(The Hill) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will begin his push for Americans to eat more saturated fats with the expected release of new dietary guidelines on Wednesday.
The move would fly in the face of what doctors and dietitians have been advising for decades, but HHS said on Tuesday the new recommendations would be “rooted in rigorous science.”
While the specifics of the plan remain under wraps, Kennedy has repeatedly spoken in favor of increased saturated fat consumption. NewsNation reported in October that Kennedy planned to recommend eating more saturated fats.
“We’re ending the war on saturated fats in this country. So, we’re going to publish dietary guidelines that are going to stress the importance of protein and saturated fats. And those will come out, I think, next month. And I think that will really revolutionize the food system in the country, the food culture in this country,” Kennedy said at an event in November.
An announcement right before the holidays was reportedly pushed back to this week.
If the guidelines match Kennedy’s rhetoric, they will clash with public health orthodoxy.
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion advises that saturated fats make up less than 10 percent of someone’s diet. The American Heart Association goes even further, recommending less than six percent of someone’s diet should be saturated fats.
According to 2017-2018 data from the National Center for Health Statistics, Americans consumed on average 28 grams of saturated fats on a given day, though this data included Americans as young as two years old, with toddlers and infants expected to consume a higher percentage of fat. Generally, the ODPHP advised less than 20 grams a day.
Saturated fats can be identified as those that stay solid at room temperature. These include butter, lard, coconut oil, beef tallow, cheese and palm kernel oil.
Health authorities began advising against high saturated fat consumption starting in the 1950s in light of growing evidence at the time linking them to high cholesterol and heart disease.
According to nutrition experts, subsequent investigations and reviews have only further confirmed this guidance. Repeated studies have associated high saturated fat with higher LDL cholesterol, heart disease, weight gain and diabetes.
A systematic review published in 2025 found that “among persons at high cardiovascular risk, low- to moderate-certainty evidence was found for important reductions in mortality and major cardiovascular events, particularly for MI, with respect to replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat.”
“When you look at the systemic reviews that have been published this past year – ‘24 and ‘25 and previously – they all point to one thing: lower saturated fat reduces risk of cardiovascular disease,” Alison Steiber, Chief Mission, Impact and Strategy Officer for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told The Hill
“Even in healthier populations that are at risk for cardio metabolic disease, in patients that are overweight or obese living with obesity, all of those have the lower the saturated fat intake, the better the outcomes,” Steiber added.
Kennedy is a self-described adherent to the so-called “carnivore diet” which he has described as “mainly meat and then fermented — anything fermented. So, a lot of yogurt, good yogurt without sugar in it. Then, coleslaw and kimchi and all kinds of fermented vegetables.”
Frederic Bertley, president and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry, cautioned that “extremes are never a good idea regarding human health.”
Discussing the carnivore diet, Bertley said, “The potential impacts in the short-term can include weight loss and improved blood sugar control, likely due to carbohydrate restriction. However, long-term impacts of high saturated consumption lead to elevated LDLs, which can increase the risk of heart disease and other associated cardiovascular diseases.”
Kennedy and his allies frequently cite how other countries and cultures live, arguing that they are healthier.
“Proponents of high saturated fat consumption often cite research on traditional diets, for example the Canadian Inuit population or the Kenyan Maasai Tribe members, that are high in animal fat but associated with low rates of heart disease,” noted Bertley. “Along with genetics, these examples involve unique cultural and lifestyle habits that cannot be generalized to most populations.”
Alice H. Lichtenstein, Gershoff Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy at the Friedman School at Tufts University, observed echoes of the “French paradox,” the seemingly lower rate of heart disease among French people despite a perceived high consumption of fats like butter and cheese.
“I think we can’t just rely on the knee-jerk reaction that all these other countries eat lots of saturated fat, and they’re doing great. I think there’s a lot of things that go on,” said Lichtenstein.
Both Lichtenstein and Steiber noted that while other countries might eat higher amounts of saturated fat, people in these countries also often tend to be more active than Americans.
Between 2017 and 2020, 25.3% of American adults reported being physically inactive, which federal health authorities define as not engaging in any physical activities outside of work within the past month.
Kennedy has also taken various steps to promote more physical activity since taking over the country’s health agencies.
