Say No to RFK Jr’s Meat-First Updated Federal Food Pyramid

The Trump Administration has released new federal dietary guidelines that dramatically reshape the food pyramid—elevating meat and dairy while sidelining plant-based foods. Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Americans are now being encouraged to eat more red meat and full-fat dairy, reversing decades of nutrition guidance and setting off a chain reaction of harm for animals, wildlife, and public health.

This is harmful to people, animals, and the planet. More meat and dairy means more factory farms. It means more forests cleared for feed crops, more grasslands destroyed for grazing, and more wildlife pushed out of existence. 

Habitat loss driven by animal agriculture is already a leading cause of extinction. This guidance would accelerate it.

Wild animals aren’t the only ones paying the price. Billions of cows, pigs, chickens, and other farmed animals are already trapped in industrial systems defined by overcrowding, confinement, and suffering. Encouraging higher consumption locks in these practices—and expands them.

We know that the American public doesn’t support this system. Research shows that most Americans reject current, standard U.S. livestock industry practices, from extreme confinement to routine mutilations. Yet these guidelines from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. double down on an industry model people increasingly find unacceptable.

It’s no coincidence that the same dairy industry and Farm Bureau groups applauding this shift have also pushed to strip protections from gray wolves. Wolves are scapegoated to protect livestock operations, even as lethal predator control disrupts ecosystems and fails to solve long-term conflicts. Promoting meat-heavy diets while weakening wildlife protections follows the same playbook: sacrifice animals to protect industry profits.

This policy also ignores clear health warnings. Diets high in red and processed meat are linked to heart disease, cancer, and other chronic illnesses—risks this guidance downplays or dismisses.

We call on Secretary Kennedy to reverse this meat-first food pyramid, reject industry-driven nutrition policy, and restore guidance rooted in science, compassion, and sustainability.

Our food choices shouldn’t come at the cost of animal suffering, vanishing wildlife, and preventable disease. Please sign the petition calling on the Trump Administration to abandon this reckless revision of the food pyramid.
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Sources:

https://open.substack.com/pub/kucinichreport/p/what-a-spring-chicken-knows-that

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/07/trump-administration-dietary-guidelines-rfk-jr

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/07/nx-s1-5667021/dietary-guidelines-rfk-jr-nutrition