Suffolk nutritionist suggests alternative to calories on menus
The government made the decision in order to combat the obesity crisis.
Last updated 19th Apr 2022
A nutritional therapist in Suffolk thinks there are better ways to combat obesity, other than putting calories on menu's.
The Government introduced a requirement for eateries with more than 250 staff to include calories on their menu's recently - a decision which proved controversial.
Eating disorder campaigners have since written an open letter warning of the detrimental effect of the change.
We've been speaking to Virginia Hendry, who works at the Natural Health centre in Woodbridge, about the change: "My view is that's a very poor metric for health, and also they're really a bit of a red herring.
"The problem with putting calories on menus is people are going to focus on the calories and not be aware of the nutrients they might be cutting out in order to sort of hit their calorie targets.
"They (the government) are not focusing on the nutrients in the food, and that's definitely going to be to their detriment.
"It's really sad actually. So eat the rainbow and make sure you're eating protein with every meal. And then you won't be hungry between meals.
"People say a calorie is a calorie. For example, a gram of fat and a gram of sugar.
"Now a gram of fat has more calories for sure than a gram of sugar, but a gram of sugar is not essential.
"You might've heard of essential vitamins. You also get essential fats.
"Essential in this sense means we can't synthesize (make) them ourselves in our bodies.
"We have to eat them and we have to get them from our diet.
"No amount of sugar is essential to your body's health. You do not need to eat sugar or refined carbs. Your body makes glucose (sugar) from proteins and fats.
"But you do need to eat some fat for your health and you especially need to eat something called essential fatty acids.
"Essential fatty acids are found in things like oily fish, walnuts and flax seeds.
"The problem with this whole calorie metric is if you're in a restaurant and you're sitting down to a nice meal and you love pudding.
"So you might say, well, I'm going to have the green salad and the pudding, because that adds up to the same number of calories as say, the green salad and the Mackerel main,
"But the nutrients you get from that are incomparable compared to any nutrients you would get from the pudding.
"If you're really trying to lose weight, just give up the empty calories and please don't swap them for the good nutrients.
"With my clients, never ask them to think about calories ever, ever, ever.
"What I would say is to my clients is instead of thinking about calories at all, is always to try and aim, to eat a rainbow of, fruit and vegetables every day.
"Really lots of different kinds of vegetables. And you're getting tons of nutrients, wonderful things.
"Fruit and vegetables, and then also to have some good fats, for example, organic butter, which you may think is very calorific and it is, but it's incredibly good for you in lots of ways or extra Virgin olive oil."
What's the alternative?
Virginia suggested there are other things the Government could be doing: "I think there's two things I could do that would really make a difference.
"One would be to bring back nutrition. I'm talking about cooking. It begins with cooking, teaching children to cook in schools.
"Children need to be taught to cook from scratch. That's where health is.
"Buying processed food and ready meals is a recipe for disaster for the nation's health.
"So cooking from scratch and teaching children cook from scratch in schools is really important. Number one.
"I'd say the second thing would be to put out the message about what is healthy, what is a healthy meal? What does a healthy meal look like?
"And it always looks like, start from scratch, eat lots of fruit and veg eat good quality protein don't snack between your meals. Simple. Amazing"