A dietitian and doctor review RFK Jr's new food pyramid

Summary

---

Short Wave Podcast Summary

Episode: A Dietitian and Doctor Review RFK Jr's New Food Pyramid

Podcast: Short Wave (NPR)
Date: March 18, 2026
Hosts: Emily Kwong, Regina Barber
Guests: Caden Mills (NPR Reflect America Fellow), Alicia Bassett (School Nutrition Manager), Shauna Spence (Registered Dietitian), Dr. Sarah Kim (Professor of Medicine, UCSF)

---

Overview

This episode explores the newly released, government-backed inverted food pyramid promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The hosts examine the updated dietary guidelines—especially the increased emphasis on protein, full-fat dairy, and “healthy fats”—and the possible impacts on school lunches, public nutrition standards, and daily eating habits. With expert commentary from a dietitian and a physician, the discussion addresses the science behind the changes and whether we should rethink our approach to food.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: The New Food Pyramid ([00:16]–[02:24])

• Emily Kwong introduces the new food pyramid, characterized by prioritizing protein, full-fat dairy, and "healthy fats."
• The guidelines are significant since they influence school lunch programs, food labeling, and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
• Caden Mills shares a tour of a Maryland school kitchen with Alicia Bassett, nutrition manager, demonstrating typical school lunches based on current (2020) USDA standards.
  • Menu includes: French bread pizza, rotini with garlic bread, broccoli, carrots, crispy chicken salad, fruit, and juices.
  • Most items are prepackaged, aside from fruit and vegetables.
  • "They've got everything ... bananas, zucchini, coleslaw, broccoli. Got it going on down here." — Alicia Bassett [01:53]
• Schools receiving federal funding must align with USDA dietary guidelines; new pyramid could eventually change what is served, especially regarding protein at breakfast.

Expert Review: Visuals vs. Science ([03:44]–[05:36])

• Registered Dietitian Shauna Spence analyzes the pyramid:
  • Notes the strong emphasis on protein: "I'm a dietitian. We need protein in our diets for sure. But this is a bit excessive." — Shauna Spence [04:15]
  • Acknowledges that at least fruits and vegetables remain included.
• The new guidelines echo the current cap on saturated fats (no more than 10% of caloric intake), despite visually highlighting red meat.
  • "As a dietitian ... healthy fats includes things like avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil, things like that. Not red meat." — Shauna Spence [05:00]
  • Describes how saturated fats (butter, cheese, red meat) are associated with increased LDL ("bad cholesterol") and linked to heart disease and stroke.
• Confusion arises due to mixed messages: visually, the pyramid promotes red meat, but textual guidelines maintain limits on saturated fat.

Protein: How Much Do We Actually Need? ([08:13]–[09:56])

• The push for more protein is discussed—from marketing to dietary recommendations.
• Dr. Sarah Kim explains:
  • Guidelines: 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
  • "You can get all the protein you need from plant sources." — Sarah Kim [08:34]
  • The importance of variety: recommendations include both animal and plant-sourced proteins.
  • Consuming excess protein is ineffective for building more muscle unless paired with exercise, as the body converts extra protein to sugar and fat.
  • "Eating tons of protein does not mean that you will make tons of muscle." — Sarah Kim [09:45]

Reflections: What’s New, What’s the Same, and What Matters ([09:56]–[12:26])

• Dr. Kim's take on past and present dietary guidelines:
  • Glad to see continued focus on "real food" and minimally processed options.
  • Cautions against being misled by processed products marketed as meeting specific nutritional guidelines (the “health halo” effect).
    • "What I would advise against is being fooled by products that are marketed as healthy because they have some feature of some food guideline ... That is where we went wrong." — Sarah Kim [10:32]
  • Concerns over the environmental cost of increased animal protein production.
  • Advocates for a balanced school lunch: animal protein (for those who want it), plant-based proteins, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
• Host reflects on school meal realities:
  • "So much of their world is like highly processed, ready to eat foods that are warmed up." — Emily Kwong [12:06]
  • Dr. Kim: "You know, if the school wouldn't just look like that pyramid, I think I would be quite happy." [12:15]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I'm a dietitian. We need protein in our diets for sure. But this is a bit excessive."
  — Shauna Spence [04:15]

• "As a dietitian ... healthy fats includes things like avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil, things like that. Not red meat."
  — Shauna Spence [05:00]

• "Eating tons of protein does not mean that you will make tons of muscle."
  — Sarah Kim [09:45]

• "What I would advise against is being fooled by products that are marketed as healthy because they have some feature of some food guideline ... That is where we went wrong."
  — Sarah Kim [10:32]

• "So much of their world is like highly processed, ready to eat foods that are warmed up."
  — Emily Kwong [12:06]

• "If the school wouldn't just look like that pyramid, I think I would be quite happy."
  — Sarah Kim [12:15]

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:16–01:23: Introduction to the new food pyramid and impact on school meals
• 03:44–05:36: Dietitian review of the new pyramid; confusion around fats
• 08:13–09:56: Deep dive on protein needs with Dr. Sarah Kim
• 10:32–12:15: Real food vs. processed food, marketing pitfalls, and environmental impact

---

Summary/Takeaways

• There is a strong visual and policy shift toward increased protein and “healthy fats,” but textual guidelines on saturated fats remain the same.
• The science does not support excessive protein, especially without increased exercise. More is not necessarily better.
• The foods depicted in government guidelines can shape institutional meals and public perceptions, despite sometimes contradictory or confusing messages.
• Experts advocate for minimally processed, real foods—whether animal or plant-based—and for skepticism toward nutrition fads, health halos, and marketing gimmicks.

---

Transcript

[Greenlight/Bombas/Alexa Advertiser]

This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. Start your risk free [e-mail] NPR.

[Emily Kwong]

You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wavers. Emily Kwong here. So earlier this year, the new inverted food pyramid dropped. You know, the one that emphasizes protein, full fat, dairy, and what Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Calls healthy fats. At the top, this pyramid, it was big news for a couple days, then maybe you forgot about it. But it is important because it reflects new dietary guidelines. These come directly from the federal government and could influence school lunches, food labeling, and programs like snap. So here to talk about how the food pyramid may change school lunch trays is Caden Mills and NPR's Reflect America fellow. Hey, Kayden.

[Caden Mills]

Hi, Emily.

[Sarah Kim]

Hi.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay, so I've been out of school for a while. What are the kids eating these days?

[Caden Mills]

I actually got a tour of a kitchen at Mary H. Matula Elementary School in Maryland. And like a lot of schools, they rely on ready made meals that they can easily heat up.

[Greenlight/Bombas/Alexa Advertiser]

Mm.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay.

[Caden Mills]

With the exception of fruit and veggies, almost everything comes pre packed. And what are you serving today?

[Alicia Bassett]

We have French bread pizza. We have rotini and garlic bread. We have broccoli and carrots, and then our crispy chicken sal. And then we'll have our juices here and our cup fruits here.

[Emily Kwong]

Mozzarella stick Day was prized at my school.

[Caden Mills]

The Bosco stick.

[Emily Kwong]

Yes. Delicious. Delicious. Who's this?

[Caden Mills]

So that's Alicia Bassett. She's the food and nutrition manager at Metula Elementary. And the lunch menu she's describing is based on the 2020 guidelines set by the U.S. department of Agriculture and HHS.

[Alicia Bassett]

They can get a salad, cup, a fresh apple, a fresh orange, bananas, zucchini, coleslaw, broccol. Got it going on down here.

[Caden Mills]

They've got everything. So schools that receive federal funding for their school meals have to follow strict standards set by the usda, from limits on added sugars and salt to the number of calories that come from saturated fats. And those standards must be in line with the dietary guidelines, which have now changed.

[Emily Kwong]

Okay, so with the new pyramid, how could school lunch trays look different?

[Caden Mills]

Yeah, so we don't really know yet. USDA hasn't released their nutrition standards based on this new pyramid yet. And it could take a few years. But one big difference in the new guidelines is protein.

[Emily Kwong]

Oh, yes. Our friends, meat and dairy and eggs and more.

[Caden Mills]

Yeah. So right now there's no rules saying that schools have to include those proteins in breakfast, but the new guidelines recommend eating protein with every meal. So we'll have to wait and see if USDA will mandate that.

[Emily Kwong]

In the Today on the show, we dive into the science behind the updated guidelines, what it means for kids and for adults, and ask if we should change how we eat. I'm Emily Kwong. You're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from npr.

[Greenlight/Bombas/Alexa Advertiser]

This message comes from BetterHelp. This international women's Day. Let's celebrate the leaders, the caregivers, the hype, friends with all they handle. Women need to care for themselves. And therapy's a great way to do that. Visit betterhelp.com NPR

[Emily Kwong]

if you haven't already, look up the new food pyramid. It prioritizes protein, dairy, and quote, unquote, healthy fats, all of which is represented in this artful painting topped with a roast chicken and broccoli and cheese. So I will say this. Aesthetically, the food pyramid could make for some very nice wall art. Whoever painted this ate literally. And the pyramid as painted is interesting. That laughter you're hearing is from registered dietitian Shauna Spence.

[Shauna Spence]

Hello.

[Emily Kwong]

And beautiful as it is, we wanted to ask Shauna what she thought of

[Shauna Spence]

the pyramid scientifically, you know, as I expected, emphasis on protein. And I get it right. I'm a dietitian. We need protein in our diets for sure. But this is a bit excessive. We're seeing protein being added in everything from like pop tarts to, you know, cereals, all this stuff. And I was actually pleasantly surprised. I'm like, oh, they did keep fruits and vegetables at least, so that's good. But yes, I was not surprised at the emphasis on protein.

[Emily Kwong]

And one thing that we've been especially confused by is the fats conversation. So this administration has talked about ending the war on healthy fats. What do they mean by that?

[Shauna Spence]

Yes, we need healthy fats in our diet for sure. But they're emphasizing still meat. And in my mind. Right. As a dietitian, someone licensed healthy fats includes things like avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil, things like that. Not red meat. When we're talking about red meat. There has been a link towards cardiovascular illnesses and diseases. Because of the saturated fat.

[Sarah Kim]

Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

And saturated fats, of course, These are fats that are solid at room temperature.

[Shauna Spence]

Exactly.

[Emily Kwong]

Like butter. It also includes butter, cheese, red meat.

[Shauna Spence]

Exactly, exactly. Like pretty much the sources that would come from animal products.

[Emily Kwong]

And what is Nutrition have to say about saturated fat? Like, what does a diet heavy in saturated fat do to our bodies?

[Shauna Spence]

So it's linked to high cholesterol levels, like your ldl, which is the quote unquote, the bad cholesterol. Yeah. The cardiovascular diseases. Right. Leading to certain illnesses like heart disease, strokes. So that's why we really, we, meaning health professionals, dietitians, we really emphasize having a diet low in saturated fat. Red meat can be included. Like, you know, I always say all foods can fit, but we can go about it in a way that makes sense.

[Alicia Bassett]

Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

And you'd prefer fats that are like monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, like you said, nuts, avocados. On the topic of saturated fats, it's interesting that though the pyramid encourages more red meat consumption, at least visually, there's like a big at the top.

[Shauna Spence]

That's the part I remember the most when looking at it. The steak.

[Emily Kwong]

The written guidance is the same as the 2011 MyPlate recommendations, which is to make no more than 10% of your calories from saturated fat. So the number is the same, is capped at that 10% saturated fat, no more. Even though they're saying, but please eat more red meat. People like, how do you square those two things?

[Shauna Spence]

And that's what's so frustrating is that when you first look at the triangle, you're thinking, oh my gosh, I have to, instead of making half my plate fruits and vegetables, I need to be making half my plate meat. And then you have to look at an entirely different section to look at the actual written out recommendations and that. And then the recommendations haven't changed that much. You know, as a dietitian, I agree with the do not exceed 10%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a little confusing. And they even have also written out plant. Plant based proteins are great. They even, they even mentioned fiber. I remember. And I was like, oh my gosh, you mentioned fiber. Right. So I just think it's very confusing.

[Emily Kwong]

Thanks to registered dietitian Shawna Spencer. And she's totally right, by the way, about the protein thing. I mean, I don't know if you all have noticed, but protein is everywhere. It is mixed into coffee drinks. Giant powder tubs of it are flying off the grocery store shelves. But we on Shore wave, we wanted to know, like, how much protein do we really need?

[Sarah Kim]

That's a really good question.

[Emily Kwong]

That's Sarah Kim, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

[Sarah Kim]

Okay, so first of all, the guidelines say 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. You can get all the protein you need from plant sources. And kudos to the food recommendations here. When it talks about proteins, it actually does say consume a variety of proteins from animal sources, including eggs, as well as a variety of plant sourced protein foods, including beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds and soy. And the amount of protein that one needs can really vary from person to and depending on their circumstances. Extra protein that you eat in a day is not really stored as protein. Your body can't store extra proteins for possible future use. Like it can store fat. And so extra protein that you take in a day, that's more than you need in a day is then converted into sugar and fat. So eating tons of protein does not mean that you will make tons of muscle. You need to actually balance the amount of protein you eat with muscle exercise, muscle building exercise, in order to see the rewards of that.

[Shauna Spence]

Okay.

[Emily Kwong]

I'm wondering, Dr. Kim, was there anything about the previous food pyramid that I grew up with or the MyPlate guidelines that were introduced later in 2011 that you were glad to see gone or anything that you wish had been kept?

[Shauna Spence]

Sure.

[Sarah Kim]

Like all of these foods I'm seeing on this pyramid and in past pyramids, they look pretty good. They're like healthy ish foods, you know, minimally processed. And I would say that's the one recommendation that I wholeheartedly agree with, is like, eat real food. I completely agree with that.

[Shauna Spence]

Right.

[Sarah Kim]

What I would advise against is being fooled by products that are marketed as healthy because they have some feature of some food guideline, you know, that puts an artificial halo on that food product. That is where we went wrong.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah. Now, these dietary guidelines, because they come from the federal government, they do influence certain things like school lunches, food on military bases. So how do you hope people use this pyramid? Just knowing that it does have real world impacts.

[Sarah Kim]

Looking holistically at the pyramid, I would say we might run into problems with an over emphasis on protein because of what expense cost to the environment of making a lot of protein, especially animal protein. That's gonna be tricky. What I love to see, you know, animal proteins of, you know, some frequency or other protein sources for people who don't wanna eat animal proteins, plus all of those fruits and vegetables that I see on the pyramid, plus whole grains. Absolutely. You know, the quality of school lunches, I would love to see that get to the level of real food, whole foods, minimally processed foods. Cause I think right now it probably is fairly processed.

[Emily Kwong]

That is completely consistent with these school cafeterias. So much of their world is like highly processed, ready to eat foods that are warmed up.

[Sarah Kim]

You know, if the school wouldn't just look like that pyramid, I think I would be quite happy.

[Emily Kwong]

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend. It really helps our show out. And consider checking out our other episode featuring Sara Kim. That's the one on Blood Sugar. This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. It was edited by Brent Baughman. Arun Nair and Tyler Jones checked the facts. Khwesi Lee was the audio engineer. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

[Alexa/Bombas Advertiser]

Foreign.

[Greenlight/Bombas/Alexa Advertiser]

This message comes from Greenlight Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. Start your risk free [e-mail] NPR support

[Alexa/Bombas Advertiser]

for this podcast and the following message come from Alexa say hello to the all new Alexa. Chat naturally about anything and watch your to do list. Distillery Disappear Planning date night One conversation handles everything from dinner reservations to entertainment. Alexa learns your style, anticipates what's next, and puts thousands of services at your fingertips. Experience AI that's all yours. And now Alexa is free with prime on your Amazon devices like echo and Fire TV. Amazon.com Alexa this message comes from Bombus

[Greenlight/Bombas/Alexa Advertiser]

when you're playing sports, you're focused. Your socks should be too. Bombas engineers socks to fight sweat and cushion impact for every sport. Visit bombus.com NPR and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase.