Signal
System – A new tool to make healthy food choices.
The abundance of food:
The effort required to get food has progressively decreased and the
availability increased through the hunter gatherer, agricultural and now
industrial state of civilization. Now there is too much to eat and too less an
activity, with stress. It gives rise to a plethora of problems like diabetes,
heart disease and cancer. One needs the WHO report only to
confirm the day to day observation of our calorie dense sugar and fat rich food
with little vegetables, starches and fiber. All major and credible Diabetes
Associations across the world recommend whole grain cereals, fruits and
vegetables and a diet less in saturated fats, sugar and salt to reduce the
risks of these emerging diseases.
Can We
Know Unhealthy
from healthy food?
We could make a
distinction by looking at the way the food is cooked. Use of refined flours,
deep frying, preparations using butter and ghee as saturated fats, absence or
minuscule quantities of whole grain cereals or vegetables, will indicate the
unhealthy foods. We can now address the more fundamental issue of how to choose
healthy food and eat healthy.
The
Traffic Signal System:
This system is based on
traffic light concept of red for ‘stop’ which also denotes danger, yellow for
‘go slow’ or cautious, and green for ‘go’ or safer road. It uses universally
understood symbols which makes it simple and highly useful way for a person to
make an informed choice. Importantly it focuses attention on processing and
cooking, lays stress on the Glycemic Index (GI), fibre content of food, the
amount and type of fat used and the mode of cooking. It removes negative
feelings about being on a diet and avoiding certain foods. It empowers the
person to make a behaviour change towards healthy eating. We have worked on it
based on Indian diet but the concept can easily be adapted to any type of diet.
Using the Signal System as a Tool –
We have used two simple methods of food display. One is a buffet
table marked with coloured red, green and yellow flags near the displayed food.
The other is to arrange a large number of cooked items routinely available in
the area and place them on coloured red green and yellow cloth, on long tables.
It explains itself.
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