(NEW YORK) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said she wants to “get Americans away from the highly processed packaged foods,” saying those foods are driving the obesity epidemic in America, following the release on Wednesday of new federal dietary guidelines.
“This is a whole flipping of the narrative,” Rollins said in an exclusive interview on “Good Morning America” that aired on Thursday. “It’s a flipping of what we’ve known over the last couple of decades.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the new federal dietary guidelines on Wednesday, encouraging Americans to limit highly processed food and reduce refined carbohydrates.
The new recommendations essentially turn the old food pyramid upside down, encouraging Americans to eat whole foods like fruits and vegetables, to incorporate healthy fats, to prioritize protein-rich meals including red meat and to consume full-fat dairy and whole grains with no added sugars.
“Today was a reset of all of that in these dietary guidelines focusing on eating real food, nutrient dense foods, saturated fat, meats, fruits and vegetables, whole milk, all of that now becomes front and center,” said Rollins. “And that’s real, that’s unprecedented.”
Other recommendations include limiting added sugars and highly processed foods like potato chips or cookies, as well as sweetened beverages like energy drinks, soda, and diet sodas due to their artificial sweeteners.
The guidance puts a new focus on what the administration is calling “healthy fats,” such as full-fat dairy like yogurt and cheese, and using olive oil, beef tallow or butter as a cooking oil, a recommendation that Kennedy Jr. has championed This is in contrast to the American Heart Association recommendation to “limit high-fat animal products including red meat, butter, lard and tallow, which are linked to increased cardiovascular risk.”
“Our goal is to get Americans away from the highly processed packaged foods, which is the driver in the obesity epidemic that’s facing our country right now,” Rollins told “GMA” on Thursday.
Some of these choices, however, could be costly for many Americans as they face rising grocery prices, including ground beef, which has risen 16% over the past year, according to officials.
“This is just about a general awareness amongst America on what is healthy and what we should be eating,” Rollins continued.
The guidelines also say Americans should “limit alcoholic beverages.” Previously, the dietary guidelines said adults ages 21 and over should stick to two drinks or fewer per day for men and one drink or fewer per day for women.
“The recommendation is just minimize, minimize, minimize, minimize,” Rollins said. “We’re not saying everyone should stop eating sugar and stop drinking anything. That’s not it. It’s just working to trend away from where we’ve gotten to in the last couple decades.”
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are updated every five years, come as Kennedy has made nutrition policy a cornerstone of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“Let’s focus on these good, nutritious foods,” Rollins said. “This will change everything.”
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