New information released Thursday from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee say that Americans should pay taxes on sugary sodas and snacks but no longer need to worry about cholesterol.

The new recommendations also call for Americans to reduce meat consumption and advise when dining out to take sustainability into account. The sustainability initiative endorses plant-based diets and urges more consumption of farm-raised fish as ways to alleviate stress on the environment, according to Bloomberg.

As cholesterol has become less of a worry, consumption of cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs has rebounded pushing the focus on sugar.

Half of all U.S. adults have one or more preventable chronic disease related to poor diets and physical inactivity, according to the government. When this report was released, soda makers and packaged-food companies across the board fell. Not all of them recovered.

On what would be the panel’s first target on “added sugars” from food processing, the guidelines set a level of no more than 10 percent of all calories, down from the 13 percent now consumed by U.S. adults. This recommendation comes from studies that resulted in tying sugary beverages and snacks to high obesity rates.

In terms of public health, local governments have deemed sugars a threat. Facts such as U.S. obesity tripling from the 1960’s to 2010 have backed this concern. But still, the efforts to encourage better diets by raising taxes on sodas and imposing limits on super-size beverages has failed at ballot boxes and in courtrooms.

The exception so far is in Berkeley, California, where voters overwhelmingly approved the nation’s first tax on sodas last year. The panel states that soda taxes are worth exploring, potentially as a way to subsidize healthier foods.

As this new report is released by the panel, the Obama administration powers forward to find new ways to fight obesity. But already, the Obama administrations anti-obesity initiative headed by first lady Michelle Obama is under attack. Republicans have said that the nutrition rules outlined by the initiative rob school districts of flexibility.

The reports are calling for new and innovation ways to take action in health care at the community level in order to attempt making a dent in the obesity epidemic.

On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said their focus is on nutrition, not on dieting. One recommendation is leading the department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to create a new government icon, a dinner plate, to replace the widely used food pyramid.