US to urge Americans to cut down on added sugars in new diet guidelines

The Trump administration is expected to advise Americans to pare back their sugar consumption under new Dietary Guidelines, urging people to eat no more than 10 grams of added sugars per meal, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The latest edition of the federal Dietary Guidelines, slated to be officially unveiled later this week, are expected to urge people, especially children, to avoid added sugars, which are those that don’t occur naturally in foods like fruit and milk. They are also expected to tell Americans to shun highly processed foods, the mainstay of the US food industry.

The recommendations largely reflect the worldview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has called sugar “poison” and said ultra-processed food played a major role in expanding chronic diseases in the US. The guidelines are updated roughly every five years by the Health and Human Services and Agriculture departments.

The new recommendations are expected to keep in place the overall limit of no more than 10% of calories from added sugars for those over two years old.

While few Americans hew exactly to the federal guidelines, the updated advice could accelerate consumers’ shift away from packaged food, a trend already underway. Consumers who are trying to limit added sugars to no more than 10 grams per meal would have to avoid many sweetened cereals and full-sugar sodas. A 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of sugar.

Shares of some food and beverage companies, including General Mills Inc, Kraft Heinz Co, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, fell on the news, even as US stocks closed at a new record.

The revamped Dietary Guidelines may also increase the amount of protein Americans are advised to consume daily, above the current recommended daily allowance of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. However, they are likely to keep in place the current limit on saturated fat, despite top health officials’ public comments that it has been unfairly demonised.

The White House, HHS and USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saturated fats

Changing the current guidance to get no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat would have put the administration at odds with much of the established nutrition guidance, which has largely linked diets higher in saturated fat with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Saturated fats are found in animal-based foods, including all kinds of meat and full-fat dairy products, as well as some baked and fried foods.

FoodFix first reported some elements expected of the new guidelines around protein, saturated fat and added sugars.

The dietary guidelines, which were last updated in December 2020, shape what nearly 30 million children eat in school and influence what millions more consume through federal nutrition programs. They also are a foundation for the advice that doctors and dietitians dole out to patients, though most Americans fall short of the standard.

Kennedy and other officials have been clear they planned to target highly processed foods, which are typically made with industrial ingredients, including preservatives, sweeteners and artificial ingredients not usually found in the average kitchen.

In July, the US Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department started the process of crafting a definition for what constitutes ultra-processed food, though Kennedy told Bloomberg News that the government may never settle on a single definition.

Curbing consumption of ultra-processed food is expected to be a challenge for schools, which are required to align their meals with the dietary guidelines.

“There are so many schools that don’t have the infrastructure, the equipment or the staff to be able to scratch-prepare all their meals,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Association, which represents school meal providers. The group is asking Congress to direct more funds to school meal programs to help them expand cooking from scratch.

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