The new federal diet guidelines set a protein target well above the old number
The 2025 to 2030 Dietary Guidelines print a target of 0.55 to 0.73 grams of protein per pound a day. The familiar 0.36 figure comes from a different document and was set as a floor.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025 to 2030, released by the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA in January 2026, set a daily protein target of about 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound of body weight. The target sits under a section titled Prioritize Protein Foods at Every Meal.
The figure most people know is lower. The companion science report, The Scientific Foundation for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025 to 2030, describes about 0.36 grams per pound as the level set to prevent deficiency. The report calls it the lowest intake that keeps a healthy adult in balance and says it does not reflect what it takes to hold onto muscle. The Conversation, reporting the day after the release, placed that older figure in the Dietary Reference Intakes, a separate reference from the guidelines.
The same science report puts the average American adult at about 0.45 grams per pound a day. That is above the old floor and below the bottom of the new range.
For people who train, the report summarizes trials on adults doing regular resistance or endurance work. In those trials, muscle, strength gains and lean mass kept all rose as daily protein rose, up to about 0.73 grams per pound, the top of the new range.
The size of the change depends on where in the range a person lands. Moving from 0.36 to 0.55 grams per pound is one and a half times the old figure, and moving to 0.73 is double. For a 180 pound adult, the new range comes to about 98 to 131 grams of protein a day.
The guidelines list eggs, poultry, seafood and red meat as protein foods, alongside beans, peas, lentils, nuts and soy.
