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While in Australia recently, the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver announced that his successful Ministry of Food Australia program is coming to Victoria and becoming part of the Victorian Healthy Eating Enterprise. The aim of both programs is to promote healthy eating and the skills involved in preparing healthy food.

Coming on the back of the success of a similar venture in Queensland, the program will involve a fixed cooking school, healthy eating classes in fourteen local government areas and is set to reach more than 10000 Victorians.

Working with governments
The Victorian Government has committed $2.87 million to the program while Jamie’s ‘The Good Foundation’ is set to chip in an additional $2.54 million.
The basis of the program can be found in the following:
• Teaching people how to conduct healthy shopping;
• Cooking lessons;
• Looking at food provided by canteens and cafes;
• Mobile kitchens to provide education

The program aims to educate parents which will then, in turn, take steps towards preventing childhood obesity since children eat what parents provide for them. Education that begins early will lead to better food choices now and later in life.

Fighting Obesity
There are 5 main steps involved in the fight against childhood obesity:

1. Prepare kids lunch boxes and snacks. Despite many tuckshops adopting better food choices many options are still not considered healthy enough on a regular basis. By preparing the lunch box yourself you know exactly what your child is eating (and how much). Encourage your child to be involved –
‘Today would you like a banana, an apple or a pear?’ While you are stilling controlling that the lunch box is containing a healthy option, you are empowering your child to make decisions regarding their food choices. A good rule is to make sure that the lunch boxes and other school snacks have at least one of each of the main food groups. Get your child to help with the checklist – a dairy, a fruit, a vegetable, a protein, a grain. Make it a game, make it fun, make it a habit.

2. Reduce pocket money for play lunch. We all remember how enticing the school tuckshop was and how exciting it was to have our own money to spend there, but do you remember ever buying anything healthy? By reducing the amount of money they have to spend, you are reducing the amount of unhealthy purchases your child makes. Ask the tuckshop for a price list or visit the tuckshop with your child and talk to them about healthy choices and sometimes foods. This will also educate you on the prices of what is available. If a small, fruit ice-block costs 50c and a sugar-packed slushie costs $3 – give your child the 50c. They still get to make their own purchase but in a controlled way.

3. Encourage games that are physically challenging. There are so many ways that you, as a parent, can encourage your child to get physical. Instead of driving the shop to grab milk – walk. You can even turn homework into a physical activity. Learn spelling words by bouncing a ball as they spell out the word or playing hopscotch – spell the word written in the chalk on the square they land on. Aim for at least 30 mins of physical activity every day.

4. Read the labels of perceived healthy foods for high sugar. Particularly, pay close attention to yoghurts and breakfast cereals. Because of the dairy and grain content they are assumed as healthy but some sugar contents are amazingly high. Educate yourself to give your kids a healthy start.

5. Drinking water only. There is no need for children to consume soft drinks, fruit juices or flavoured milks. They offer little nutritional value and content high levels of sugar. If you want to give you child a treat throw together a smoothie or make a juice yourself. You will know exactly what is in the drink you are giving to your child.

Finally, a tick for common sense!  The Heart Foundation has changed direction in its accreditation of fast food companies.

What message has the Heart Foundation really been sending by endorsing fast food outlets?

It may have finally understood that endorsing fast food was only damaging the Heart Foundation brand and, more importantly, the credibility of its big healthy tick.

Giving the tick to McDonalds was very strange, particularly as the fast food giant seemed to bury any of the items deemed to be its healthiest choices deep into its menu.

Walk into any McDonalds anywhere in the world and it’s immediately obvious the majority of the presented menu is selling hamburgers, fries and frozen desserts. You really have to look hard to find where their salads and healthier choices are located.

If McDonalds was really committed to changing the perception of fast food and promoting healthier lifestyles, why would  products endorsed by a leading health organization be hidden?

It really begs the question as to whether the Heart Foundation’s tick is merely being used to capitalise on the healthy food market to maintain a connection with customers who may go elsewhere. With increasing rates of obesity, Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, a vendor of fatty, sugary and salty foods runs the risks of becoming a dinosaur unless drastic steps are taken.

To me, it seems to be business as usual.  For instance, billboards on freeway overpasses still show $1 burgers during lunchtime. Is this a corporation that’s really serious about promoting healthier food choices?

It’s like buying a Ferrari and putting a speed limiter that stops you from going over 100 km per hour. You have an engine powerful enough to propel 1300 kg to 100 km/h in under 4 seconds with a top speed of over 300 km/h, yet you can only drive 100km/h.

We all know we can only drive at the speed limit, but would it stop you buying a Ferrari if you had the means?

By moving away from fast food operators and placing a greater focus on cafes and restaurants with random sampling to determine fat and salt content, the Heart Foundation should be applauded for speeding in the right direction.

Written by Andrew Talati

A recent publication by the medical Journal of Australia made a recommendation of a 10% tax on all junk food.

With Australia’s obesity rate now at 60% of Australians are overweight or obese.

The proposed introduction of a junk food tax is based on the findings by Monash University researchers established that junk food had the same misuse and costs to society as alcohol.

The proposed tax is aimed at changing the consumption habits by making the price point a determinant in deciding whether a purchase will take place.

The Federal Governments Preventative Health Taskforce also make a recommendation to introduce a tax against energy dense foods that takes into consideration “fatty” and “sugary” foods.

The Preventative Health Taskforce report also sited that the French Government was to increase their existing value added tax of 5.5% to19.6%, which will capture all foods high in fat, salt and sugar. The premise being that the tax would be applied to foods traditional perceived as being healthy, an example in Australia are the health/muesli bar market.

The great thing about this tax is it doesn’t have to discriminate, it is based purely on the fat, sugar and salt content of the processed food product.

So if their product is low in any of these nutrients, then their is nothing to worry about:))

The great things about the tax is:

1.Price affect demand based on peoples available money, with Australia credit card debt over 40Billion and house affordability creating mortgage stress, something has to give
2.Healthier options become more attractive as the price deferential isn’t as great
3.Big corporates like to maximise shareholder wealth so less demand = less $$$, so recipes will have to be adjusted to maintain sales levels.

However you really need to make junk food something consumed occasional rather than regularly so I would like to see a 50% junk food tax, a substantial increase to really effect buyer behavior.

This would be based on the products having the tax based on the % of fat, sugar and salt per 100gms being over an agreed amount. So instead of buying a chocolate bar every day, they may buy one every second or third day.

This would not impact on those suffering economic hardship as there are healthier cheaper options available.

Have you ever looked at food packaging and wondered what the word “fresh” really means?
According to the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, the word fresh means: newly made or obtained etc, not canned or frozen, not preserved by pickling, salting drying, etc

So when you see Orange juice called “Australian Fresh” or Olives in oil called “Always fresh”, is this a subtle way of getting the word “fresh” onto the packaging by having the word in the company name but not in the products description?

The Australian Fresh Orange juice has a used by date of 4th September 2010 (Used by 02 SEP 10L L3 18:43 on packaging), as I purchased the juice last night, the 17th so allowing for the manufacturing and distribution cycle of perhaps 2 days, and assuming the product was delivered yesterday, is a 20 day old product still considered fresh?

Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand doesn’t have guidelines in regards to food labeling, this is handled by the various state bodies. In Victoria this covered by Human Services under their Food Safety and Regulatory Activities Unit.

Ultimately it comes down to what a court deems the health claim or term to be true, funny enough it comes down to the definition in the Macquarie Dictionary and what a lay person would consider to be true.

A lot of orange juice that is blended from local and imported oranges or even reconstituted juice uses aseptic juice.

So what is aseptic juice anyway, well when the oranges are originally squeezed the juice is heated to kill any bacteria and then kept in cool rooms for anywhere up to 2 years.

Does this sound fresh to you??? As soon as you heat or expose the juice to UV light or oxygen it starts to deteriorate and lose all the nutrients. So the end result is that all that vitamin C needs to be replenished by adding “Vitamin C”. With the “Australian Fresh” Orange juice, vitamin C is added.

Aseptic processing removes most of the nutrients found in orange juice, reduces the taste of the juice and changes its colour.
The other part of the equation is the bulk buying of oranges from local growers when the price is the most attractive and processing the juice for consumption throughout the year.
I’ve never seen on the packaging, oranges have been squeezed on the 8/8/10.

When you buy bread, it usually says “Baked on the xx/xx/xx. I would like to see on the packaging “Oranges squeezed on 10/08/10″

Imagine if you went to a baker and you asked “is the bread fresh” and they said “yes, it was baked 2 days ago” or if you went to a takeaway that had pasta in a bain marie and the response was it was cooked 2 days ago, would you accept this as being fresh?

The other process is “reconstitition” whereby the water is original removed by evaporation from the juice for transportation or storage purposes and reconstituted by adding water back to the concentrate. This process doesn’t sound like the juice would be very fresh?

Getting back to the “Always fresh” “Deli Style Kalamata Olives” would you consider a product that has vegetable oil, salt and preservatives a fresh product? Although “Always Fresh” doesn’t necessarily imply it is fresh, it does confuse consumers when trying to make a decision when looking at a multitude of products.

The government is exploring the possibility of making it mandatory that all fast food outlets include the amount of calories on their products.

With no immediate solution to Australia’s obesity problem, a range of measures need to be introduced. With Australia’s fast food consumption increasing by 109% from 1999 – 2009, there needs to be more education and information regarding what people are eating.

Even as we speak McDonalds are advertising their “Family Dinner Box”, but walk into McDonalds and try and get some nutritional info, mission impossible.

The City of Melbourne have taking leadership with regards to food vendors in Melbourne’s QV food court who can voluntarily adopt there Traffic light system of food labeling with Red, Amber and green denoting what is good, ok and to not so great.

The traffic light system was also introduced as part of the tender process for the new Royal Children’s Hospital.

By having these labeling panels or nutritional information available, people can make more informed decisions about what they consume.