Food

Review: Did the Feds Finally Crack the Food Pyramid Code? Probably Not.

It's far more likely we'll be back to revise the pyramid again a decade from now.

Katherine Mangu-Ward | From the April 2026 issue

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(Department of Agriculture)

Even in a best-case scenario, the official federal food pyramid is little more than a lagging indicator of conventional wisdom on nutrition that is easily available from dozens—hundreds!—of other reliable sources.

In a worst-case scenario, a kludgy bureaucratic process locks in dubiously negotiated, outdated guidance. The food pyramid of my youth advised a seemingly impossible 6–11 servings of grains and cereals, for example. (The rumor that this was at the behest of the farm lobby had somehow spread even to my middle school.)

New guidelines released in January flip that old pyramid and suggest lots of meat, veggies, and dairy. If it turns out that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. finally nailed the slippery science of one-size-fits-all nutrition to the wall, great. But it's far more likely we'll be back to revise the pyramid again a decade from now.

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Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason.

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