Making Pakistani restaurants healthier

“Ammi, don’t make dinner for me, I’ll be dinning out tonight.”

Every now and then, we come across this statement. Yes, this generation of ours loves to dine out and tends to avoid home cooked meals a lot. The growing trend to dine out is now more than ever.

Today, families prefer having their meals outside, instead of their homes and our hectic routines pretty much explain the need to do this. People are busy the entire day, working on their jobs, and when they return back home they don’t have enough energy to cook meals for either themselves or their family members. Thus, people decide to go out and enjoy their food in the serene environment of their favorite restaurants.

With a great number of people dining out, it is the responsibility of government authorities to make sure that the food these restaurants offer is clean, up-to-the-mark and good in nutrition. After all, when you pay a good deal of money, you deserve quality food.

The public demands some kind of guarantee from the restaurants, which ensures that the food they are making is healthy and good for consumption and would, in no way, cause any damage to their health. Restaurants need to have certifications that enable them to show their hygiene standards and help consumers decide which restaurant they want to opt for keeping their health in mind.

In the United States, programs such as the United States Healthful Food Council and American Heart Association mark eateries which provide food that is healthy, nutritious, and sustainable and care for those having heart diseases. Similarly, there is SPE certification which sets forth criteria in the culinary world; moreover these restaurants that are SPE certified do not use butter in their entrees. There are other programs such as Woo Foods and Healthy Howard which mainly target certain areas of the world.

All of this is a step forward to look after the public’s health and help them get the best of healthy and nutritious food whenever they enter a restaurant. This is a commendable initiative which forces the restaurants to maintain a good quality of food and Pakistan needs it.

Pakistanis need to be more aware of such certifications and they should demand from the owners of the restaurants they visit to get their food inspected and the certification posted outside the eatery and online as well. This would help Pakistanis make more informed choices. Similarly, the government should make it mandatory for all restaurants to publicly show their heath inspection grades.

This would enable the public to decide which restaurant is best for them and would work well for their health. This would also introduce a healthy competition among Pakistani restaurants themselves. They would strive harder to raise the quality of food so as to attract as many customers as possible.

These small steps can make eateries Pakistan health healthier.