Even the very first drop of alcohol is said to be harmful. Even 0.3 liters of beer a day poses a risk. The best option is zero per mille. That’s what the WHO and the German Nutrition Society are now preaching in all seriousness. It sounds like a bad joke, but it’s the official line. As someone who makes a living selling beverages, I could have just gone along with it. Instead, I looked into what this recommendation is actually based on. And the story behind it is utterly absurd.

These limits aren’t based on broad, balanced evidence, but on calculations by a Canadian organization whose lead authors have clear conflicts of interest. Three of the main authors of this supposedly neutral study receive financial support from MOVENDI International. Who is MOVENDI? The International Association of Good Templars, a temperance movement over 100 years old whose stated goal is complete abstinence from alcohol. So a global temperance lobby is funding the very studies that serve as the WHO’s primary evidence.

And Germany? The DGE—and thus, effectively, the German government—blindly endorses these activist-driven recommendations and imposes them on 83 million citizens without any scrutiny. The result is a blanket limit of 13 grams per day. This applies equally to a 75-year-old woman with diabetes as it does to a 25-year-old competitive athlete. The best part: the same amount that the DGE classifies as risky in Germany is officially considered “low risk” in Canada. Even the source country contradicts the German figures.

In my new video, I’ll show you what real science actually says about moderate consumption—from the American Heart Association to the UK Biobank. I’m not trying to gloss over the risks of alcohol. I’m focused on something else. Trust the evidence, not the ideology.