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The German Food Association has reassessed the impact of plant-based foods and changed its official position on veganism, noting that it can be a “health-promoting” diet.
The body responsible for drawing up Germany’s dietary guidelines, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung (DGE), says veganism is more climate-friendly than the average German diet and represents a “health-promoting diet”, after re-evaluating its official position on plant-based foods .
The DGE had last published a position paper on plant-based diets in 2021, but said it has now taken more than just health into account when evaluating sustainable diets. Environmental impacts, animal welfare and social benefits are now also part of the revised assessment.
There was also an update in the health dimension: previous position papers mainly looked at nutrient supply, but now other parameters such as blood lipid levels and the risk of diet-related diseases (such as cardiovascular disease) are also included.
The review has led the DGE to draw a number of new conclusions, softening its position on vulnerable populations eating vegan, defending the planetary benefits and endorsing the nutritional completeness of a plant-based diet.
The move comes three months after the association updated its dietary guidelines to recommend halving meat consumption, limiting dairy intake and eating more plant-based foods. It stated that the latter should make up at least 75% of Germany’s diet.
Plant-based diets are healthy with proper supplementation
The DGE’s new position states that plant-based diets are a “health-promoting diet” for healthy adults, provided they take vitamin B12 supplementation. It recommends a “balanced, well-planned selection of foods” and the adequate intake of “potentially critical nutrients”, including through supplements if necessary.
One such nutrient is iodine, which usually comes from seafood and dairy products. “Plant-based milk alternatives are rarely fortified with iodine and contain very little iodine if not fortified. Choosing a plant-based drink enriched with iodine can contribute to adequate iodine intake,” the DGE said.
To meet iodine requirements at home, the nutritional body recommends iodised and fluoridated table salt and foods prepared with it, as well as sea salt mixed with iodised seaweed.
Likewise, vitamin A is also a crucial nutrient, whose central active form, retinol, is found exclusively in animal products. Plant-based foods contain precursors such as provitamin A carotenoids, but these are needed in much larger quantities to convert into retinol. The most important precursor is beta-carotene, which is found in deep yellow, orange and green leafy vegetables and certain fruits.
“A sufficient supply of vitamin A in a vegan diet is in principle possible through the exclusive intake of provitamin A carotenoids, provided that there are no disturbances in fat digestion and the enzymes responsible for its conversion,” says the DGE.
Another important change in society’s position concerns vulnerable populations. Previously, the report explicitly did not recommend vegan diets for pregnant people, breastfeeding mothers, infants, children, adolescents and the elderly, based on limited data availability.
But now the DGE says it makes “neither a recommendation for nor against” a plant-based diet for vulnerable groups, based on improved but still limited data. “Even if the previous wording ‘not recommended’ should not be taken as a blanket rejection of a well-planned vegan diet, the wording chosen in the new assessment better reflects the currently available data,” the report outlines.
Vegan food is better for the climate
The DGE recognizes the planetary benefits of a vegan diet, calling it “more environmentally friendly” than the typical mixed German diet high in animal products. It pointed to the “great potential of plant-based foods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” as a factor.
Meat production alone is responsible for 60% of global food emissions and generates twice as much CO2e as growing plants. The Germans recognize this: meat consumption fell to a record low last year, with climate and health cited as the most important factors. This came as a major EU-backed study showed that 59% of Germans were already eating less meat in 2022 than the year before – the joint highest decline in the EU.
The country is also the largest market for plant-based food in all of Europe, thanks to its high percentage of flexitarians (estimated between 40-55% of the total population). The number of retailers has doubled, with Lidl, Kaufland, Aldi and the Rewe Group (which has opened a 100% plant-based store) all making vegan meat and dairy the same price or cheaper than their conventional counterparts. Burger King also announced a similar move.
Meanwhile, the German government has allocated 38 million euros in its 2024 budget to promote alternative protein consumption and a switch to plant-based agriculture, and to open a center for Proteins of the Future. And the country produced 17% more plant-based meat in 2023 than the year before, with the total value increasing by 8.5% to €583 million.
“This new position heralds a new era in nutrition policy in Germany,” said Anna-Lena Klapp, international nutrition and health leader at non-profit ProVeg International. “It takes vegan diets out of the shadows of the policy debate and puts them front and center.”
The Nordic countries, Taiwan and Canada recently realigned their dietary guidelines to also better focus on plant-based foods. France is called on to do the same. “We are pleased that this position has been published and we expect it to influence similar bodies around the world,” Klapp said.
