Cost analysis reveals a daily diet adhering to the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines averages $15.82, highlighting the need for updated low-cost food assistance benchmarks.
The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods. The DGA favor animal proteins and fats, restrict sugars and refined grains, and limit food additives and highly processed foods. The present goal was to estimate the cost of following the new DGA using 2026 food prices from a Seattle supermarket. Calculations were based on recommended servings for a 2000 kcal/d diet. Mean cost of the 2025-2030 DGA market basket was $15.82/d. That market basket provided a median 1997 kcal/d and 74.4 g of protein. The protein food group was the costliest, with a mean estimated cost of $6.47/d. The cost of 3.5 servings of protein foods was $.83/d for lentils, $14.37/d for seafood, and $18.55/d for beef. Implementation of the 2025-30 DGA would benefit from more formal cost estimations using national food prices. There is also a need for an updated Thrifty Food Plan, the lowest-cost healthy diet, that would be consistent with the new 2025-2030 DGA.
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Drewnowski et al. (2026) studied this question.
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