The festive season is just around the corner and with it the traditional festive meals, biscuits and sweet treats. Looking at the scales in the New Year also traditionally leads people to rethink their eating habits and make a firm resolution to change them.
"With our new website on the Austrian dietary recommendations, we want to make it easier for people to implement a healthy and sustainable diet in their everyday lives. By providing clear information, practical tips and recommendations that are suitable for everyday use, we are helping people to make conscious decisions. In this way, New Year's resolutions can actually succeed in the long term," says State Secretary for Health Ulrike Königsberger-Ludwig. At www.ernaehrungsempfehlung.at you will find lots of information on a balanced, needs-based and sustainable diet. Numerous recipes for every season offer the opportunity to put nutritional theory into tasty practice.
The Austrian nutritional recommendations are so-called food-based nutritional recommendations that represent the optimal composition of a healthy diet based on food groups. They are illustrated by two food pyramids - one with meat and fish and one vegetarian. They clearly show which foods should be consumed daily, weekly or only rarely.
The food pyramids are based on the latest scientific recommendations on nutrient intake and findings on the prevention of diet-related diseases. "On the one hand, the focus is on reducing the consumption of food groups that are associated with the development of diet-related diseases; on the other hand, on promoting the consumption of foods that are beneficial to health," says Johannes Pleiner-Duxneuner, Managing Director of AGES. The recommendations apply to healthy adults in Austria between the ages of 18 and 65.
During the revision and further development of the nutritional recommendations, environmental and climate aspects were also taken into account for the first time in addition to nutritional and health effects. Nutritional and health aspects (energy and nutrient intake as well as food-health relationships), environmental effects (greenhouse gas emissions and land use) and common eating habits in Austria were taken into account.
The Austrian Nutritional Recommendations were developed by AGES on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (BMASGPK) and the Competence Centre Climate and Health of Health Austria (GÖG) in cooperation with the Austrian Society for Nutrition (ÖGE). They were adopted by the National Nutrition Commission.