BY KAMOL RATANAVIRAKUL

The following article is based on the  RESEARCH ON FAST FOOD AND HEALTH. Fast food is not healthy, but now there are numerous studies that prove it:

• Women who frequently consume fast food, gain more calories, more fat, saturated fat, and more salt.  Those who visited fast-food restaurants twice a week would gain an extra 10 pounds of bodyweight (over 15 years) and had a two-fold greater increase in insulin resistance, compared to those who ate fast food less than once per week.
• Eating at fast-food restaurants is associated with higher fat and lower vegetable intakes in African Americans.
• Fast food consumption is associated with a diet high in energy and energy density and low in essential micronutrient density. The greater the number of fast food restaurants per person or per square mile in a city, the greater chance of high level of obesity.
• Overweight participants consume significantly more total energy on fast food days than non-fast food days. Children ate more total energy and had poorer diet quality on days with, compared with without, fast food.
• Adults and children who reported eating fast food had higher intake of energy, fat, saturated fat, sodium, carbonated soft drink, and lower intake of vitamins A and C, milk, fruits and vegetables than those who did not reported eating fast food.  Fast food restaurant use was positively associated with intake of total energy, percent energy from fat, daily servings of soft drinks, cheeseburgers, french fries and pizza, and was inversely associated with daily servings of fruit, vegetables and milk.

Fresh, local, organic.

More and more hotels and restaurants are re-thinking how they feed their clients and staff. Here are reasons why all hotels should be thinking about this.

Food Miles – Not Just About Climate Change

The most well-publicised issues relating to food miles are to do with the emission of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from transporting produce. Although global warming will cause untold health problems by changing the distribution of water- and vector-borne diseases, this is not the only issue. Another important aspect of moving foodstuffs many miles is its negative impact on local development.  By working with local suppliers the hotels also reduced  overall food miles. .

Client Satisfaction and Hotel Reputation

Hotel food should focus on  being more than appetizing. Clients abandon meals in hotels’ restaurant  simply  because the food  on their menus are monotonous and unappetizing.  Hotels should emphasise freshness of meats and vegetables as well as ingredients in meals. it is not only clients  who will  benefit - the reputation of the hotel has as well. 

It Doesn’t Have to be Expensive

The idea of buying local, organic, fresh food is too often summarily dismissed as economically impossible. This is a myth – with careful planning, the organic content of meals can be greatly increased without increasing overall cost. For example:

• Hotels can make all its changes to food sourcing without increasing the daily food budget.
• Hotel can  increase the proportion of organic food it serves to 50% without increasing price.
• Replaced all bakery and dairy products with organic alternatives, may  increase the cost of food slightly, however hotels will receive higher trust from clients.

There are alternatives to prevent cost increase by serving smaller, tastier pots of live fruity yoghurt, which clients simply preferred to big pots of long-life yoghurt. Seasonality and meal balance are further essential factors in keeping costs to a minimum. Switching to seasonal produce and serving smaller portions of better quality meat, balanced with more vegetables are alternatives used by many hotels.