In a three-day stay-in seminar, we always had at least two meat dishes. Once, even the soup had a lot of meat. Vegetables were served twice only if my memory serves me right – the veggies e.g. eggplant, banana blossom, pechay in kare-kare beautifully arranged in a serving tray enough to indicate that you may get from each kind and in one meal, jackfruit. No fruit was ever served and we had sweet baked goodies for snacks and dessert. Such an unbalanced high protein high fat and high sugar diet seem to prevail not just in hotels but also in many other food establishments and even among many Filipino families.
The meat-packed meals, meat to include fish and poultry (MFP) and constituting the bulk of our every meal or daily meals, a typical characteristic of the Western Diet, indicate that much has to be done to educate food establishments, caterers, hotels of the Food Plate and the Food Pyramid for Filipinos. It remains a great challenge for nutrition and health workers as well as the media to educate the public on these. While hotels cater to foreigners, the same principle behind the Pinggang Pinoy and Food Pyramid for Filipinos, which are similar to those adopted by different countries though presented differently e.g. My Plate in the USA, Food Pagoda in Japan, still apply.
There are lots of advantages in eating meat, fish and poultry (MFP) as these are good sources of protein which is needed for growth and repair of body tissues, contain good amounts of iron, calcium, zinc, some vitamins, and essential fatty acids. However, excessive intake is healthy. Excessive intake displaces the intake of other nutritious food like fruits and vegetables. One serving of MFP provides 8 grams protein, varied amounts of fat and calories that contribute to overweight and obesity. The higher the fat content, the higher the caloric content. If these are cooked in fat, that would mean added calories from fat. Protein foods also has a lot of nitrogenous waste products such as ammonia, urea, uric acid, that needs to be eliminated in the body. In the long run, excessive MFP can damage the kidneys in addition to contributing to cardiovascular problems due to saturated fatty acids.
The Food Plate mode is an easy-to-understand food guide that uses a familiar food plate model to convey the right food group proportions on a per-meal basis to meet the body’s energy and nutrient needs of adults (www.fnri.dost.gov.ph/index.php/116-pinggang-pinoy). Pinggang Pinoy serves as a visual tool to help Filipinos adopt healthy eating habits at meal times by delivering effective dietary and healthy lifestyle messages. It espouses that half of the food we eat every meal be fruits and vegetables and only about one-fourth is for MFP to include legumes. The Food Pyramid is a similar guide but for a whole day diet. It shows that the bulk of what we eat should be composed of rice or alternatives preferably whole grains, followed by fruits and vegetables and in much lesser amounts will be MFP plus legumes. Least to be consumed are sweets and fats.
Before the pandemic, the National Nutrition Council – CAR initiated the formulation of a Pinggang Pinoy-based menu which member agencies can use as reference each time their agencies/offices will serve/order meals for their employees. It is highly encouraged that all see that. It is never too late for any one, any office or agency to start serving or availing of healthy meals.
