Natalie Black

I was thrilled to see the amount of people willing to come to a health talk on a Friday night… that was so great to see. So it’s needless to say the forum went really well… I think everyone was quite shocked at how sinful the local hawker food is and that if you ate 3 local meals per day on average over a week you will consume over 3 tubs of margarine. A very scary fact. I believe knowledge is power, I hope I reached out to people to help them improve their eating habits. One gentlemen told me afterwards my suggestions on how to make local food healthier were simply just not possible.

He said: “How can you possibly ask for 1/2 the coconut cream on chendol…. it then wouldn’t be chendol and it would taste so bland” So I guess for everyone it’s about choices… Do you choose to have chendol for supper that contains 386 calories, 6g protein, 59g carbos and 15g fat (which is half the daily allowance) or do you share it with a friend or ask for 1/2 the coconut cream and dramatically reduce the carbohydrates, fat & calories. I know which one I’d chose… I’dchose my health and waistline over my tastebuds. But I guess that’s why it’s a choice. But I stand by this statement and it is a controversial one: The local singaporean eating habits need to dramatically change if we are going to avoid the rising crisis we are facing in individuals suffering from Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, High Blood Pressure, Cancers and of course the obesity pandemic. Local food may be cheap, it may be convenient - but there is absolutely nothing healthy about it.

If you are a parent right now consider this fact and also consider that if we continue to follow this trend and style of eating, a generation of children is being produced that may not outlive its parents. There will be no-one to pay the bills, put food on the table or take care of elderly members of the family. A change has to be made for the future. And the change has to occur in our diet and lifestyle.