12 Power Foods the New Guidelines MISS

The new 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans are here. They recommended that you eat real foods. But when you look at the new upside-down pyramid, you see that what they really mean is for you to eat red meat, full-fat dairy products, eggs, cheese, some fruits and vegetables, a few nuts and seeds, a little bit of whole grains, and no refined grains or sugars. The real food part is excellent. Getting the junk out of the American diet would be a stellar achievement. But I warned earlier that these recommendations might just be another way for Americans to eat badly.

So, if the upside-down pyramid isn’t right, what do we need to eat? So here is our list of 12 Power Foods that the new guidelines basically miss entirely or dismiss as unimportant. They are real foods. They just aren’t animal products. There is more than one way to get your real foods in America.

Fruits (1 medium fruit, 3 servings per day)

Fruits are the cleansers in the body, and usually a great way to start your day. They’re rich in vitamin C for immunity and skin health, B vitamins for metabolic health, and antioxidants to help quench inflammation in the body. Their natural sweetness provides clean energy for the body to run disease-free.

The soluble fiber in fruits improves digestive health, so we get energy without a huge blood sugar spike. 

You shouldn’t live on fruit alone, but a few pieces of day provides vital nutrients that complement what you get from vegetables. 

Berries (1/2 cup fresh or frozen or 1/4 cup dried, 1 serving per day)

Even if you can’t eat other fruits, you should not pass up a small bowl of berries every day. Berries are a nutrient-dense powerhouse loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and phytonutrients. They generally are pretty low in sugar for the amount of nutrition that you get from them.

Research shows that they support heart health, aid in blood sugar control, enhance brain function, and lower the risk of a variety of age-related conditions. 

Flax Seeds (1 Tbsp., 2 servings per day)

Flax seeds are one of the original superfoods. They are a vital part of the Hallelujah diet because of their omega-3 fatty acids, the fiber they contain, and the lignans. See 10 reasons why you should eat flaxseeds. They support heart health, improve digestion, reduce inflammation, and may help protect against cancer and diabetes. They’re a great source of minerals and protein. They help fill you up so you are not as hungry for a while, which is great for weight management. 

BarleyMax (1 tsp., 3 servings per day)

BarleyMax is our highest-quality organic barley grass juice powder. It is just the very carefully dried juice from just-cut organic barley grass, harvested at its peak of nutrition. 

What’s in BarleyMax that is so special? Well, it would take a small book to explain everything that makes BarleyMax special. But it is full of vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, chlorophyll, flavonoids, trace elements, antioxidants, and live enzymes.

What’s it do for you? It helps promote detoxification, boosts energy levels, and strengthens the immune system. BarleyMax may help you lose weight. It may help you improve your digestion. And it has special factors that help fight inflammation, and help your metabolism run better. 

It doesn’t take much BarleyMax to make a big difference. Just three teaspoons a day provide the unique factors in BarleyMax that don’t appear in your other plant foods. Get a boost. Get BarleyMax. 

Vegetable Juice (8 oz., 2 servings per day)

It’s hard to eat enough vegetables to provide everything that you can get from them. That’s why we recommend vegetable juice with the Hallelujah Diet. The juicer does the hard work of grinding the produce, extracting the nutrient-rich juice from the vegetables, and separating the fiber, so you can drink the nutrient-rich juice. (We still get plenty of fiber with the Hallelujah Diet, but we don’t want the nutrients in our vegetables to stay locked up inside the fiber; thus, the juicer.) 

Vegetable juice provides nutrients in a form that maximizes absorption, so that you get all the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants possible out of your expensive organic produce. Vegetable juice helps support heart health, eye health, reduces inflammation, boosts immunity, improves cognition, and helps keep disease at bay. 

Drinking vegetable juice is one of the best ways to boost blood carotenoid levels. In a study of 1,551 women, it was found that the women with the highest levels of plasma carotenoid concentrations had significantly lower risk (43% less risk) of breast cancer recurrence. 

Greens (1 cup leafy greens, 3 servings per day)

You need at least one big green salad every day, and leafy greens are the foundation of that salad. Leafy greens are compatible with every diet, except a carnivore diet.

Leafy greens are rich in vitamins A (as beta-carotene), vitamin C, and vitamin K, minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, and potassium that help support immunity, bone health, digestion, and all the systems of the body. Leafy greens are foundational nutrition. They help reduce your risk of all degenerative chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. They help reduce inflammation in the body and may also reduce the risk of autoimmune diseases. They provide dietary nitrate, which relaxes endothelial lining of blood vessels and helps normalize blood pressure.

Other Raw Vegetables (1/2 cup serving, 5 servings per day)

Along with leafy greens, you also need other raw vegetables. We recommend five servings a day, totaling about 2.5 cups of raw vegetables, in addition to leafy greens.

These raw vegetables don’t provide a lot of calories, but they do provide an enormous amount of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants to boost immunity, support digestion, reduce heart disease, help maintain a healthy body weight, and protect you against a variety of degenerative chronic conditions. Vegetables really are the foundation of our program.

You maximize the vitality you get from these vegetables by eating them raw rather than cooked. 

Cooked Vegetables (1/2 cup serving, 1 serving per day)

In addition to the raw vegetables, a small amount of cooked vegetables helps too. Some nutrients are more easily absorbed from cooked vegetables. 

For example, carotenoids such as lycopene and beta-carotene are more readily released from the food matrix of cooked vegetables. Tomato sauce, vegetable soup, and stir-fry vegetables are a great way to enjoy some cooked vegetables. 

Avocado (1/2 fruit serving, 1 serving per day)

Healthy fats are beneficial to the body. Choosing food sources of fats is important, as these fats don’t come by themselves, but bring along all the nutrients in the whole food.

Avocados are known to promote heart health, help stabilize blood sugar, improve skin elasticity and firmness, and, overall, help reduce chronic disease risk. Research on avocados is a bit sparse. However, avocados promote satiety, filling a gap that can sometimes be missing in plant-based diets. 

Tree Nuts & Seeds (1/4 cup or 2 Tbsp. nut butter, 2 servings per day)

Nuts and seeds are a very beneficial part of the Hallelujah diet. They provide excellent protein, fats, and micronutrients. Research shows that nuts and seeds support heart health, reduce inflammation, help maintain a healthy body weight, and even lower the overall risk of early death. People think of nuts as fattening, but raw nuts in the context of the Hallelujah diet provide highly beneficial essential nutrients. 

Beans (1/2 cup cooked, 1/4 cup hummus/bean dip, or 1 cup fresh peas, 1 serving per day)

Beans and lentils are a great source of plant-based protein and fiber to maintain energy throughout the day. Beans are a common ingredient in all of the Blue Zone diets around the world. The amino acid profile of legumes is a complement to the amino acid profiles of all the other vegetarian protein sources. So it’s important to get a few beans every day. 

Beans help lower cholesterol, even out blood sugar levels, support heart health and gut health, aid weight loss, and reduce the risk of chronic degenerative diseases. 

Organic Whole Grains (1/2 cup hot cereal, cooked rice, pasta, 1 tortilla, 1/2 bagel, or 1 slice of bread, 1 serving per day)

Organic whole grains are a great source of clean energy for the body, providing complex carbohydrates and nutrients to power your metabolism. Organic whole grains provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals, which can help lower cholesterol, stabilize blood sugar, the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

When intact whole grains like quinoa, wild rice, steel-cut oats, and rolled oats are consumed, they help promote weight management by providing sustained fullness. 

Beverages (12 oz. high-quality liquid, in addition to vegetable juice and water in foods, 8 servings per day)

Purified water is an essential part of everyone’s diet. The general recommendation is about half an ounce per pound of body weight. Drinking water prevents dehydration, supports weight management, and even improves your cognitive function and mood. 

Instead of reaching for sugary drinks, which don’t help you regulate your calorie intake, drink water. 

Exercise (150 minutes moderate activity or 75 minutes vigorous or 30 min HIIT per week)

All the good food in the world by itself is not enough to provide you with excellent health. You need to move your body, too. That is why physical activity is an essential part of the Hallelujah Diet and Lifestyle.

Exercise keeps you fit so that you can maintain a normal body weight. It keeps your muscles in tone, your bones strong, and your ligaments and tendons in good shape. Daily exercise helps improve your mood and enhances your ability to sleep well at night.

Maintaining your balance and muscle strength is especially important as we get older. Falls happen, and regular exercise builds resilience ahead of time.

Wrapping Up

So, that is our list of 12 Power Foods. Curious how it all fits together? Take a look at our daily schedule for one example of how you can fit all of these into your daily schedule. Of course, there is more than one way to do it. 

The 12 Power Foods lists real foods and the amounts you should strive to include to achieve optimal plant-based nourishment. 

Are you missing any of these foods? Think about how you could incorporate them into your daily routine and make healthier choices in 2026.