Healthy eating must start at school - celeb chef

Brian Turner at last month's Gulfood exhibition.

The trend for healthy food may be picking up among Middle East diners, but the key to reducing obesity and diabetes rates is to start educating about healthy cuisine in schools, a celebrity chef has said.

Speaking exclusively to Caterer Middle East at Gulfood 2010, British TV chef Brian Turner — renowned for his appearances on Ready, Steady, Cook! and other programmes — said he believed “healthy eating comes down to starting at school”.

“This is what we’re trying to do in the UK at the moment, with the Academy of Culinary Arts,” he explained.

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“We have a voice with His Royal Highness Prince Charles, and we have a voice with people in government.

“We have a scheme running at the moment which encourages everyone who leaves school, wherever they’re going, to be able to cook a few decent dishes.

“If every young person could do that, we’d see people eating well, looking after themselves and not eating chips every day because they can’t cook anything else.

“If everyone could do that, in 10 years time we might be able to solve the diabetes and obesity problem around the world,” he noted.

Turner added that this did not necessarily mean cutting things out.

“I’m not saying people can’t eat out and indulge once in a while; I’m a butter and cream man myself,” he admitted. “But you don’t need to have them every day. The key is that there’s a balance to be found.”

Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that more than 180 million people worldwide were living with diabetes and that the number was likely to more than double by 2030.

In the Gulf region alone, an estimated 3.5 million of the population could be living with the disease.

Commenting in an in-depth Caterer report on health and dietary problems in the Middle East last year, Dr Maha Taysir Barakat — medical and research director and consultant endocrinologist at Abu Dhabi’s Imperial College London Diabetes Centre — said a “sedentary lifestyle and bad eating habits” such as “an imbalanced diet that is high in fat and sugar” were among the key causes of the disease.

“If all sectors of the community, from the government to restaurants, could play a part, then we will have achieved a powerful community drive,” she observed.