hunt harder. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Right. A 12 ounce rib eye. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Which a lot of, especially people that eat the way that we do. A ketogenic or low carb ribeye is often high on the list. Right. A 12 ounce rib eye is 81 grams of protein. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Okay, well that, I mean, that would do. That's good. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Okay. So a ribeye with a couple eggs on top. Boom. [00:08:14] Speaker B: There you go. You've gotten, you know, a few eggs and you're at your daily protein recommended protein. And we, we talk often about ground beef. So that's the other thing that I really looked at. A, a half pound, eight ounces of like a 70, 30, which is a really cheap ground beef that gives you about 25 grams of protein or grass fed. Like what we carry in the store, in our store is about 45 grams of protein. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Okay. So. Wow. Okay. [00:08:48] Speaker B: You know, a 12 ounce rib eye, a full pound of ground beef, throw in some eggs. Right. You know. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's really not hard to get there, but it's unconventional. It's not what we're all used to. Because we're not used to. They just toss me a pound of ground beef. But we do it. We have done it and we'll continue. And now supported by this document. [00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll, we'll touch on. There's a caveat. [00:09:18] Speaker A: There's always a Caveat. [00:09:19] Speaker B: There's a caveat with the ribeyes and the ground beef. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:22] Speaker B: And we'll. We'll get to that here in the next section. [00:09:25] Speaker A: Well, and protein, they recommended at every meal. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Y. [00:09:29] Speaker A: The old way was like three servings. [00:09:33] Speaker B: A day, two to three. [00:09:34] Speaker A: It was very, very minimal. And now they're saying real food protein forward. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:43] Speaker A: That they turned it. They turned it on its head. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Totally aligns with what we've been saying for years. [00:09:49] Speaker A: A thousand percent, I think. Couldn't be happier. [00:09:51] Speaker B: That is another good change. And then the last one that we really want to highlight is they called out highly processed foods. Yes, they called out. They didn't. At least in my reading. I didn't catch it. They didn't call them ultra processed foods. [00:10:06] Speaker A: They called them highly processed. [00:10:08] Speaker B: They called them highly processed. And they didn't actually define ultra processed foods. I know that they're wanting to get there, but they didn't do that in this document. [00:10:19] Speaker A: I think that we all. I think a lot of us know whenever we pick up the box or the crumply package or whatever, we know when that has been highly processed. We know cereal coming at you. You know, we know that is a processed food. And it's highly processed because there it is in no form, not even close. A puff, a pop, a pebble. Those things are not. There's. They don't grow anywhere. And so I think we all know. So we can, we can use. We can all go with highly processed. Yeah, that. Because minimally processed, that's like, you know, you. If you pound out some chicken or grind it, it's now minimally processed. So I, I think their verbiage was. [00:11:17] Speaker B: Okay, they did actually call out sugar sweetened beverages as one of the things. [00:11:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Added sugar in general. They called out. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Yep. [00:11:25] Speaker A: And it should not have. Especially for kids. You should not. You really shouldn't consume especially the sugar sweetened beverages. But foods that have the added sugar. And they really put limits on that and called it out. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah, they did. So again, a definite, real step forward. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:43] Speaker B: All right, so section two, what did not change with the new guidelines? [00:11:49] Speaker A: Here's. Here's where we get a little. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Here's our caveat. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Here's our caveat. Or. Or our feathers ruffled a bit. Yeah, because there's. Because if you start doing the math, there's a little bit of contradiction in this one. They did. They put a limit on saturated fat. [00:12:08] Speaker B: And they, they didn't use direct language. It was more of a should not, you know, kind of. They Tried to soften it a bit, but they're still saying that you should limit saturated fat to 10% of your daily calories. And if you start really sitting down and doing the math behind, you know, animal protein forward, real food and limiting to 10% saturated fat, those things are incongruent. They do not equal. Right. Like it, the, the 12 ounce rib eye plus a half a pound of, you know, ground beef, you've just way exceeded that 10% saturated fat. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And. Well, and they're saying whole, whole, whole fat dairy. So if you go whole fat and protein forward, real food. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Even the eggs. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Even the eggs. The, the two don't mix. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:16] Speaker A: At all. Like at all. And so there's a. What are they going to do in the system? Because these dietary guidelines are for us to kind of understand what they say we should eat. But really what these do is these are the guy. This is the guidance for any federally funded pro food programs. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:43] Speaker A: So school lunches, hospitals, military mess halls, or defects where our troops eat. Which this is awesome. They need the protein. They need to stop eating pancakes. But it, it, how do, how are they going to put protein forward for these individuals that eat this food and keep their fat low saturated fat? [00:14:13] Speaker B: So the, the way that you get there is you, even though they talked about red meat and stuff, you would still have to limit that or make your portion size small. You're going to get your protein from things like the things that they've talked about in the past, which is, you know, boneless, skinless chicken breast, beans, lentils, soy. There's no mention at all of seed oils, and your seed oils are unsaturated. So the way you can get to the calories without the saturated fat and the protein is by vegetable proteins or very low fat animal protein. And then you can throw in your seed oils. [00:15:05] Speaker A: So they put real food, they, they really, really pushed the narrative on putting real food forward. But whenever they limited the, the saturated fat, it rained it back in. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Because in what form are these kids going to eat lentils? [00:15:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:26] Speaker A: In what form are they going to eat soy or whatever other concoction are they gonna serve to these kids? [00:15:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:39] Speaker A: Do you remember when we were kids and we were in school, we both went public school. Do you remember when one day the hamburger wasn't the same? [00:15:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And we're like, I really didn't eat school. [00:15:55] Speaker A: I did because I brought my lunch sometimes, but I did because I didn't mind. I mean, it's food and I'm, I'm the kid that likes like hospital food. I don't care. Cafeteria food's fine with me. You know, it used to be I don't want to eat it anymore, but I didn't care. [00:16:11] Speaker B: I needed my ham sandwich on white bread with ketchup. Right. [00:16:15] Speaker A: You are nasty. But anyway, ketchup on a ham sandwich, y' all tell me, leave it in the comments. Tell me how gross that is. [00:16:23] Speaker B: I don't do that anymore. I don't eat sandwiches anymore. [00:16:25] Speaker A: No, you don't eat them. But isn't that gross? Anyway, the, the, the point is it changed to like a soy burger. Yeah. And it was gross. And is that the, is that the way they're going to up these kids protein is by continuing that pattern? Yeah. [00:16:45] Speaker B: So I think the next thing. And again, this one is a big deal to me. And I, I was really excited when they mentioned low carb and I feel like they totally missed the opportunity here. Like there was such a great opportunity and it was just wasted. The opportunity was wasted, in my opinion. [00:17:08] Speaker A: So what do you, what, what would you, how would you rather them have worded it? How, what did, what did they say? Let, let's, let's go to what, what they said, what they specifically said, and then what you wish they had added. [00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah, what they said was they, they said low carb may be effective for some chronic disease. [00:17:32] Speaker A: Effective at what? [00:17:33] Speaker B: Improving the outcomes for individuals. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Okay. I think they did mention insulin resistance in that, that it could help with that. They, they identified it a little bit. They mentioned kind of muddy, but they did mention it. [00:17:48] Speaker B: So the, the thing about it is they, they called out things like 1 in 3 children have prediabetes. 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. 90% of health care costs are, are associated with treating diet related chronic disease. Like, they called out all of those things. What they failed to mention for me is, and a low carb diet would take care of all of that. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Can I be the, the devil's advocate for a second? Which is not normally my role. Maybe their thought is if we go back in time a little bit and we, we look at what people were eating before we were chronically ill, they were eating real food. And maybe they think instead of saying low carb to these kids or these adolescents or young people or, or even midlifers, if we, if we just make the switch, increase your protein, eat real food, get rid of the highly processed foods, if we make those changes, we will see positive results. And we don't have to be dramatic in saying, I'm On a low carb diet. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Yep. And I believe, like, I believe that you're right and in, in time. Yes. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it will take time. [00:19:23] Speaker B: So like, if we were not dealing with the healthcare crisis that we're in right now, I think that this kind of shift, the way that it is worded in here is awesome. But because we're in a crisis where we are spending trillions, literally trillions of dollars on diet related chronic disease, simply saying low carb might be effective at making you feel better. I believe is where they missed the mark. Where they could, they could have said like, look at, there is science behind this. Right, right. Like prevention, reversal. Some people even are talking about curing. Like, you know, there are so many stronger words that could have been used here to not just you know, sort of slowly turn the aircraft carrier. Well, more of a, you know, a fighter break turn, you know, like. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, and I was, I was, I was really there with you and I, and I still am. But again, on the positive side, I don't know why I'm so positive today, but I think I read the guidelines. When I read the guidelines, I was kind of like. And then I really read them and I'm like, they tried here. I feel like they really tried for bureaucracy. I, I think they pretty, they did really well. Because what does the. Mentioning low carb is. Okay, could be helpful. What door did that open up? [00:21:08] Speaker B: It makes it a, it makes it. [00:21:09] Speaker A: An option if I'm in the hospital. [00:21:13] Speaker B: Because they qualified it with no specifics. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. They should, they could, they, they needed to be more specific. [00:21:22] Speaker B: Sure. [00:21:22] Speaker A: But there should be a low carb option in hospitals. [00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:28] Speaker A: And when you have people who are on insulin and they're in the hospital, you should be able to bring them a low carb option like that. Doors open up. [00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:38] Speaker A: For the physicians. [00:21:39] Speaker B: To me, if you are one of the 70% of Americans that are overweight or obese, this should open up a low carb option for you. In schools, in the military, in the hospitals, in the elderly care. Like. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:56] Speaker B: So. So again, point being, 70% of the population, this would help. [00:22:04] Speaker A: Yes. [00:22:05] Speaker B: So. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Yep. They had a good opportunity. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Three quarters. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah, they had a good opportunity. I think that they, that whenever they're, they're making these types of documents, there's so much push and pull. There's so many people sitting in those meetings. Ever been in a meeting with, you know, like, I say that in jest, of course, but knowing the, the row they had to hoe in order to be able to do what they've done in the amount of time. I, I'm, I actually give them some props for getting some things in there that opens the door to allow for more movement. Because you, I was going to say it a while ago, you were talking about turning the aircraft carrier, but we are talking about the government. It takes a really long time to make changes. And so I. This, this is, this is a giant leap. I mean, they turned it on its head. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So what are we doing section three? What are we doing with this information? [00:23:18] Speaker A: What are you doing with this information? [00:23:21] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to say we agree with it. [00:23:23] Speaker A: Yes, we do. [00:23:24] Speaker B: I think we do strongly agree. We strongly agree with the real food emphasis. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:29] Speaker B: I think that is huge, refreshing, prioritizing protein. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:35] Speaker B: We are right there. We've been, we've been there. We're still there. We're going to keep being there. [00:23:39] Speaker A: And emphasis on eliminating ultra processed foods. We are there. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Yep. We eat this way. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Yes, we do. [00:23:48] Speaker B: So, like, it feels almost like finally. [00:23:51] Speaker A: Yay, we can shut up now. Well, maybe not. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. No. Maybe we could still be there to encourage people to, you know. [00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker A: This now has this give. This gives a little bit of street cred. [00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:08] Speaker A: To the people who have been like beating the drum. [00:24:12] Speaker B: So we will continue to eat animal proteins, full fat dairy. [00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Animal protein. [00:24:23] Speaker B: We're going to avoid the carbs. We're going to avoid the highly processed foods like the things that we've been doing. We will continue to do section four. What are we ignoring? [00:24:36] Speaker A: That little bit, that little bit there, that was about the saturated fat, that 10% part probably going to just say no. You know, to be honest, we haven't followed guidelines for a long time. In 2019, we stopped eating the standard American diet, which is what those food guidelines created. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:00] Speaker A: And we stopped eating the standard American diet. When we did, we pretty much started eating like this. And initially we were at, we were keto. We were ketogenic, high fat, moderate protein, low, low, low carbs. So we've been practicing this for a while and we probably aren't going to listen to that part of this document. [00:25:24] Speaker B: No. The, the restriction from a percent calories perspective on saturated fat, totally ignore it. We haven't thought about it and we're not going to think about it. So, like that part of it now, Tossing it out. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Any kind of discomfort with animal fats that's associated with that. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Tossing it out. Yeah. That part will be ignored also. Yeah. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Big fan of butter. [00:25:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know, I think the. The. Our experience, like, for the past. We're at just shy of seven years now. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Of not eating the standard American diet. Of eating a diet that is way more in line with these new dietary guidelines. All of our blood work, all of our data that we have from seven years tells us. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever. We walk into a new doctor's office and they say, what are you on? How many medicines are you on? Because we're in our 50s. They expect. Here's the list. And we're not on any. And they're like, you're not on any. No, we're not on any. [00:26:37] Speaker B: I take some because of Crohn's disease. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Yeah. But that's. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Which I think is associated with some military stuff. [00:26:44] Speaker A: But not. We do not take metabolic, chronic disease because of dietary whatevers. Anything. No blood pressure medicine. No. Cholesterol, whatever. Like, none of the things. No. No metformin. None of those types of things that a lot of people are taking. And so it's just proof positive. Whenever you hit almost 53 and you're not on anything, your body's kind of working pretty well at this point. That. That's proof positive. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:16] Speaker A: That the changes that we've made are working. Living the experience of what this document says. Is it. It's good. We highly recommend it. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So, last section. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Big takeaways. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:32] Speaker B: What are we saying? Big picture wise for me again, all the way back to the beginning. Finally, there's a focus on Eat real food. Yep. Big takeaway. Like, I think if. If you forgot everything else that we've said. Yep. The. The key focus of the Dietary guidelines, Eat real food. [00:27:53] Speaker A: If it is what it always was, it's probably okay. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Secondary to that, I think admitting that processed food is a problem. Big change. [00:28:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:05] Speaker B: And big change. Really important change. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Ultimately, this document is way better than what we've had. But what it does is it shows just how hard it is for large institutions to let go of old ideas and to turn that big ship. [00:28:23] Speaker B: Real food is the foundation, but real health still takes personal responsibility and. And really caring for yourself. And even if that means going further than the guidelines are willing to go. [00:28:40] Speaker A: Absolutely.