Who needs 164 pages of nutrition mumbo jumbo? The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, yesterday told the House Appropriations Committee he will be releasing a four-page document that sounds a lot like U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies. He says it will be done by August:
“We have until January, but we’re going to do it – I think we’ll have it done even before August.
“We’re going to have four-page dietary guidelines that tell people essentially, eat whole food, eat the food that’s good for you.”
Nutrition is drop dead simple, it turns out.
The last Trump administration published guidelines in 2020 that were 164 pages long.
TLDR. Wasted words.
An Incomprehensible Scientific Report
Kennedy has been quite clear that he regards the Scientific Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee as incomprehensible. He told reporters last month:
“There’s a 453-page document that looks like it was written by the food processing industry. We are going to come up with a document that is simple, that lets people know with great clarity what kind of foods their children need to eat, what kind of foods they can eat, and what’s good for them, what’s good nutrition.”
Nope. That scientific gobbledygook will not influence this round of the dietary guidelines. He is already dispensing MAHA nutrition advice, promoting french fries made with beef fat.
Maybe He’s on the Right Track
Perhaps the concept of U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies will be a smashing success. After all, The For Dummies series is incredibly popular and has become a global phenomenon. With over 2,000 titles and over 250 million copies sold since the first book in 1991, it has generated billions of dollars in revenue. This might be just what we need to Make America Healthy Again.
Or not. We note that Nutrition for Dummies is a 432-page tome. Four pages doesn’t cover it. Not even for dummies.
Click here and here for more on RFK Jr’s testimony, here, here, and here for further perspective.
Protein Pretzels, photograph by Ted Kyle / ConscienHealth
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May 15, 2025 at 7:14 am, Mary-Jo said:
When will RFKjr start talking about the power of leeches and blood-letting to treat diseases?
I’m old enough to remember the days when patients were given a one-page handout by their doctor of the special diet they needed to follow to help with: weight loss, diabetes, hypertension, ulcers (who remembers the Sippy Diet!?) and other gi disorders, kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease, cancer, etc., etc. This ‘ground-breaking initiative’ of a 4-page dietary guidelines sounds like the public-health version of a handout — unread, unheeded, unheard of ever again.
How did we get here?! Smh