Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), is preparing new dietary guidance that is expected to encourage greater consumption of foods high in saturated fat, including meat and butter, in a shift from longstanding federal advice.
Health policy and nutrition specialists say such a move would contradict current US recommendations and could undermine confidence in the evidence base used for national dietary guidelines.
According to reports in US media, the announcement could come as soon as next week and would form part of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Kennedy has argued that saturated fats from dairy and “quality, fresh meat” have been “demonised” and says the government should steer consumers towards unprocessed foods and away from ultra-processed products and added sugars.
Current US federal advice, set out in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, is to limit saturated fat to no more than 10% of daily calories. The American Heart Association (AHA) goes further for people who need to lower cholesterol, recommending less than 6% of calories—around 11–13g on a 2,000-calorie diet. These benchmarks have underpinned school meal standards and other public procurement rules.
Kennedy’s anticipated shift has drawn criticism from several experts cited by US outlets. Cheryl Anderson, who chairs the AHA’s Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, and Ronald Krauss, a University of California, San Francisco researcher whose work has examined the heterogeneity of saturated fats, both cautioned that encouraging higher intake would send the wrong signal to the public. Krauss’s research suggests saturated fat is “relatively neutral” only when reductions are replaced with unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, rather than with refined carbohydrates; replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats is linked to better cardiometabolic risk profiles.
The prospect of revised guidance also raises procedural questions. By convention, HHS and the Department of Agriculture publish updated Dietary Guidelines every five years, based on a multi-year review by an external advisory committee. The next edition would normally cover 2025–2030. Reports suggest the administration could bypass parts of that process or override the committee’s forthcoming report, an approach that nutrition scientists say would be unusual.
Any change would have broad practical implications because federal nutrition guidance shapes standards for schools, the military and prisons, as well as messaging by public health agencies. If caps on saturated fat in institutional meals were raised substantially, procurement and menu planning would need to adjust accordingly. Analysts note that the current legal and regulatory framework for school meals requires limits on saturated fat and specific milk fat content; revising those standards would require regulatory action.
The debate over saturated fat has persisted for decades. Consensus statements from cardiology groups have emphasised limiting saturated fat to reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, a well-established risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. While some recent studies have questioned the magnitude of the effect across all food sources, the preponderance of evidence still supports replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats rather than with sugars or refined starches. The AHA maintains its advice to keep saturated fat below 6% of total calories for at-risk individuals.
Kennedy’s broader approach to health policy has already drawn high-level pushback. On 7 October, six former US Surgeons General published a joint op-ed warning that his policies pose risks to public health, citing concerns over vaccine policy and governance of health agencies. HHS officials responded the following day, defending the secretary’s agenda.
Nutrition science presents methodological constraints: long-term randomised trials isolating single macronutrients are difficult to conduct for ethical and practical reasons, and much of the literature relies on observational data. Researchers therefore stress clarity in public messaging: population-level guidance typically focuses on dietary patterns—emphasising vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish and unsaturated oils—while limiting saturated fat, sodium and added sugars. Any shift towards higher saturated fat intake would need to be reconciled with this pattern-based evidence and with existing targets for cholesterol and cardiovascular risk.
As of 26 October, the department has not released full details of the proposed guidance. Media reports indicate the policy could alter caps on saturated fat in federal programmes and reframe consumer advice to highlight unprocessed animal-source foods alongside vegetables. The scale of any changes—and how they will sit alongside the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines process—remains to be seen.
