In the course of their lives, people learn a great deal about themselves and the world and how they should organise their lives. However, depending on the culture, level of education and state of research, these things are different and mistakes creep in again and again, which are very difficult to correct.

This is particularly true when it comes to nutrition. If you ask different peoples about this, you may get similar answers as long as they are on a general level, e.g. people all over the world know that fruit and vegetables contain vitamins and should be important components of our diet.


But if you ask more closely, opinions will differ, because recommendations always depend on habits and these are known to vary greatly from region to region.

Misconceptions also persist and continue to be spread even after being refuted by science, or cause confusion, because too much contradictory information is unsettling. As there are many different sources from which information can be obtained nowadays, there is also growing uncertainty about how reliable the information is.

The problem is therefore not a lack of information, but a lack of reliable sources of information. If errors are spread unseen and uncorrected, this contributes to our uncertainty becoming even greater.

This has particularly significant consequences for nutrition, as we all have to eat every day and the condition of our bodies depends to a large extent on what we eat.

Sin is therefore more likely to be found today in connection with eating behaviour than with religion, because sinning often means that we have once again pushed aside all the rules of healthy eating and satisfied body and soul with the consumption of too many, too sweet, too fatty or too ready meals.

Is all this really so bad and unhealthy? This question will probably never be answered satisfactorily for everyone. It depends on who you ask!

Nevertheless, it is important to expose existing misconceptions and provide people with more reliable information.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that you can't indulge in anything for the sake of a healthy, balanced diet, which means that certain foods must always be taboo and eating sins will immediately pay for themselves.

It is true that too much of certain foods, e.g. "fast food" with negative connotations, or an unbalanced, vitamin-poor diet can make you ill and disrupt your body's functions.

However, it is also true that excessive consumption of certain "healthy" foods can also do this. Examples include raw foods that are difficult to digest or cereals and breads that are very high in fibre, which place a great strain on the digestive system and can have undesirable negative effects, e.g. stomach pressure and digestive problems, or even irritation of the intestinal mucous membranes, painful flatulence, diarrhoea or constipation.

So what good is it if a supposedly healthy product constantly causes unpleasant side effects when consumed, does that make me feel healthier? Hardly.

In the prevailing health craze, you should remember your body's own needs, which do not necessarily call for muesli, but which can also mean an increase in calories in certain phases. You can also give in to the craving for "forbidden" foods from time to time, which your body uses for reasons that you should definitely pay attention to.

We should also remember that light products are an invention of the manufacturers that need to be marketed. The idea is good, but just as "light" has an effect on our wallets, where instead of getting a lot, we often just spend a lot, the body may also react by trying to compensate for the less fat elsewhere in order to reach its minimum calorie requirement.

First and foremost, you should try to eat in such a way that your guilty conscience bothers you as little as possible, but this should be understood as going both ways, i.e. neither developing a guilty conscience when you have a jam roll instead of muesli for breakfast, nor by constantly preferring chips to jacket potatoes.

Common sense also promotes common sense, so don't let the adverts put you off.