Ahead of April Fools Day, it was revealed the Biden administration is potentially reclassifying potatoes–a vegetable–as a grain under proposed Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) for the years 2025-2030.
This prompted a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators to write Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra expressing their dismay with the proposed DGA recommendations.
“Since the inception of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), it has classified potatoes correctly as a vegetable,” a bipartisan group of Senators wrote in a letter to Secretaries Vilsack and Bacerra. “There is no debate about the physical characteristics of the potato and its horticultural scientific classification. Unlike grains, white potatoes are strong contributors of potassium, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and fiber.”
The senators cited a 2013 National Library of Medicine study that affirmatively concluded that potatoes “should be included in the vegetable group because they contribute critical nutrients.” The 2013 study added, “All white vegetables, including white potatoes, provide nutrients needed in the diet and deserve a prominent position in food guides.”
The National Potato Council also warned in September 2023 against proposed changes to potatoes.
“While NPC is sensitive to individual needs and cultures, we urge the Committee to recognize a potato is not a grain. Potatoes are the most widely produced vegetable in the U.S.,” said NPC CEO Kam Quarles in a testimony before the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. “Starchy vegetables and grains are two vastly different food groups that play distinctly different roles in contributing nutrients to the diet. Unlike grains, white potatoes are a strong contributor of potassium, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and fiber. Research shows that diets high in vegetable consumption, including potatoes, promote healthy outcomes overall.”
DGA changes stemming from the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, an effort announced in January 2023 between Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USDA)
Per the USDA website, this committee “will examine the relationship between diet and health across all life stages, and will use a health equity lens across its evidence review to ensure factors such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and culture are described and considered to the greatest extent possible based on the information provided in the scientific literature and data.”
Doing a quick scan of the 20 advisory board members, you can uncover some interesting views and affiliations.
Vice Chair Angela Odoms-Young of Cornell University focuses primarily on promoting “health equity” and “food justice.” In 2023, she retweeted comments that lambasted tying SNAP benefits to expanding work opportunities. Cheryl Anderson, dean of UC-San Diego’s School of Public Health, once delivered a presentation entitled “Achieving Equity in Health Care.” Another board member, Carol Byrd-Bredbenner from Rutgers University, told her employer: “It is a bit overwhelming because there’s so much great science out there. It must be sifted through and synthesized. And, hopefully, we will be able to move the needle, to help us eat better, live longer and healthier, and guide these important food programs we have, like WIC and SNAP. [The federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.]”
On the DGA disclosure page, board advisors are said to have ties, financial and non-financial, with the federal government, progressive foundations, and even fake meat companies.
Rockefeller Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are listed as “grants or contracts from any entity” who have previously founded any of the 20 advisory board members. Rockefeller Foundation, a supporter of left-leaning causes, was advocating for eugenics in the 1950s and more recently funds the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities–a group touting SNAP benefits that the aforementioned DGA Committee Vice Chair retweeted in support of. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been active in promoting the implementation of Obamacare and even going so far as to promote universal health care. And the World Health Organization (WHO), of course, needs no explanation.
An interesting disclosure is Beyond Meat – a fake meat company listed as “other financial or non-financial interests.” Last year, the company saw a loss of “$338.1 million during fiscal 2023 on sales of $343.4 million.” Nutritionist Vanessa Rissetto, RD, co-founder of Culina Health, told Women’s Health Magazine that Beyond Burgers are “highly-processed foods and typically are high in sodium.” What questionable ingredients do Beyond Burgers contain? Too many weird and unhealthy unknowns (all listed below):
Water, pea protein*, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], calcium pantothenate).
Americans are better off eating real meat instead of poisoning their bodies with this garbage.
The Biden administration can’t define what a woman is. Why are we to expect them to maintain the sanctity of potatoes as vegetables? We’d be fools to accept these new norms and reimagining of food.