“The menu must contain both total calorie and basic nutritional ingredients such as protein, fat and carbohydrates of each meal, especially fast-food meals served to customers. The calorie count should also be displayed on packets of food and soft drinks,” he said.
The list could be displayed on the dining tables and frontage of restaurants in addition to their websites. According to Al-Tuwaim, this would make consumers more aware of the nutritional ingredients of the meals they eat, thus enabling them to develop healthy eating habits.
“This would enable them to choose healthy food and limit their calorie intake. This is more obvious in the case of obese and overweight children and youngsters,” he said while noting that Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with the highest percentage of obese and associated overweight people.
Al-Tuwaim urged restaurants and coffee shops to take the initiative to display calorie count on their menus and offer healthy diet aimed at containing the fast-spreading obesity trend among children and youngsters.
He cautioned against eating fast-food meals, saying that they are not at all healthy.
“On the contrary, they are chemically processed and replete with oil. Most often, intake of such meals would cause cancer, diabetes, obesity and other diseases,” he said.
Al-Tuwaim announced that the CPA would adopt an approach of preferential treatment toward restaurants and coffee shops that come forward to display the calorie content of their meals by offering them various incentives.
“If the restaurants and coffee shops are not extending cooperation in this regard, their names will be referred to the concerned agencies to put them under surveillance, and then boycott them in case they fail to respond positively to serve the public interests,” he added.
