Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to update and replace Biden-era federal dietary guidelines within the next few months.
During a Tuesday visit to Texas A&M University with Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, Kennedy gave an update on the Trump administration’s plans to overhaul the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a policy document issued every five years that governs the nutrition standards for all federal food programs.
Kennedy said the undertaking will be done by “late summer or early autumn.” The deadline was previously set for Dec. 31, 2025. Rollins is working with Kennedy to “rewrite” the guidelines, which the pair argued were unnecessarily politicized and complicated by the Biden administration and previous federal health leaders.
“Traditionally, the dietary guidelines have been a political document. When I raised my children, the top rung on the food pyramid was Fruit Loops, and clearly that was not — they didn’t have nutrition in mind,” Kennedy said during a press conference in Texas. “When the Trump administration started, we were handed dietary guidelines that were completed by the Biden administration. There were 400 pages, and again, it was unreadable, and it was a political document.”
“Today we’re changing that,” the HHS secretary continued. “We are rewriting that now … We’ll have it done by the late summer or early autumn, and it’s going to be simple, it’s going to be user-friendly, and it is going to stress the simplicity of local foods, of whole foods, and of healthy foods, and we’re going to make it easy for everybody to read and understand.”
HHS and the USDA first announced plans to overhaul the guidelines in March.
“We are going to make sure the dietary guidelines will reflect the public interest and serve public health, rather than special interests,” Kennedy said at the time, pledging to release the 2025-2030 guidelines at some point ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline. “This is a giant step in making America the healthiest country in the world.”
During his trip to Texas, Kennedy also gave an update on artificial food dyes approved by the Food and Drug Administration. He has said some color additives could contribute to negative health outcomes, including neurological problems in children.
The FDA previously approved 36 food dyes, including nine synthetic dyes — one of which is Red 3, a dye the agency banned in January.
Kennedy promised Tuesday that two of the “worst” dyes would be banned within two months, and within two years, all nine synthetic, “petroleum-based” dyes would be blocked from the food supply.
The HHS secretary initially launched a March pressure campaign on large corporations such as PepsiCo, General Mills, Tyson Foods, Smucker’s, Kraft Heinz, and Kellogg’s to remove the controversial artificial dyes from their foods.
Last week, he expanded the strategy during an announcement with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, outlining a plan to remove petroleum-based dyes from food. Makarty said the plan is to come to an understanding with the food industry, expressing hope that the Trump administration could work with corporations in a “friendly way” to jumpstart changes.
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“Nobody wants to eat petroleum, everybody knows that caused health problems,” Kennedy said at a press event on Tuesday. “And so we can act on that now.”
Food manufacturers have voluntarily consented to phasing out eight synthetic dyes from all U.S. products by the end of 2026.
