Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled Trump’s latest gift to Big Ag: the 2026 Dietary Guidelines. These guidelines will ultimately impact what schools serve to children and what the government buys. The Trump administration’s most recent iteration doubles down on the polluting factory farm model, which perpetuates corporate consolidation and the joint cost of living and climate crises. 

While these guidelines rightly point out the impacts of ultra-processed foods on Americans’ health, they take aim at sound science that recommends an overall reduction in meat consumption. At a time when factory farms pollute our air, water, and the climate with reckless abandon, these recommendations are unserious and harmful. 

Trump’s Dietary Guidelines Boost Factory Farming

These new guidelines make an unscientific recommendation to double protein intake, while sidelining non-animal protein sources like beans, legumes, and nuts. Despite the “Make America Healthy Again” framing, this isn’t about our health — it’s about giving a handout to the industrial livestock industry that has been battered by Trump’s chaotic tariff policy. Protein recommendations jumped from 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight to 1.2-1.6 grams, which far exceeds the level recommended by the National Academy of Medicine. 

This move blatantly shifts federal policy toward factory farms, from which most of the animals raised for meat consumption in the United States come. Factory farms wreak havoc on every facet of our communities, from the air we breathe to the water we drink. Their pollution is linked to drinking water crises in multiple states. Recent evidence shows that deaths caused by factory farm air pollution are greater than those caused by coal-fired power plants. 

As HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. himself acknowledged, factory farms have “polluted thousands of miles” of rivers, pushed farmers off their land, and “sickened and killed thousands of U.S. citizens.” He has now flipped the Dietary Guidelines on their head to entrench the factory farm system he once condemned. This is indefensible. 

Secretary Kennedy’s sudden loyalty to factory farms is just another example of the Trump administration caving to the whims of agribusiness at our expense.

Trump’s Dietary Guidelines, Brought to You by Big Ag

A closer look into how the 2026 Dietary Guidelines were developed reveals that this industry handout is no accident. Traditionally, the guidelines are informed by a rigorous, transparent process that includes extensive public comment and a comprehensive scientific report produced by an independent advisory committee. However, like the food pyramid, the Trump administration turned this process on its head. 

Rather than using the official Scientific Report produced by a committee of twenty nutrition experts, the Trump administration handpicked a separate panel of nine “experts” to draft the guidelines. Seven of those nine experts had financial ties to the meat industry or protein supplement companies. 

Unsurprisingly, this panel’s recommendations directly conflict with the Scientific Report — particularly on meat consumption — but support the profits of those companies. This divergence makes clear that the administration prioritized the interests of Big Ag corporate cronies over the health of the American public. 

Industries across our food system are dominated by just a few corporations with outsized power. Just four meatpacking corporations control about 85% of the cattle market and 67% of hog slaughter nationwide. Grocery stores are just as consolidated, with four companies taking in about two-thirds of all grocery sales in 2019. 

The USDA acknowledges that this consolidation drives higher food prices. At a time when more than a third of middle-class families struggle to afford basic necessities, beef prices have risen 16.4% in a single year. When families are forced to choose between groceries and rent, the Trump administration’s insistence that we should buy more meat is not just out of touch; it’s a disgrace.

Trump’s Dietary Guidelines Are Terrible for the Climate

HHS is supposed to advance our country’s public health, and RFK Jr. made “Make America Healthy Again” a Trumpian rallying cry. Yet, in entrenching factory farms, their Dietary Guidelines are doing the exact opposite. 

Not only are factory farms incredibly polluting; they are also major contributors to the climate crisis that endangers all our well-being. Globally, livestock production causes up to a whopping 18% of total greenhouse gas emissions and 32% of especially climate-wrecking methane emissions.

Trump’s Dietary Guidelines will make matters worse. Even before these guidelines, the USDA projected that our meat and poultry consumption would rise in the coming years, increasing the average American’s climate impact at this critical juncture in the climate crisis. 

If the Trump administration were serious about “Making America Healthy Again,” the policy solution would be clear: the Dietary Guidelines should encourage Americans to decrease meat consumption and focus on lean and plant-based protein options. Reducing meat consumption, especially sourced from factory farms, is one of the most effective ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, protect our water and air, and improve public health.  

Trump’s Dietary Guidelines Benefit Big Ag at Our Expense

The 2026 Dietary Guidelines advance the interests of the already powerful animal agriculture industry at the expense of people and the planet. This is especially egregious considering how Trump and his allies are also gutting food safety programs and essential food assistance programs.

At a time when Americans are facing record-high grocery prices, worsening climate impacts, and rising diet-related diseases, the federal government shouldn’t push guidelines that make unaffordable, unsustainable recommendations that have absolutely zero backing in nutritional science. 

These guidelines undermine public trust by sidelining independent science in favor of industry-aligned voices. They erode the credibility of a process meant to serve the public. We have overwhelming scientific consensus that reducing animal protein, especially from factory farms, benefits human health, lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and protects water and air quality. Nevertheless, Trump’s corporate cronies keep lining their coffers while Americans suffer.