Nobody's Taking Away Your Pizza

I can’t hear it anymore: the standard dietary advice hammers home the same points over and over: “Nobody wants to take your pizza.” “Everything is fine, in moderation.” “The occasional treat is perfectly fine.”

A rant!

It’s perfectly normal and unquestioned to start the day with a caramel-syrup coffee and something sweet — and the question “Can I bring you something?” is rhetorical: it means “What can I bring you?” — the whether is not up for discussion.

Cake in the afternoon, and especially on birthdays, is a given. Anyone who declines is suspicious, risks social exclusion, and owes everyone an explanation ⁽¹⁾.

The DGEDeutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung - German Nutritional Society, a largely government funded NGO, designated as appointed authority on nutritional matters hits exactly the same note with its dietary guidelines, placing the highest priority on “business as usual”: Don’t change any habits is the central principle of the current guidelines.

More on this:

“Top priority: keep doing what you’ve always done!”

And the DGE’s further priorities for its dietary guidelines aren’t exactly convincing either.

Read more →

It’s considered somewhat out of place to comment on someone ordering a soft drink (cola, lemonade) at a restaurant — even though everyone is fully aware of the total nutritional void they’re consuming.

Compare this to the moment you ask, when ordering a steak, to swap the potato for butter: it feels as though everyone at the table fears you won’t be walking out of the restaurant on your own two feet, but will instead be rushed to the nearest cardiac unit just from looking at your plate.

“I’ve got a separate stomach for dessert” is a charming euphemism for the normalization of sugar. Skipping it often requires an explanation, again ⁽¹⁾.

350g of sugar per week: perfectly acceptable ⁽²⁾ . 300g of meat per week: the recommended upper limit in DGE dietary guidelines. Meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods available, with high bioavailability; sugar contains nothing but “empty calories” — and even those the body doesn't need _at all_Nonessential nutrients are those that the body can synthesise itself out of other nutrients. Therefor these do not have to be provided with food.. Is this 350:300 the “balance” everyone keeps talking about?

Nobody is taking your pizza.

And that’s exactly the problem.

More about the DGE and its guidelines

Here's looking at you...

A look inside: what I can’t measure - and why I don’t consider myself clever enough for a vegan diet

Dietary Advice as a Toolbox

I assume the toolbox of nutritional advice is not well sorted, and it’s unfortunate that a hammer seems to be the only tool left in the box

What Does the DGE Recommend? Chapter 2

A dissection of the scientific foundations of the DGE guidelines - because even though I ignore them, I refuse to be accused of being anti-science.

What Does the DGE Recommend? Chapter 1

Behind the DGE dietary guidelines: scientific foundations and the choice of goals and solution spaces. How are the recommendations weighted?

Planetary Health Diet - The Great Misunderstanding

The one aspect most commonly cited in favor of the ‘Planetary Health Diet’ is an aspect the associated report explicitly did not examine.

DGE Guidelines. A Contradiction?

Why the recommendations of the German Nutrition Society don’t actually contradict my completely different personal experience

The Preferred Fuel

The body’s preference: Which fuel does it like to burn most? (The answer will surprise you 😉)

"Watch Your Weight"

A rant: why ‘watch your weight’ as advice doesn’t actually help

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