Following new USDA food pyramid would raise grocery bills by nearly one-third

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Scripps News

Posted 11:35 AM, Apr 11, 2026


There is a new food pyramid, and analysis shows that following the updated guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture could cost Americans significantly more.

Data compiled by market analysis firm Numerator indicates a typical household would spend $1,012 more annually to follow the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans compared with the previous version. The guidelines, published every five years, place greater emphasis on meat and fat sources, such as butter, and less on whole grains and plant-based proteins, such as beans.

According to Numerator, grocery bills would rise by nearly one-third under the new guidance. Changes involving protein have the biggest effect: The new guidelines recommend Americans eat nearly twice as much protein — especially from meat — as prior guidelines.

The report advises adults to consume 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. For example, a 200-pound person should eat between 109 and 146 grams of protein each day. Previous recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration for a person that weight were about 73 grams.

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/life/money/following-new-usda-food-pyramid-would-raise-grocery-bills-by-nearly-one-third

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Link to REPORT (PDF) - https://www.numerator.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Numerator_Food-Pyramid-Flip_Report.pdf

[TexLaProgressive]

1. Mine are already up that much

So that would be up 1/3rd over current inflation, and then the Straits of Hormuz inflation.
Good thing I have paid off house and vehicle.

[underpants]

2. It's almost like there's no coherent thought here.

[OC375]

3. I've lived 55 years and never worried about the food pyramid. My wallet is safe. I'll pass, thank you.

[msongs]

4. who has more money, the bean lobby or the cow corpse lobby? nt

[MLAA]

22. Exactly

[manicdem]

5. Seems healthier

American's eat way too much carbs which leads to obesity. Though they should be promoting beans for protein, fiber, and to reduce costs.

[slightlv]

6. Reducing costs on anything

are not on this admin's agenda anywhere. If T doesn't have to worry about money, then no one does, in his mind. It's inconsequential. Everyone should just be as rich as he is.

[paleotn]

14. Not really.

Americans eat too many carbs, not because they're the bottom of the pyramid. It's because they're cheap thanks to our fucked up Ag policies the last 50+ years. What Brain Worm calls "healthy fats" are anything but. Butter and beef fat? My arteries are clogging just thinking about it.

I do agree with you on plant based. The science is solid.

[Aussie105]

7. I'd ignore any new fad food pyramid pushed at you.

Who knows what food industry influences are at work there?
(The red meat industry says . . . You need more of our protein rich products!)

Instead look at the diets commonly developed over centuries and consumed in Asian countries.

High in:
Vegetables, fresh, not overcooked.
Protein from legumes, white meat. Eggs.

Prep: Stir fry. Minimal oil used in cooking.

Low, or completely absent:
Red meat.
Animal fats - meat, milk, butter, cheese.
Sugars - sugary soft drinks, added or part of the food.
Alcohol.
Snack foods. Especially the potato/oil/salt based ones.
Any fast foods.

A diet poor in taste, you say?
Investigate the spices available in any Asian shop.
Centuries worth of development in individual spices and spice mixes there!

Be healthy, be a normal weight, live a long life!

Catch 22- America has a double edged problem - expensive health care and poor diet.

[anciano]

8. Eating is one of life's greatest pleasures....

Personally, I simply eat the foods that I really enjoy in moderation.

[Aussie105]

9. The human palate still has that 'emergency' response.

High sugar, high fat foods taste the best and have the highest energy content, great in a famine.

Not too hard to train your taste buds to avoid those, but it has to start at an early age, if parents know or care.

Moderation is the key, but avoidance is better long term.

And this is from a 77 year old Type 2 diabetic, that used to not care what he ate in his youth.
125 Kg at my highest, now 90 Kg, just by changing my diet - and not eating after 6 pm.

[FakeNoose]

10. Where is coffee on the food pyramid? How about chocolate?

I'm being facetious, but let's face it - everything is up from a few months ago. E-v-e-r-y-thing!

I'm a regular consumer of coffee and I can barely afford it anymore. Chocolate has become an occasional luxury, almost a thing of the past. Why? Because they are imported from other countries and our idiot president started his whole bullshit-barf-extravaganza about tariffs on everything imported.

The prices on all those imports when up immediately and they are never coming back down. They SHOULD come down, but they won't. The Supreme Court says he can't charge tariffs, but the prices will never go back down. We. Are. Screwed.

[anciano]

13. Love both coffee and chocolate....

IMO they are two of Nature's greatest gifts to the human species!

[chowmama]

11. The wannabe 'machos' keep wanting to pretend that we're carnivores.

No, we evolved to be omnivores. We're not big cats. Americans eat too much meat already; healthier cultures use less meat and add protein from other sources, grains (especially whole grains), vegetables and fruits. You know - balance.

The problem is that we've taken all the good stuff out of our grain products by refining them, and added fat, sugar and salt to everything across the board to replace the flavor and nutrients that we've removed from them in order to have products that are cheaper to produce.

The result is that the American palate is rigged to prefer a diet that's high in fat, salt and sugar. Even our produce is bred to be increasingly sweet at the expense of all the other flavors that were once there. A woman in a singing trio I was in was going on about a terrific new variety of apple. She finally came out with "It's so sweet. If I was blindfolded, I wouldn't even know I was eating an apple!" For her, this was a selling point.

No, thanks. I'm an omnivore and I'm going to stay that way. And if you're a 'wannabe' anything, it's an admission that you ain't.

[paleotn]

15. Exactly! We evolved to eat an incredible variety of things.

Meat if we could get it, or usually scavenge it, but not nearly as often as the public misconception. We're opportunists. One of the reasons we're still around. We'll eat damn near anything. Thus the hyper vomit competence we share with our cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos, who also eat damn near anything. So next time you get pukie, thank evolution. It's keep us relatively safe from bad food for hundreds of thousands of years.

[Aussie105]

12. Some food facts.

Google questions:

"How much sugar does the average American consume?"

17 teaspoons per day, or 60 pounds a year.

Alcohol?
Equivalent of 2.3 to 2.5 gallons of pure alcohol.

Coffee?
The average American consumes approximately 1,095 cups of coffee per year, or about 3 cups per day.

Chocolate?
The average American consumes approximately 11 to 12 pounds (about 5 kilograms) of chocolate per year.

Red meat?
The average American consumes approximately 58.8 pounds of red meat per year.

Cynical me asks . . . how much money in a brown envelope from any food industry buys a dietary recommendation for the food pyramid?

Google can't answer that one.

But if you want to improve your diet, there's a few hints there.

EDIT:
Plenty of graphical representations of food pyramids from America, Asia and elsewhere if you search Google images.

[paleotn]

16. Isn't Micky D's filet of fish on top?

[progree]

17. But people will live 1/3 less long, so their lifetime grocery bill will be about the same. MAHA! /nt

[byronius]

18. I got talked into going vegan about ten years ago --

— and I’m never going back. It’s been awesome. I feel better in every way, smarter, stronger — best decision I’ve ever made.

Plus it’s a lot cheaper.

[Aussie105]

20. I second that emotion.

Wife turned herself and me to the vegan eating style years ago.

I sometimes sneak chicken into my diet.
Once every two weeks or so.

[Aussie105]

19. My little foray into Google searching told me

that white meat consumption per capita in the US runs at about 4 times that of red meat.

Seeing the cost of red meat here in Australia is around AU $30 per kilogram while chicken breast is around $10 /Kg, and other portions cheaper, I'm not surprised.
People watching the dollars when they buy meat is only a good thing health wise.

Chicken and turkey don't store fat in the actual meat like red meat does. (aka 'marbling')

[TBF]

21. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said

the government was ending its “war on saturated fat” by promoting meat-based proteins and fat sources such as butter and beef tallow ...


Unfortunately, this is not going to meet the needs of my heart-healthy diet. Big surprise.