HHS Secretary: All government food programs to align with dietary guidelines 

WASHINGTON, DC – Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said within the next six months, all government-funded food programs will align with the dietary guidelines released earlier this year. 

Kennedy spoke to attendees of the IFPA Washington Conference June 9 and said the guidelines are already leading to an increase in purchases of real foods, which include fruits and vegetables. 

He said the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy and movement will lead to more Americans eating whole foods, and instances of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease will drop dramatically. 

“I think we’ll see this in the next three years,” Kennedy said. 

Aligning federal food programs with the dietary guidelines would represent changes to billions of dollars, as SNAP, WIC, school meals, military, and prisons, among others, would be affected. 

He didn’t offer details about how it would come about but said many states have implemented SNAP restrictions against “junk foods” like candy and soda, and those purchases have dropped. 

The produce industry hope is that they shift to the fresh produce department, said IFPA CEO Cathy Burns, who joined Kennedy in the address to conference attendees. 

Kennedy said his relationship with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has been strong since both were confirmed at the start of the Trump administration in early 2025, and HHS and USDA have been aligned with MAHA goals. 

He said the federal dietary guidelines went from hundreds of pages that were “incompressible” and written by processed food companies to one that is less than 10 pages and can easily be summarized as “eat real food” with fruits and vegetables in a prominent position. 

Ultra processed foods are identified as a hinderance to Americans’ health, and HHS plans to define that term in the next few months and then institute a food labeling system with a stoplight system of red-yellow-green for healthfulness, Kennedy said. 

“Fruits and vegetables will be green,” he said. 

He also said HHS has worked with the medical community to get more nutrition training in medical schools. He said most medical school graduates receive about two hours of nutrition training, and now more than 70 medical schools have agreed to require 40 hours of nutrition training or the equivalent. 

“Many chronic diseases can be reversed by a change in diet,” Kennedy said. 

“American households must prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods—protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains—and dramatically reduce highly processed foods. This is how we Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said in January, when HHS and USDA released the new dietary guidelines. 

The new guidelines represented a major shift in federal food policy and placed fruits and vegetables in a critical spot of Americans’ diets as real, whole foods.