Healthy coffeeshop to curb obesity

Menu to show calorie count of dishes

TO stem the obesity rates in Singapore, the Health Promotion Board launched the first healthier coffeeshop, as part of its Healthier Hawker Programme yesterday.

The coffeeshop located at Block 233, Bukit Batok East Avenue 5 is the first to have all eight food and beverage stalls serving dishes using healthier ingredients such as brown rice, wholegrain noodles and healthier oil, which is lower in saturated fat.

Ang Hak Seng, HPB chief executive officer, revealed that there will be at least another 19 such coffeeshops by year-end.

The menu boards of these stalls indicate the calorie count of dishes that have been made healthier.

To ensure that food prices remain the same for consumers, the HPB has linked the coffeeshop with suppliers.

According to the 2010 National Health Survey, one in 10 Singaporeans are obese.

Halimah Yacob, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports and MP for Jurong GRC, who was the guest-of-honour at the launch said that even though many people know home-cooked food was usually better, they might be too busy to cook.