Martha Stewart calls for healthier eating in Qatar

American celebrity ‘home-maker’ Martha Stewart arrived in Doha this week on a mission to introduce good, healthy food to Qatar.

Stewart was invited to the Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF) 2016 by sponsors the Qatar Tourism Authority and Qatar Airways to speak on the theme ‘good, healthy food’ in response to what she called “the growing incidence of diabetes and obesity” in the Middle East.

She told Caterer Middle East: “A city like this needs an introduction to good food. I can’t stress enough how important it is to eat healthily. People are ingesting too much bad food.”

Stewart added: “No one has to compromise on taste and flavour. I’ve written loads of cookbooks to show that you don’t have to cook with meat and fat to make delicious food.”

Martha Stewart hosted a cooking demonstration at QIFF, where she made a quinoa salad, a salmon salad and a ‘green juice’ made of grapefruit, carrot and ginger that she insisted energises her every morning.

“I grow all my own veg,” she said, “though I appreciate it’s not so easy here where everything is imported. And having a good, simple pantry is essential, with basic ingredients like fresh eggs, good olive oil and good milk.”

She added that it is particularly important to introduce children to healthier food to combat child obesity and other health problems. “I have two grandkids who have been raised without sugar in their diet. It really pays to raise kids like that, though they will still try to sneak a cake if they can!”

Martha Stewart commented on the imminent introduction of a sugar tax on the soft-drinks industry in the UK, saying: “We’ve done it already in New York, and limited the size of soft drinks people can buy.”