Balanced's Position on the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans
- Christopher Hendrickson
- Jan 20
- 5 min read
Turning nutrition guidance into nutrition security—starting with school food environments.
Executive summary
The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) present a simple headline—“eat real food”—paired with a call to dramatically reduce highly processed foods. We support the intent to improve health outcomes and reduce diet-driven chronic disease. But we are concerned the guidelines lean too heavily on personal responsibility framing, omit or misrepresent evidence-based nutrition science, and offer limited clarity on implementation in real-world food environments, especially for communities facing barriers to affordable, culturally inclusive, convenient, and nourishing options.
Balanced’s position is straightforward:
Nutrition guidance must be paired with systems change and practical solutions. The guidelines call on educators and community leaders to act, but without aligned policy, funding, and procurement support, “eat real food” risks becoming a message that’s easy to say and hard to live.
Fiber should be a lead actor, not a footnote. The DGAs reference high-fiber foods in the context of gut health and encourage “fiber-rich whole grains,” but the public-facing emphasis still fails to clearly teach where fiber comes from at scale, specifically from legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
Plant proteins are the practical and necessary bridge. The DGAs encourage a variety of plant-sourced protein foods—beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and soy. Balanced will consistently elevate these foods because they deliver protein + fiber together and support heart-healthy patterns that can be implemented in institutions.
Balanced will use this five-year DGA cycle to do what we do best: translate nutrition science into real-world, equity-centered change in school meals and other institutional food environments.
What the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans say—and what they signal
The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines describe themselves as a major reset, with a clear slogan: “eat real food.” They urge Americans to prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods like protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains alongside a “dramatic reduction” in highly processed foods.
They also explicitly call on a broad set of stakeholders, including educators and community leaders, to support implementation. That matters because schools and institutions are where millions of people eat every day and where food environments shape food choice.
Where Balanced aligns with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
Balanced agrees with several key directions in the DGAs:
Reduce highly processed foods and added sugars
The guidelines explicitly target highly processed foods and added sugars and discourage sugar-sweetened beverages. It is known that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorders, and mortality outcomes.
Balanced supports this emphasis, especially when paired with practical alternatives that work in school and community settings.
Prioritize whole foods, fruits, and vegetables, including canned and frozen
The DGAs encourage a variety of vegetables and fruits and note that frozen, dried, or canned options with minimal added sugars can be good choices. That flexibility is important for affordability and access, especially in educational institutions, where access to these foods in bulk can deeply impact cost and availability.
Support hydration and normalize water
Balanced welcomes the clear hydration language: “Hydration is a key factor in overall health. Choose water… and unsweetened beverages.” Water-forward guidance is a meaningful public health signal, especially for kids.
Recognize gut health and the role of fiber
The guidelines explicitly connect gut health to vegetables, fruits, fermented foods, and high-fiber foods. This aligns with Balanced’s long-standing focus on fiber as a core lever for health. Increasing fiber consumption is frequently associated with the highest health outcomes.
Balanced’s core concerns with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
“Eat real food” is not a strategy without systems support
“Eat real food” may sound like common sense, but as national guidance, it can become paternalistic if it ignores the realities of:
If we want behavior change at the population scale, we must change the environments where people make food decisions, especially schools.
Fiber is present, but not centered or taught clearly enough
Fiber appears in the guideline’s gut-health framing and whole-grain guidance, but fiber education is still too easily reduced to “whole grains” in the public imagination.
Balanced’s position: fiber isn’t just bread and rice. It’s also beans, lentils, peas, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds — culturally flexible foods, budget-friendly in many forms, and scalable in institutions.
Fiber-rich foods are also the most scalable path to nutrition security in American institutions. Incorporating foods high in fiber at the center of the plate on school lunch trays is the most clear-cut way to reduce the incidence of chronic health conditions by setting children up with healthy eating patterns to carry into adulthood.
Protein guidance risks confusion—and can pull people toward higher saturated fat patterns
The Dietary Guidelines include a numeric protein target: 1.2–1.6 grams/kg/day. For many people, that kind of math-forward guidance is confusing, and in the broader culture, it can amplify “protein-first” messaging that gets translated as “more animal protein.”
At the same time, the DGAs maintain that saturated fat “should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.”
Balanced’s concern is practical: when protein is emphasized without strong guardrails about source, people are nudged toward patterns that can make saturated fat targets harder to meet.
Balanced’s solution is also practical: prioritize plant proteins—which the DGAs include—because they support protein adequacy while also increasing fiber and supporting heart health.
Processed-food “workarounds” can dilute the health message
The DGAs discourage foods with artificial additives and non-nutritive sweeteners but across the food system, industry reformulation often tries to preserve ultra-processed defaults while adding a “health halo” (e.g., added fiber such as psyllium husk, alternative sweeteners).
Balanced will be explicit: our north star is whole-food fiber and minimally processed, institution-friendly ingredients, not just reformulated packaged products.
What Balanced wants to see over this five-year cycle
Balanced believes the next phase of the Dietary Guidelines conversation must shift from slogans to implementation. That means:
Make “eat real food” real through institutions
The Dietary Guidelines call on educators and community leaders. Balanced adds: institutions need procurement pathways like our Plant-Based Vendor Directory, training, culinary support, and sustained funding to serve nourishing, appealing meals consistently.
Center fiber as a public-health priority—clearly and repeatedly
If gut health and chronic disease prevention are priorities, fiber needs to be a headline behavior, not a side note. Balanced will continue pushing for fiber-forward guidance that is food-based, culturally inclusive, and practical for school menus.
Reframe protein as “protein + fiber,” not protein in isolation
While the Dietary Guidelines include plant proteins, they are not presented with the same visual prominence as other protein sources. Balanced will amplify that list and translate it into menu-ready patterns that help schools and families meet goals without driving higher saturated fat intake.
Keep hydration guidance strong—and consistent across schools
Balanced supports the water-forward framing. Up to 55% of children are inadequately hydrated, which negatively impacts educational activities and general health. Hydration is also essential when increasing fiber consumption, so over the coming years, we will continue to promote implementations that make water the easy default in school environments.
Balanced bottom line
The 2025–2030 DGAs put forward an appealing message—“eat real food” —and call on educators to help make it happen. Balanced agrees with the direction, but we will not pretend slogans alone can fix diet-driven disease or food inequity.
Balanced will lead with what’s most actionable, evidence-aligned, and scalable:
Fiber-forward food environments
Prioritize plant proteins as the “protein + fiber” bridge
Water as the default beverage
Implementation support for schools and institutions
Because nutrition guidance only matters if it can be lived, every day, by everyone.
