Logo to verify health claims in Dubai restaurants

Next time you dine at a restaurant in Dubai, and if you are health conscious, look for Dubai Municipality's Healthy Food Logo against each item in the menu card.
The civic body's yellow logo certifies that a meal in a specific restaurant follows health requirements of offering a balanced diet, paying special focus to limited calories and limited use of salt and saturated fats that contribute to the high levels of hypertension and heart disease in UAE. 
Restaurants who claim to have healthy food (including organic or gluten-free meals) will have to be certified by the department and use the log after a specialized team from the municipality verifies the food ingredients. Under the new system, the nutritional value of foods items will be mentioned in the menus. 
Khalid Sharif Al Awadhi, Assistant Director General of Dubai Municipality for Environment, Health and Safety Control Sector, said the aim is to have healthy food occupying 50 per cent of Dubai restaurant menus within the next three years. 
"In the run up to Expo 2020, we have to think not only about how safe our food is, but also how healthy," said Al Awadhi. 
"In the past, we had cases of restaurants claiming that their food is organic just because one of the food items was organic. We need to limit such violations and encourage restaurants to come up with healthier options for consumer," noted Al Awadhi. 
Soon, Al Awadhi said, food establishments will be able to gain municipality's approval through the Food Watch App that will launch to ease the process.  
Through its Eat Healthy Live Healthy campaign, Dubai Municipality's Food Safety Department already certified 13 food establishments on Sunday among 34 restaurants who have applied for the pilot certification program. The team have conducted visits to verify the food items used are healthy ingredients after food establishments nominated their items for the logo. 
The municipality has provided guidelines for food establishments to follow and to help them reformulate their recipe to meet the criteria for healthier options of meal, main course, beverages and snacks.
Prices to remain unchanged 
Jehaina Hassan Al Ali, principal food studies and surveys officer with the Food Safety Department of the municipality said the second phase of the campaign will be launched during fourth quarter of the year to include more restaurants in the process.
"We want to encourage healthier choices and make it as part of the culture of any restaurants before writing out their own menus," she said. 
Al Ali stressed that restaurants will not be allowed to hike their prices after they receive the logo. "If there's an increase required, they have to come back to us first. The point was to increase fruit and vegetable proportions, not to use special items that would hike prices," she said. 
Through the system, Al Ali said the key is to conduct more awareness campaigns for food handlers and chefs, and raise public awareness about reading food labelling and menu cards. 
Three criteria of health food claims
1- Restaurant category where minimum of 20 per cent of dishes offered have to be certified.  
2- Part Menu where minimum of two  main course should abide to the guideline. 
3- Kids Menu for resultants who offer healthy kids options where two main dishes have to be certified.   

• UAE
• Dubai

Sherouk Zakaria

sherouk@khaleejtimes.com