Federal guidelines recommend people eat three servings of veggies, two servings of fruit, and three servings of dairy every day to meet dietary recommendations. Are you buying enough to meet that? The data says probably not.
Americans aren't buying enough fruit, vegetables, or dairy to meet federal dietary recommendations — and they’re buying more than enough grains. This is according to the most recent available Agriculture Department (USDA) data, which is from 2021. This held true when measured against both the 2020–2025 and the new 2025–2030 guidelines, though with some variations.
What foods are people buying?
The dietary guidelines set food group targets but of course leave room for individual preferences and food availability. Staples such as eggs, cheese, potatoes, and apples take up a good chunk of Americans' grocery carts.
Explore what Americans bought in 2021
Per-capita daily servings purchased by commodity (2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines)
Shoppers gravitated to certain foods within each food group. White and whole wheat flour accounted for two-thirds of all daily grain servings, and Americans were getting their dairy more from cheese than from a glass of milk — milk was about a quarter of dairy purchases, while mozzarella and cheddar combined accounted for 40%.
Protein purchases were concentrated among a few items: eggs, chicken, beef, and pork together accounted for 71%. Peanuts — the most purchased item outside of meat and eggs — came in at 9%.
For vegetables, potatoes accounted for over a quarter of all purchases, more than twice the share of tomatoes, the next largest share of vegetable purchases. For fruit, apples, bananas, and oranges combined accounted for nearly half of all purchases.
Why does this article use 2021 data?
Why does this article use 2021 data?
This article uses data from the USDA Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System, which tracks estimated per-person food purchases across more than 200 food commodities.
Due to an inconsistent release schedule, 2021 is the latest year available for most commodities. A few items have data through 2022, but all data was standardized to 2021 for consistency. The following items didn’t have 2021 data available due to changes in source data or discontinued reporting; because these items did not have a lot of historical variation, earlier figures were used as estimates:
- Seafood (2018)
- Barley products (2020)
- Fruit: frozen blackberries (2017), dried raisins (2017), frozen plums and prunes (2015)
- Vegetables (2019): canned and frozen Asparagus, canned and frozen carrots, frozen lima beans, canned and frozen green peas, canned and frozen snap beans, frozen spinach, canned and frozen sweet corn
Other government sources, such as USDA Production, Supply and Distribution, have more recent data available but cover fewer food types — for example, 9 fruit types compared to 30 in this dataset. It also measures domestic consumption as all possible uses of a commodity (food, feed, seed, waste, and industrial processing) rather than narrowing it down to food at the consumer level.
How does food purchased compare with 2020–2025 dietary guidelines?
The USDA’s data on per-person food purchases provide a population-level snapshot showing that Americans were buying protein and grains beyond the 2021 recommended consumption levels. Protein purchases were 51.4% above the 2020–2025 recommendations for a 2,000-calorie diet — nearly 1.5 times the suggested 5.5 ounces, or about three extra eggs per day. Grain purchases exceeded recommendations by 36%, or about two extra slices of bread beyond the recommended six slices (re: six ounces) daily.
Note: The government suggests servings for food groups, but does not specify how much food people should purchase. Since we don’t know what individuals eat every day, USDA purchase data enables us to estimate what Americans consume on average.
In 2021, Americans bought more than enough protein foods to meet the 2020 guidelines
Food purchases as a percentage of recommended servings for a 2,000-calorie diet (2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans)
Americans fell short of dietary recommendations across several food groups. People purchased 30.6% fewer vegetables than recommended, 34.8% less dairy, and 45.2% less fruit. To make up the difference, the average American would need to add the equivalent of about 1.5 cups of raw spinach, a glass of milk, and just under 1 cup of berries to their purchases each day.
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How often are dietary guidelines updated, and what changed from 2020–2025 to 2025–2030?
The USDA and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have released Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years since 1980. What began as a voluntary effort between the two agencies became a legal requirement in 1990, when Congress passed the national nutrition monitoring and related research act, which mandated that the USDA and HHS partner to publish guidelines every five years. Those guidelines contain recommendations for daily amounts for each food group. On January 7, 2026, the secretaries of HHS and USDA released updated dietary guidelines for Americans. Some recommendations remained the same, while others shifted.
Meat and soy serving recommendations increased the most in the 2025–2030 dietary guidelines
Percent change in recommended servings by food type compared with 2020–2025 guidelines for a 2,000-calorie diet
Servings for meat, poultry, seafood, and soy increased the most in the 2025–2030 dietary guidelines, with recommended amounts for a 2,000-calorie diet rising 91% to a level nearly double the prior recommendation. In other words, while the daily requirement used to be just under 1.5 quarter-pound burger patties (or another protein equivalent), the new recommendation suggests just over 2.5 patties.
Grains recommendations dropped the most. Suggested servings were cut in half, meaning someone getting their grains purely from bread would now have to eat half a slice of bread for every slice they ate before. Fruit food group recommendations were the only ones that remained unchanged.
What do the new dietary guidelines recommend?
What do the new dietary guidelines recommend?
The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends consuming the following daily servings for a 2,000-calorie diet:
- Protein foods: 3–4 servings
- Dairy: 3 servings
- Vegetables: 3 servings
- Fruit: 2 servings
- Grains: 2–4 servings
Do Americans purchase food in line with the new food pyramid?
While the USDA has not yet released updated purchase data, we can apply the new guidance to 2021 purchasing figures for an early look at how well purchases aligned — or didn’t — with the updated recommendations.
Despite the 2025–2030 guidelines nearly doubling protein recommendations, Americans were already purchasing enough in 2021 to almost meet that new consumption target. Americans already bought more grains than recommended, and because the new dietary guidelines lowered the recommended amount, that gap has grown even wider. On average, people purchased 172% more grains than needed to meet dietary guidelines. That’s the equivalent of about five extra slices of bread per day.
As of 2021, Americans were already buying nearly enough protein to meet the 2025 guidelines
Food purchases as a percentage of recommended servings for a 2,000‑calorie diet (2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans)
Vegetable, dairy, and fruit purchases were below recommendations under both guidelines. Still, dairy and vegetables swapped positions from then to now: vegetable purchases fell further short under the updated guidance (-42.1% vs. -30.6% previously), while the dairy gap narrowed (-19.8% vs. -34.8% previously).
The fruit food group purchase gap stayed the same, falling 45.2% short under both editions since recommended amounts didn’t change.
Data digestif (aka data notes)
Per-capita estimates show average total food purchases across the resident population and armed forces overseas, but they don’t reflect individual diets.
It’s important to note that this data has limitations. It doesn’t account for food waste, or uneaten food, or differences in food availability across regions, households, or individuals, so these figures shouldn’t be interpreted as measures of actual dietary intake. According to the USDA, they’re an “indirect indicator of trends in food use,” that provide “insight into whether Americans, on average, are consuming more or less of various foods.”
