On January 7, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brooke Rollins released the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030 with a direct mandate: Eat Real Food. The guidance rejects engineered, ultra-processed products and prioritizes clean protein, whole foods, and fewer additives. Schools are aligning, milk standards have shifted, and Mike Tyson amplifies the message nationally. For Chef Janine, this marks long-awaited vindication.

This blog post examines how corporate influence shaped nutrition science and dietary policy. It argues that the sugar industry redirected attention away from sugar and refined carbohydrates and toward dietary fat through funded research, academic partnerships, and federal dietary guidelines. The article traces the rise of the low-fat era, the promotion of industrial food substitutes, and the long-term impact these policies had on public health, chronic disease, and trust in n

Dr. Ancel Keys helped popularize the belief that saturated fat was the primary cause of heart disease. Critics argue that his Seven Countries Study selectively used data supporting that conclusion. In the 1960s, the Sugar Research Foundation funded Harvard researchers who downplayed sugar's role in heart disease and emphasized dietary fat instead. This influenced decades of low-fat dietary guidelines. Later research renewed scrutiny of these recommendations.