Cancel Quarter of Your Takeaway Meal
Prof. Dr. Mohamed Elhashemy
January 17, 2009
The British Government has launched a new scheme that may help people watch what they eat in restaurants and other food outlets.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has advised calorie labeling scheme, but is looking for caterers to provide calorie information on menus with more information about fat, salt and sugar content included on leaflets at the outlet.
About 30 per cent of household food spending goes on items such as workplace lunches, sandwiches and takeaways. A survey performed in 2007 found that one in three restaurant meals contained 1,500 calories which equal to 75% of a woman's daily recommended allowance. This research showed also that people gain about a quarter of their calories, from dining out in restaurants, buying a sandwich for lunch or ordering a takeaway.
People don´t need to be told what to eat, and what to not eat, but they should be provided with enough information to make up their own minds. Researchers found that Supermarket product labeling has succeeded in lowering the level of caloric intake. This policy may be also of help to eat out at a restaurant or a coffee shop, watching what one eats may help lowering his total caloric intake.
I developed Elhashemy´s Broad Spectrum Luqaimat Diet Plan, which is a weight management plan especially helpful for reducing excess body weight of super obese (weight loss averaged 140 pounds in 1.5 years with success rate of around 91%). My diet plan includes 21 factors; each might be applied individually every 2 or 3 weeks, or combining 2 or more of them in the same time. It proved to be a very successful scientific diet plan that cured obesity in thousands of obese people in Egypt and Arab countries.
I finished my first book regarding this diet "The Science of Luqaimat" in Arabic language, and I am currently working on my first book in English, its preliminary name is "How to Become an Ex-Obese".
In the present article, I would like to give some scientific advices to FSA to boost the results they aimed at to control fast-food intake:
1. The levels of caloric content and of salt, sugar and fat usually go parallel to and hand in hand with the meals´ volumes. So, it is easier to control such elements through controlling the meals´ volumes.
2. Soft drinks manufacturers should produce smaller sized cans (as the old sizes of 250 ml instead of recent 330 ml), while restaurants should serve soft drinks in slim and tall glasses in stead of wide and short ones which might reduce the desire to get excess soft drink. This advice is based on research of Dr. Brian Wansink, Executive Director of the USDA Center for Nutrition.
3. I advise publishing caloric content of three quarters of the meal beside that of the full meal, as viewing the caloric content of the three quarters may attract people to save the fourth quarter of their meal to be eaten later on in return for losing weight. Accepting eating their favorite meals in this lesser size will lead to lesser guilt feeling.
4. I advise presenting healthy meal items in pleasant attractive packaging with the chain-brand name featured big, while presenting unhealthy items - like deep fried fries - with minute logo. This advice is based on the fact that the size of the brand name affects the magnitude of its influence on the amygdala of the brain.
All scientists agree that, by time, small changes in dieting can produce great changes in body weight.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has advised calorie labeling scheme, but is looking for caterers to provide calorie information on menus with more information about fat, salt and sugar content included on leaflets at the outlet.
About 30 per cent of household food spending goes on items such as workplace lunches, sandwiches and takeaways. A survey performed in 2007 found that one in three restaurant meals contained 1,500 calories which equal to 75% of a woman's daily recommended allowance. This research showed also that people gain about a quarter of their calories, from dining out in restaurants, buying a sandwich for lunch or ordering a takeaway.
People don´t need to be told what to eat, and what to not eat, but they should be provided with enough information to make up their own minds. Researchers found that Supermarket product labeling has succeeded in lowering the level of caloric intake. This policy may be also of help to eat out at a restaurant or a coffee shop, watching what one eats may help lowering his total caloric intake.
I developed Elhashemy´s Broad Spectrum Luqaimat Diet Plan, which is a weight management plan especially helpful for reducing excess body weight of super obese (weight loss averaged 140 pounds in 1.5 years with success rate of around 91%). My diet plan includes 21 factors; each might be applied individually every 2 or 3 weeks, or combining 2 or more of them in the same time. It proved to be a very successful scientific diet plan that cured obesity in thousands of obese people in Egypt and Arab countries.
I finished my first book regarding this diet "The Science of Luqaimat" in Arabic language, and I am currently working on my first book in English, its preliminary name is "How to Become an Ex-Obese".
In the present article, I would like to give some scientific advices to FSA to boost the results they aimed at to control fast-food intake:
1. The levels of caloric content and of salt, sugar and fat usually go parallel to and hand in hand with the meals´ volumes. So, it is easier to control such elements through controlling the meals´ volumes.
2. Soft drinks manufacturers should produce smaller sized cans (as the old sizes of 250 ml instead of recent 330 ml), while restaurants should serve soft drinks in slim and tall glasses in stead of wide and short ones which might reduce the desire to get excess soft drink. This advice is based on research of Dr. Brian Wansink, Executive Director of the USDA Center for Nutrition.
3. I advise publishing caloric content of three quarters of the meal beside that of the full meal, as viewing the caloric content of the three quarters may attract people to save the fourth quarter of their meal to be eaten later on in return for losing weight. Accepting eating their favorite meals in this lesser size will lead to lesser guilt feeling.
4. I advise presenting healthy meal items in pleasant attractive packaging with the chain-brand name featured big, while presenting unhealthy items - like deep fried fries - with minute logo. This advice is based on the fact that the size of the brand name affects the magnitude of its influence on the amygdala of the brain.
All scientists agree that, by time, small changes in dieting can produce great changes in body weight.
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