New nutritional recommendation
It was to be expected that the German Nutrition Society (DGE) would recommend reducing the consumption of animal products, but it does not change the scientific basis. “A healthy, balanced diet includes regular consumption of meat,” says Steffen Reiter, Managing Director of the Meat Industry Association (VDF). Recognized nutrition researchers around the world confirm that a healthy diet cannot be achieved without animal proteins. The DGE itself describes that an adult needs around 0,8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day, i.e. around 70 grams of protein for a person weighing 56 kilograms. “Meat is an excellent source of easy, low-calorie nutrition with sufficient amounts of protein and other nutrients such as vitamin B12,” says Reiter. The daily protein requirement could be covered by 250 grams of beef fillet alone, while you would have to eat over two kilograms of green beans. “So if you don’t want to eat according to the DGE’s mathematically optimized models, you should enjoy a balanced combination of what tastes good and is good for you,” adds Reiter.
The DGE's recommendations are also a problem for self-sufficiency in Germany. Germany already has to import around 80 percent of its fruit and 64 percent of its vegetables. “It is impossible to plant so many peas, lentils, sunflowers and apple trees in Germany to keep people fed,” says Reiter. Germany would have to import even more food; without fertilizer from farm animals, the local fields could only supply a fraction of what would be possible. In addition, additional means of transport on the road and in the air must be taken into account, which can lead to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
DGE boss Watzl's statement that a plant-based diet protects the environment is also misleading. “Only a functioning circular economy based on animal fertilizer is environmentally friendly and adapted to the location,” says Reiter. The VDF general manager speaks of scaremongering when the DGE generally describes the production of animal foods such as milk, eggs and meat as environmentally harmful and speaks of an increased risk of the development of diseases. “A balanced diet with regular consumption of animal products is essential for the entire organism and especially for a person’s bone structure.”
