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The healthyliving award for the food service sector

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The healthyliving award is a national award for the food service sector in Scotland. Eating out plays an important part in people’s lives and what people are increasingly looking for is good healthier food.  We’re delighted that our Pizza Power Kids’ range ticks all the boxes for the healthyliving award.

Putting Caterers and Parents on the Podium

Caterers can now rest assured that they can let kids eat their favourite food, and parents will be glad to know that it is actually improving their health.  Pizza Power Kids, means that children can eat a pizza which is a complete balanced meal.  One small pizza provides 15% of all the nutrients a child aged 5-10 needs for good health.

Food of the future for our future generation

There is no denying that children love pizza. It regularly tops their list of favourites.  However with Scotland having one of the highest levels of obesity in the world, with almost one third of Scottish children classed as overweight, parents and caterers are, quite rightly, are careful in how often the average pizza is served to kids because of the high calorie, salt and fat content.

That’s why Pizza Power Kids have been designed to look and taste like a normal pizza but has secret nutritional ingredients inside, and that’s why we call it ‘health by stealth’.

How can Pizza Power Kids help with the healthyliving award?

These revolutionary new pizzas have seaweed instead of salt, are lower in fat and are high in vitamin C and vitamin A with more fibre than many other foods for children. Parents can enjoy peace of mind that their children are getting all of the 27 nutrients they need in the right proportions, equating to a complete balanced meal. For children, they can still enjoy one of their favourite meals with all the same great taste.

If you are in the food service industry and would like to find out more about the Pizza Power Kids range, please get in touch and we’ll send you a brochure and some yummy samples.

 

CalMac adds healthy, Scottish innovation to its childrens’ menu

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Healthy childrens menu

Launched during Scotland’s Year of Food and Drink, an innovative Scottish pizza made using Scottish seaweed is proving popular with kids on board Caledonian MacBrayne ferries.Pizza Power Kids

The company behind the innovation, Eat Balanced, believes in making it easier and enjoyable for kids to eat a balanced diet, with a new children’s range branded “Pizza Power Kids“.  The pizzas have been designed with a leading Professor of Nutrition, to be high in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals and lower in salt, fat and sugar.

Since moving its manufacturing to Scotland earlier this year, Glasgow-based Eat Balanced has continued to develop its original concept with more nutritious ingredients.  CalMac was particulary excited about the use of seaweed, sourced from the crystal clear waters off the Isle of Lewis, which is used in the base to replace salt and add essential minerals.

Anne Mitchell, CalMac’s On Board Development Manager, says:

“We were delighted to put a new pizza on the menu that ticked so many boxes on healthy eating. It also helps us to maintain our “Taste our Best” accreditation, which recognises and celebrates excellent quality food and drink from Scottish companies.”

The “Taste our Best” scheme has been developed with Visit Scotland and Bidvest Foodservice Scotland as a way to encourage both internal and overseas tourists to sample and enjoy locally sourced produce from across Scotland.

ClearlPizza Power Kidsy, creating a tasty pizza is one of the most important factors for a successful kid’s menu item.  Brand Director for Eat Balanced, Katie Sillars, states:

“The Pizza Power Kids motto is ‘Health by Stealth.’  The kids don’t necessarily need to know that it’s actually good for them, as long as they enjoy it and there are clean plates at the end.   However, parents can rest assured that these are the most nutritious pizzas that we could make without the children being able to tell the difference.  Our aim is to improve children’s nutrition by reinventing kids’ favourite foods into tasty balanced meals.”

The new healthy children’s pizza can be found on the Mariners Menu on-board Caledonian MacBrayne ferries across Scotland.

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Notes to Editors

*Eat Balanced is based in Glasgow, Scotland, and currently sells its new Pizza Power Kids range into education, leisure and pub chains across the UK.

*For more information go to www.eatbalanced.com

Pizza Power Kids

Is 5 a day campaign all lies?

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The 5 a day challenge sits within 25 countries, across three continents, urging people to eat more fruits and veggies, and some people are more likely to purchase a food item if it has the 5 a day message on it.  But what does the 5 a day logo really mean for our health?

5 a day lies

The big worry with the 5 a day scheme, is that it has not been properly regulated and provides an open playing field for food companies.

McDonalds, the official sponsors of the London 2012 Olympics,   I hate to point fingers, but come on, a fizzy ‘healthy’ kid’s drink they’re flogging as one of your five a day portions, yet has 12 teaspoons of sugar in it!  No chance.  Parents need to remember that fruit juice – while being high in Vitamin C – is also full of sugar.

Keep it above board

The official logo, shown below, is regulated by the Department of Health and can only be displayed on foods that don’t contain added salt, sugar or fat.  But this logo is rarely seen in the supermarkets.  Instead food companies have created their own versions, which is not subject to the same regulations.

Analysis of the 5 a day campaign

One ready-meal bearing a ‘one of your 5-a-day’ logo contained almost 8 grams of salt – more than the recommended allowance for the entire day.

Your health

Even if you do get your five 80g portion of fruit and vegetables that doesn’t mean you’re getting all the right nutrition for good health.  People are convinced that fruit and vegetables are a particularly good source of vitamins and minerals.

There are 14 vitamins and 17 minerals that our body needs and fruit is good for only one of each, vitamin C and potassium.

Vegetables offer some vitamins – vitamin C and the vegetable form of the fat-soluble vitamins A and vitamin K1 – but your body will be able to absorb these only if you add some fat, such as butter or olive oil.

So what I’m saying is that there’s a lot more to good nutrition than just your 5 a day and when buying packaged foods, even if it does have a portion of your five a day, one you can’t be certain this is true, if not labelled with the official logo, and two you need to watch out for salt, sugar and fat levels.

Eat Balanced Views

So the 5 a day mantra is not the be-all-and-end-all of healthy eating, it’s just part of a balanced diet.  We’ve chosen to stay clear of using the 5 a day logo.  Our products can provide so much more than just this!  And we’re proud to be different!

Food labels on nutrition – confused?

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Are you fed up with misleading food claims and back of pack nutrition information?  According to market research by Neilson, 60% of consumers worldwide are confused by food labels.  With the weekly food shop becoming a dreaded task. more work is needed to help people understand the pros and cons of the nutritional information.

Misleading food labels

Organic

Food labelled as organic, is perceived to be healthier according to research.  In a comparison test, participants thought organic labelled food tasted lower in calories and fat, and perceived the foods to be higher in fibre.  The non-organic labelled food was in fact, almost identical in terms of calories, fat and fibre.

The result of this is what’s called the ‘health halo’ affect and marketers use this to make foods seem better for you.  So what other tactics make you think a food tastes healthier?

Green Vs Red

In the highway code, the colour green means GO and the colour red means STOP.  But researchers have found these colours have a similar meaning in the food world.

People were shown images of chocolate bars labelled red and green, containing  information about the  nutritional value of the product, and asked to choose the least calories. The subjects felt that the green label indicated a more healthful product, rather than red, although the number of calories contained in them was the same.

Green_food_labels_healthier

Food Labels – Green Vs Red

This has huge implications on nutritional labelling as junk foods can hide behind green labels.  In the US, M&Ms and Snickers have green front of pack calorie flags, a dirty tactic which consumers are more vulnerable to at the checkouts.

What food labels mean?

We looked at different food labels with terms such as low fat, high fibre, low salt and what they mean in terms of your nutrition.

 

[table]Food Labelling term, What does it mean?
Reduced Fat, Less than half gram of fat to its original
Light, 50% less fat/sodium than the original product
Zero Trans Fats, Less than half a gram of trans fat per serving
Cholesterol Free, Less than 2mg of cholesterol per serving
Lean, Less than 10g of fat; 4.5 g of saturated fat; & 95 mg of cholesterol per 100 g
Low Fat, 3g or less of fat per serving
Good Source of, Minimum of 10% of RDAs
High Source of, Minimum of 20% of RDAs
Free Range, Animals allowed access to outside
Organic, 95% organic ingredients
Natural, No added colour; artificial flavours; or synthetic substances
Low Sodium, 140 or fewer mg of sodium per serving
Multigrain, More than one type of grain in the product
Whole wheat, Food with whole wheat flour[/table]

Hopefully we’ve managed to shed some light on food labels and what they really mean when it comes to your nutrition.