Quality of Popular Diet Patterns in the United States: Evaluating the Effect of Substitutions for Foods High in Added Sugar, Sodium, Saturated Fat, and Refined Grains.

Low diet quality was observed for all popular diet patterns evaluated in this study. Modeled dietary shifts that align with recommendations to choose foods lower in added sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and refined grains led to modest improvements in diet quality and larger reductions of energy intake. Greater efforts are needed to encourage the adoption of dietary patterns that emphasize consumption of a variety of high-quality food groups.