As of: March 25, 2024, 7:22 p.m
By: Jana Stabener
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The German Nutrition Society (DGE) is causing a stir with its new nutritional recommendations.
What is behind the club?
Just one egg a week: If you want to eat healthily and sustainably, you should stick to this recommendation.
At least according to the German Nutrition Society (DGE).
Your new nutritional recommendations have sparked debate over the past week.
The Central Association of the German Poultry Industry rejects the suggestions because they “outlook the reality of people’s lives”.
Vegan companies like Oatly criticize the fact that substitute products are not included in the DGE's revised nutrition circle.
The German Academy for Preventive Medicine (DAPM) considers the new nutritional recommendations to be “problematic” for large parts of the population.
DGE's nutrition is based on the Planetary Health Diet
This is what the Planetary Health Diet looks like.
© Screenshot EAT-Lancet Commissio
For several years now, the DGE has been planning to revise its nutritional recommendations (FBDG) and focus them more on sustainability.
Above all, she wanted to follow the “Planetary Health Diet” (which this cafeteria exemplifies).
It is a proposal from the EAT-Lancet Commission from 2019 on how ten billion people could be fed a climate-neutral and balanced diet in the future.
The new nutrition group of the German Nutrition Society.
© Screenshot PK DGE
Based on a mathematical optimization model, the DGE developed guidelines in 2023 to simultaneously take nutritional, health and environmental aspects into account.
The “focus” of the revision was on preventing diet-related diseases and minimizing harmful environmental and climate effects (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions in livestock farming), she writes on her website.
While it used to be three servings of dairy products a day, the DGE now only recommends two.
We should also eat a maximum of 300 grams of meat and sausage per week.
Instead, our menu should consist of 75 percent plant-based foods (see graphic).
In particular, legumes such as beans, peas or lentils are healthy and are given greater emphasis by the DGE with its own recommendation.
But who is the DGE actually?
Who is behind the colorful nutrition circles that many people still know from biology class?
DGE: What is behind the German Nutrition Society?
The German Society for Nutrition (DGE) is a registered association that deals with how we eat and how our diet could be even better.
He represents Germany in international nutritional science committees, publishes nutrition magazines and makes food-related nutritional recommendations, also known internationally as Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG).
These FBDG are not binding.
Each person can continue to eat whatever and how much they want.
They are much more a basis for how, for example, nutrition is discussed in schools, how canteens cook, how doctors advise their patients or how agricultural and health policy is made.
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This is what the Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) look like in Canada.
Substitute products (e.g. tofu) in the nutrition circle are also shown here.
© Screenshot food-guide.canada.ca
The DGE goes back to the German Society for Nutritional Research (DGEF), from which it clearly distances itself today.
At the time of National Socialism, the DGEF researched how work and nutrition were related and how a nutrient supply could be achieved without imports from abroad.
After the end of the Second World War it ceased its activities.
In 1952, the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) called on Germany to establish a representative, independent and scientific representation of German nutritional science.
Such societies already existed in other countries, for example the Austrian (ÖGE) or the French Society for Nutrition (SFN).
The DGE was founded in 1953 and joined the approximately 80 members of the IUNS.
Like most nutrition organizations, it works sometimes more, sometimes less closely with the federal government and regularly exchanges ideas with the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE).
Since 2001, the DGE has officially been under the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) under Cem Özdemir (Greens).
More on the topic: Healthy eating must be practiced in schools, demands doctors
How lobbyists influence the DGE
The DGE's advisory boards and working groups include not only people with political contacts, but also lobbyists from the dairy industry, the meat industry and other areas of the food industry.
Even if, according to the DGE, these members “cannot exert any influence” – conflicts of interest are inevitable, as
Correctiv
research into the dairy industry also shows.
This became clear in the spring of 2023, when the Association of the German Meat Industry accused the DGE of soon only allowing one currywurst per month.
Shortly before, the DGE had enabled associations like it and companies like Oatly to submit their concerns and concerns in the form of comments on the new nutritional recommendations.
In response to a query from
BuzzFeed News
Germany
, the DGE reported that 66 people (56 institutions) submitted a total of over 1,000 comments.
The areas of business and science were most frequently represented.
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