Welcome to the Food Policy Debrief, where we shed much-needed light on how corporations and organizations can engage with progressive food policy. Join us once a month as we provide news updates, demystify policy, and provide opportunities for advocacy!

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TL;DR

Break-ups, Jennifer Garner, and lawsuits (no, this isn’t a recap of the Golden Globes)
Easy “yes” alert: Two petitions you can sign to fight food insecurity among children
This surplus food recovery service is changing the game with its new feature
In the new year, is America getting put on a new diet?

This Month’s Standout Food Stories

👀 Bills We’re Tracking

🥕 Farm Bill: Congress has until September 30th, 2025 to authorize a new Farm Bill after a last-minute, one year extension in December. (Honestly, your guess is as good as ours here as to whether this happens…)

🏛️ Confirmation Hearings: The hearings of USDA Secretary Nominee Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be essential viewing in the coming weeks.

**How You Can Progress Food Policy This Month**

For individuals: Sign the Nourish Our Future petition! This Bread for the World-led campaign is urging U.S. senators and representatives to prioritize ending food insecurity among children in America—and around the world.

For New York-based readers: Join School Meals for All’s effort in calling for Governor Hochul to support full funding of universal free school meals in New York’s FY2026 Executive Budget. Sign the petition here!

Social Impact Spotlight

Shedding light on companies leading by example and engaging in food policy in a meaningful way

**Copia Launches New Feature to Streamline Food Donations and Support Nonprofits**

Copia, a technology-enabled surplus recovery service that empowers businesses to easily distribute their excess food, announced a newest feature that strengthens partnerships between its donating businesses and food recovery organizations.

Typically, Copia relies on third-party last-mile delivery partners for donation pickups, but this new feature engages local nonprofits and food recovery organizations directly—plus compensates them for their efforts and ensures they have the resources to succeed. Now, businesses can continue partnering with the nonprofit organizations or food recovery groups they’ve worked with on a local level, preserving their established community connections.

Why this matters: This feature reinforces Copia’s ongoing commitment to creating a collaborative ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders in the food recovery process. For businesses, it offers a cost-effective, streamlined way to support their communities while meeting sustainability goals. For nonprofits, it provides essential financial support and tools to continue their critical work efficiently and effectively.

"At Copia, we understand that transportation is often the most resource-constrained aspect of a nonprofit’s operations. That’s why we’re putting our money where our mouths are by providing a revenue share to our FRO and nonprofit partners—ensuring they are given additional support to continue their critical work of getting food to those who need it most,” says Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia. “As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting nonprofits, this is just the beginning. We’re working on additional tools and resources to better support our nonprofit partners and business donors and excited to share more soon.”

New Year, New Dietary Guidelines

It’s officially the new year, aka peak season for all things diet culture, so chances are you’re currently being bombarded with food fad content (if you haven’t yet seen the raw carnivore diet on social media, let us be the first to share that with you). But did you know that this new year also means new Dietary Guidelines for Americans—the science-based, highly political, and sometimes controversial guidelines that come out every five years—will be released? In this edition of Food Policy Debrief, we’re breaking down how these guidelines came to exist and how they fit into our current sociopolitical landscape. Let’s get into it.

Who invented these guidelines anyways?

In the mid twentieth century, the U.S. started to actually care about the food system. In other words, it started working toward a more productive industry and making progress in nutrition and health science. Naturally, this new focus started bringing more scrutiny to the American diet, and in particular, the link between diets and disease. Remember in July of last year when we discussed the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health? That was a part of this growing movement, too. In fact, one of the key recommendations from that OG Conference was the establishment of Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs).

Let’s take a step back 👣

So actually, the creation of the guidelines was mostly done by the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, which only existed from the years 1968 to 1977 (RIP). In 1977, it released a first-of-its kind report that included advice like balancing activity with caloric intake, increasing complex carbohydrates in the American diet, reducing overall and saturated fat consumption, and reducing sodium intake. The insights in this report were used as the foundation for the DGAs.

When they made things official 📝

Then in 1980, the first official Dietary Guidelines for Americans was released as a joint project between USDA and HHS. These agencies enlisted external experts and re-released the guidelines every five years based on the latest science, and Congress was like, “That’s actually a really good idea.” So in 1990, Congress mandated that these agencies do just that: Work together with external experts to update and release these guidelines with relevant insights. So now every five years, USDA and HHS take turns leading the process (isn’t that cute?) with a panel of advisors—including nutritionists, public health experts, and scientists—who review and make recommendations based on the latest science (trust us, they read a lot).

What’s the drama ☕

Here’s where it gets juicy: Both the initial report and the OG DGAs were met with pushback and controversy. They even sparked outrage from groups like the American Medical Association, who were shocked in particular at the political nature of the process and felt much of the scientific community had been inadequately engaged and wanted more diversity of opinion. The DGAs have continued to be a point of controversy over the past few decades—with some saying the science is inadequate or that the state of nutrition science is limited or inherently flawed—and that the process is too political. We won’t send you links to conspiracy YouTube, but trust us, it’s out there.

Sidenote: BTW, the target audience of the Dietary Guidelines is not actually the American public at large, but the policymakers and experts who eventually make public health and dietary recommendations to the public (think MyPlate). These guidelines are also used as the basis for some federal nutrition programs, such as WIC. So, if you started this article thinking you’d get diet advice… we’re sorry. But like the Committee, we do invite you to review the evidence.

Now back to 2025 🗓️

And review they did. In December of last year, the Dietary Guidelines Scientific Report to frame the 2025-2030 guidelines was released, which you can see (and comment on!) here. So you might be asking, “What’s in this Scientific Report and what might that mean for the final Dietary Guidelines?”

In some ways, it’s more of the same advice we got back in 1980: Americans still need to balance our diet with activity, reduce our overall consumption of saturated fats, reduce the amount of sodium in our diets, and address deficiencies in our eating patterns (we need more fiber, calcium, potassium, and Vitamin D). Overall, the report advises that we eat more fruits and vegetables, integrate more whole grains into our diet, and, yes, hit the gym more.

But the 2025 Scientific Report was also unique in some ways: There was an overarching focus on equity during the scientific review, emphasizing the growing disparities in health outcomes, food preferences and availability, and preferences across different racial, ethnic, and even income groups. This is reflected in the diversity of different food patterns it recommends and options it provides, which include more and different kinds of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and all the good stuff we need than ever before, including recommending more plant-based sources of protein (we love a lentil moment).

Big Food strikes again (aka more drama) 🍖

This cycle, much of the controversy centered around the emphasis on plant-based over animal-based proteins, and the Committee’s statement around ultra-processed foods, which said that the evidence was not yet strong enough to make a recommendation. Of course, this had advocates for the American meat industry releasing criticisms of the report’s de-emphasis on animal-based proteins, and other advocates, such as former Advisory Committee member and Food Policy Debrief MVP Marion Nestle, pushing back on the report's stance around ultra-processed foods. Nestle (no relation to the candy bar company) didn’t mince words, saying, “They are ignoring tons of evidence, some of it remarkably well controlled. I am not arguing for lower scientific standards. I just think the standards set by the committee cannot be met by available nutrition research.”

Where do we go from here? 🧭

Once the new administration takes over on January 20, this five year process will start right back over again. While the Committee we’ve been talking about makes recommendations, ultimately what goes into the final guidelines is determined by USDA and HHS only—and they actually care about what you think.

So much so that the agencies allow the public to engage with the DGAs at nearly every step of the process, including open nominations to serve on the Committee itself, comments on the research questions, and you can even attend Committee meetings (and if you’re a RD or RDN, it can even count towards your CEUs!)

Be sure to join the meeting on January 16th, where USDA and HHS will provide an opportunity to provide oral comments about the Scientific Report. You can also submit a written comment until February 10th, which you can learn more about here. To see each step of the process, click here.

While the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are complex and controversial, like so many other things in food policy, the final product is up to us, the American people. We encourage everyone to do their rigorous research, engage with the process by submitting comments, and obviously, don’t forget to eat your fruits and veggies.