RFK Jr. vows to halt 'attack' on fats in whole milk and cheese

Kristina Peterson, Bloomberg News on Jul 14, 2025

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top public health officials said Monday that saturated fats, long blamed for increased risk of heart disease, have been unfairly demonized by the medical community, indicating a pivot on government health guidelines is taking shape.

“There’s a tremendous amount of emerging science that talks about the need for more protein in our diets, more fats in our diets,” Kennedy said Monday at a U.S. Department of Agriculture event.

Saturated fats are found in animal-based foods, including all kinds of meat and full-fat dairy products, as well as some baked and fried foods.

Kennedy added that the next version of the federal government’s dietary guidelines, which underpin nutrition advice and shape meals in schools, would be released in the “next several months” and would stop the “attack on whole milk and cheese and yogurt over the past couple of decades.” The guidelines are typically updated every five years.

Shifting the federal stance on saturated fat could sway how certain foods are perceived and change how they are included in federal nutrition programs. For example, new guidelines could alter the composition of school meals, which currently recommend only skim and and 1% milk as part of an effort to limit saturated fat consumption. Both Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have publicly endorsed allowing whole milk to be served in schools again.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said Monday that “group think” has pushed the medical community to unfairly malign saturated fats.

“The medical establishment locked arms and walked off a cliff together” by insisting that the reason for heart disease was saturated fat, Makary said Monday at the same event. At the same time, the medical community ignored “the roles of refined carbohydrates and so many other things that drive general body inflammation,” he added.

“That dogma still lives large and you see remnants of it in the food guidelines we are now revising,” he said.

The current dietary guidelines recommend that Americans over the age of two limit their consumption of foods high in saturated fat to less than 10% of calories daily. Groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Science in the Public Interest have urged the administration to maintain this recommendation.

“The scientific consensus remains clear: saturated fat is consistently linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” the groups wrote in a June letter.

The American Heart Association recommends replacing foods that are high in saturated fat with foods such as beans, fish and nuts to lower the risk of heart disease.

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