Germany: Citizens' group backs national free-lunch program

Germany's new Citizens' Council on "Nutrition in Transition" presented Bundestag President Bärbel Bas with a list of nine suggestions aimed at improving public health through nutrition on Sunday. The group was created in May 2023 with the aim of compiling such a list.

Bas welcomed the Council's work and called its suggestions an, "important impulse for our parliamentary work."

At the top of the list was the call for a nationwide free-lunch program for pre-schoolers and students.

The Council suggested the costs for ensuring a free and healthy lunch to every child in the German school system should be split between state and local governments, noting that, "healthy food is often too expensive for economically disadvantaged families."

Currently, only those children living in poverty are entitled to free school lunches in Germany.

Labeling transparency to inform consumers of healthy choices

Number two on the list was a call for obligatory federal food labeling designed to make it easier for consumers to eat healthier as well as making clear where and how animals were bred and raised.

Supermarkets of a certain scale, the Council said, should also be required to donate excess goods to food banks while it is still edible in order to avoid food waste.

The Council called for the supply of healthy and balanced meals at the country's health institutions, too — hospitals, therapy centers, nursing homes, etc.

And it specifically called for the ban on energy drink sales to children under 16, stating that the heath risks they posed were on par with those of alcohol and cigarettes.

More in-person food inspections made the list of suggestions as well.

A 'new path on taxes': a fundamental shift in food taxation

Lastly, the Council called for a "new path on taxes" in order to make healthy, ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly food affordable for everyone.

To that end, the Council suggested a 0% sales tax on organically grown fruits and vegetables, but a 19% sales tax on sugar and conventional non-organic meat.

Bundestag President Bas said the suggestions will be rolled into a report and officially presented by the end of February, when suggestions will be discussed in parliamentary committees and the Bundestag.

Part of the coalition's push for 'new forms of civic dialogue'

The Council, which Bas called a "successful and innovative example of a vibrant democracy," grew out of the coalition agreement signed by the country's ruling SPD, Green and FDP government.

The contract expresses the desire to find "new forms of civic dialogue." The Council is a group made up of 160 randomly selected citizens. Participants were chosen at random in what was billed a citizens' lottery.

Members convened on three separate weekends to discuss priorities as well as staging remote video meetings beginning in September. The group's suggestions are in no way binding and the German parliament, or Bundestag, is not obliged to adopt them.

The group made clear that information and education were the basis for all of its suggestions.   

js/wd (AFP, dpa, KNA)

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