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The German Nutrition Society has updated its dietary guidelines to recommend halving meat consumption, limiting dairy intake and eating more plant-based foods; Secondly, it should make up at least 75% of your diet.
Months after Germany allocated funding for a plant-based transition in its 2024 budget, Germany’s new dietary rules reflect the country’s attitude towards the future of food. Echoing the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung (DGE) underlined the importance of plant-focused eating habits.
New dietary guidelines recommend Germans eat less meat, less dairy, fewer eggs and more plant-based foods, for both their own health and the health of the planet. This is based on a new mathematical optimization model based on the idea that the larger a food group is, the more you can eat.
The DGE suggests that a “health-promoting and ecologically sustainable diet” consists of more than 75% plant-based foods and less than a quarter of foods of animal origin. “If we want to eat healthy and at the same time protect the environment, we must change our diet now,” said DGE president Bernhard Watzl, who is also chairman of the working group on Nutrition Recommendations on Food.
A new wheel that emphasizes plant-based foods
The new nutritional rules are based on a model developed by the DGE together with experts from various disciplines, which calculates the amounts of certain food groups and produces the optimum consumption solution. The recommendations are aimed at adults aged 18-65 who consume both plant and animal foods and have no special dietary needs.
The nutrition wheel shows what a healthy and sustainable diet looks like according to the DGE’s revised guidelines. Beverages represent the largest food group; This mainly means water and unsweetened tea. This is followed by fruits and vegetables; legumes, nuts and seeds; and grains and potatoes. Animal foods such as milk and dairy products, fish, meat and eggs make up the rest of the wheel, representing less than a quarter of the total.
The guidelines recommend eating at least five fruits and vegetables a day, emphasizing seasonality, colors and variety. Essentially, the idea is that Germans should eat more of these every day, and non-meat eaters are advised to increase their intake of plant-based whole foods. However, what they should eat less of is foods of animal origin. The recommended daily allowance for milk has been reduced from three servings to two. This means 500 grams of dairy products in total; This could mean two glasses of milk, two slices of cheese or two 150 gram bowls of yoghurt.
As for meat and seafood, the guidelines have reduced weekly values from a range of 300-500 grams to a maximum of 300 grams; Another 30 grams were reserved for sausages. The DGE points out how “consumption of too much beef, pork, lamb and goat meat, and especially sausages made from them, increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and colon cancer.”
Meanwhile, legumes and nuts got their own section for the first time; Germans were recommended to eat 125 grams of the former per week and 25 grams of the latter per day. The guidelines also recommend consuming whole grains rather than processed grains and vegetable oils rather than animal fats such as butter. Additionally, processed foods high in sugar, fat and salt have been removed from the wheel due to their links to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
This is all consistent with a 2023 review of 37 health studies by researchers in Germany; This review found that switching from processed animal products to full-fat plant-based diets can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and death. Replacing 50 grams of processed meat per day with 28-50 grams of nuts can reduce the risk of death from any cause by 21%, while also reducing the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, by far the leading cause of death worldwide (accounting for a third of all deaths). This rate can be reduced by 25% if nuts or legumes are consumed instead of 50 grams of processed meat per day.
Lack of focus on plant-based alternatives
While the new advice has been welcomed by many, questions have also been raised about certain aspects of the guidance. Anna-Lena Klapp, senior nutrition and health specialist at ProVeg International, noted that food-based dietary guidelines classify beans, legumes and nuts as a separate but very small food group.
“This ignores the important role beans and legumes have to play in transforming our food system,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Legumes are a cheap source of protein, vitamins, complex carbohydrates and fibre, and are also very beneficial for sustainable agricultural practices. We really need to increase the role of legumes in our diet.”
The updated guidelines mark a departure from Germany’s previous stance of advising against veganism, with Klapp calling the exclusion of plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy a “missed opportunity”. A 2022 study found that 40% of nutritional guidelines evaluated from 100 countries included data and recommendations on vegetarian and vegan diets, while 45% mentioned meat and dairy analogues in the guidelines.
“Plant-based alternatives to popular animal products play an important role in transitioning people to a more plant-based diet because these products are often very similar to the foods people are used to and love,” he explained, adding that these guidelines should help. Determine which vegan alternatives can and cannot be part of a sustainable and healthy diet.
“A distinction must be made between plant-based alternatives that can be consumed frequently and alternatives that should be consumed in moderation or enjoyed only for pleasure,” he said, noting that similar recommendations are found in most guidelines for animal-based products. Dutch and Swedish stand out here with their recommendations.
However, DGE does not completely overlook these products. He mentions plant-based milks and notes that they can be used as long as they are fortified with adequate amounts of calcium, vitamin B2 and iodine (the most important products in the category). In its FAQ section on the website of the German Nutrition Society, it explains that the nutritional profile of plant-based meat, seafood and dairy products “often differs greatly from that of animal foods” and adds: “Based on usual consumption habits in Germany, we have found that dairy and fish in particular cannot be consumed without a suitable substitute.” “Whole or partial replacement with based alternatives may lead to nutritional deficiencies.”
However, it is stated that animal-based foods have a higher climate footprint, contain cholesterol, and generally contain more saturated fatty acids than plant-based products. “They should therefore complement the selection of plant-based foods in a balanced diet,” the DGE states.
Germans are already eating less meat
German dietary guidelines cater to what is considered the largest group of flexitarians in Europe (estimated at 40-55% of the total population). A major EU-backed survey last year found that 59% of Germans already eat less meat in 2022 than the previous year; This is the largest reduction in the EU.
Health, meanwhile, was the biggest reason for buying plant-based meat and dairy products (47% citing this), which is why Klapp found it odd that vegan alternatives weren’t included, given the country’s status as Europe’s largest plant-based market. However, the DGE explains that the mathematical optimization model describes the average diet in Germany and notes that the reason for including foods of animal origin is that they are already consumed frequently.
“The new optimization model is able to simultaneously take into account various dimensions of the environment, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use, when calculating the amount of food consumed,” said Anne Carolin Schäfer, nutritionist at the DGE Department of Science.
In any case, consumption of plant-based foods will continue to grow in Germany, with retailers such as Lidl, Kaufland, Aldi and Rewe Group all producing vegan analogues of meat and dairy products at or cheaper than their conventional counterparts. Last week, Burger King announced it was making a similar move, announcing that all plant-based menu items are now cheaper than meat. Meanwhile, the German government has allocated €38 million from the 2024 Budget to open the Future Proteins centre, as well as to encourage alternative protein consumption and the transition to plant-based agriculture.
“Consuming mainly fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and vegetable oils not only protects your health,” Watzl said. “On the other hand, the production of animal foods such as meat and dairy products pollutes the environment more, and high levels of meat consumption are associated with a higher risk of developing some diseases.”
Other countries that have recently revised their dietary guidelines to better focus on plant-based foods include the Scandinavian countries, Taiwan and Canada. Meanwhile, France is facing calls to do the same.
