Restaurants to inform on calories

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Health Minister Recep Akdağ has said calorie content would be listed at all restaurants and bakeries to help combat obesity, daily Hürriyet reported.

Speaking to NTV channel, Akdağ said, “We are at the beginning of a fight against obesity. We initiated a media campaign three months ago. We have carried out field research and the results are very good. According to a survey of 2,223 people, 94 percent of these people know about our campaign and one-third of our citizens above the age of 15 say that they are doing more exercise since the campaign. The same amount of people say they made their portions smaller.

Reducing size of portions

“Now we will make this common. We cannot reduce the size of portions by making a law. When serving dishes, restaurants and bakeries will also provide the calorie content of the dish. Then people will learn how many calories they are consuming.”

Istanbul Chamber of Bakeries Secretary-General Saadettin Çetin said that on Jan. 1, 2012 new sanctions were imposed on places producing and selling food and it included food barcodes. “We don’t know yet how the new arrangement will be applied. In the past, only packaged foods had calorie listings. But now others will have it, too,” he said.