The Irish Heart Foundation awards staff canteens for their healthy cooking practices and food choices, writes Sylvia Thompson
More than 50 catering managers representing staff canteens and restaurants in hospitals and businesses throughout Ireland have picked up Irish Heart Foundation Healthy Eating awards.
The Happy Heart At Work awards, which began 15 years ago, celebrate workplace restaurants and canteens which have adopted healthier cooking practices and offer healthy food choices.
Joe Mescall, catering manager of the staff restaurant in the ESB headquarters, Fitzwilliam St, Dublin, was among the award winners at a ceremony which was held last week. "We cater for about 600 people a day in the staff restaurant and we offer a diverse menu with eight different cooked meals and up to 15 salads every day," he says.
Offering fish (grilled, poached or baked rather than just fried) every day and having salad dressing separate to the salads are key healthy menu changes at the ESB staff restaurant.
"We used to do fried fish twice a week. Now we only do it once a week and we have a chip-free day on Monday," he adds.
Dr Donal O'Shea, consultant endocrinologist and chairman of the Irish Heart Foundation's Nutrition Council, says the healthy eating awards are one of the few tangible initiatives which help tackle obesity in Ireland.
"If you take home a healthy eating message from your workplace or school, you will be less swamped by the unhealthy eating messages from advertising and fast food availability the rest of the time," he says.
More than 10 hospital canteens received healthy eating awards at the event.
Nonie McNally is the catering manager for the Longford-Westmeath group of hospitals which received an award.
"We always make sure that healthy options are available in the staff canteens, so every day we offer baked potatoes and boiled potatoes as well as chips. We use brown flour in our fresh fruit crumble to increase the fibre content and we have a seafood option every day," she explains.
Janis Morrissey, dietitian with the Irish Heart Foundation, explains that staff canteens/restaurants have several areas to work on before receiving the award. "For instance, they have to make efforts to source healthier ingredients such as low-fat cheese and wholegrain pasta. These products aren't always easily available in catering sizes," she explains.
According to Morrissey, the staff canteens also have to adopt healthier cooking practices. "For example, if the service time is from noon to 2pm, they have to start batch cooking vegetables rather than leaving vegetables under heated lights from noon to 2pm," she says.
Crucially, each catering facility has to offer dishes with low-fat, low-salt, low- sugar and high-fibre content (tips include adding low-fat milk rather than cream to soup and/or using fresh herbs and spices instead of salt in dishes).
Increasing choice and in particular offering a variety of fish dishes more frequently is also encouraged.
Michael O'Shea, chief executive of the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF), says Irish businesses are now more aware of the benefits of a healthier workforce in terms of reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and improved employee morale.
"By taking a proactive approach to healthy eating, companies can play a vital role in the fight against obesity," he says. "We hope that more companies will follow the example of the 250 that have been awarded to date."
Up to now, the IHF healthy eating awards have focused solely on workplace canteens and restaurants but next year, a new award scheme will be launched for hospital canteens that also cater for patients' meals.
"The Happy Heart at Work award will be tied into this new award in that the catering departments will have to have achieved it first," explains Ursula O'Dwyer, national nutrition policy adviser at the Department of Health who has also had an involvement with the IHF's healthy eating awards.
While such award schemes are praised by both Dr Donal O'Shea and Michael O'Shea, they both express the urgency to implement the National Task Force on Obesity in full.
"It is over two years since the report was published and the Government has failed to commit essential resources to implement its recommendations," says Dr O'Shea.
"With over half Irish adults overweight or obese and childhood obesity also a problem, this is a real need for action," says Dr O'Shea.
Michael O'Shea adds, "There are 85 recommendations in this document ranging from proper labelling on food to tackling portion size to improving the availability of exercise facilities and safe cycle and walkways.
"We are living in an obesogenic environment in which it is difficult for people to make healthy choices. The health promotion agenda needs action on an interdepartmental level because the vested interests of the [ food] industry are too strong for us to combat obesity otherwise," he says.