[Editor's note: this piece was co-authored by Sarah Frey and Hannah Anderson]

For 75 years, America slowly engineered whole foods out of its diet. Under the Trump Administration, it started engineering it back in.

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released in January by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are now reaching into hospitals and corner stores alike, among other federal programs. Hospitals are being asked to serve sick patients real food. And convenience stores and other retailers that accept food stamps must double their whole food offerings by November.

And while healthy food for patients and more real foods for areas without large grocers will bring better nutrition to the vulnerable, the benefit extends beyond hospitals or urban and rural “food deserts.”  The new Dietary Guidelines will benefit all Americans who have gradually been deprived of access to whole foods for decades.

Until the release of the new guidelines, for the better part of a century, the nation drifted away from a diet built on whole, locally grown foods. Each step was sold as progress: cheaper, faster, longer lasting. Over time, however, the consequences became increasingly clear in the form of rising chronic disease and a weakening connection between Americans and the farmers who grow their food. 

Federal nutrition advice once pointed the other way. In 1894, the government published........

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