Calorie Counts On Restaurant Menus Introduced Across Pakistan

News Desk

Islamabad: If you are concerned about your health and are also fond of eating at restaurants, you will be happy to know that all restaurants in Pakistan will now have ‘Calorie Count’ written next to the menu item.

Everyone knows that the energy in food is measured in calories so many people believe that cutting calories will help them lose weight.

Everyone wants to lose weight and get in better shape so people are very careful about the amount of calories in their food.

Keeping in mind the health of the citizens, Prime Minister Strategic Reforms Chief Salman Sufi is launching a campaign named ‘Safe food, health forever’ (محفوظ غذا، تندرستی سدا) which is providing awareness to the citizens about providing them with information regarding their health.

Through this campaign, citizens are trying to know how many calories they are consuming in the form of a dish or whether they are consuming too many calories.

In this regard, Salman Sufi wrote on the social platform Twitter that “I am happy to announce a historic step for the improvement of the health of the citizens”.

Pleased to announce a historic step to improve health of citizens.

Now restaurants around the country will display calorie count of each menu item, ensuring we know what and how much we eat.

Here's a list of restaurants who have started the process.

محفوظ غذا۔تندرستی سدا pic.twitter.com/uui4REGlVI

— Salman Sufi (Get New Covid Booster Today) (@SalmanSufi7) July 21, 2023

Sufi, while sharing the list of restaurants across the country, wrote that all the hotels and restaurants on the list have assured the Sindh Food Department to follow the plan.

Salman further informed that the food authorities of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have made great progress on this initiative and are working with restaurants to develop nutritional information along with laboratories.

What’s a Calorie Count?

A calorie count is a way to record the calorie intake of your food and drinks. The term calorie is used to express the nutritional value of food items.

Writing the calorie count next to a menu item at a restaurant will help you make decisions before ordering meals and snacks. This method is also very common in restaurants in other countries.

Its purpose is to raise awareness about obesity among people. A World Health Organization (WHO) report released in March, which monitors the physical health and weight of people around the world, stated that around the world Obesity is becoming a dangerous situation and that currently 2.6 billion people, or 38 per cent of the population, are suffering from it.

WHO has warned that if the rate of weight gain among people continues like this, by 2035, half of the world’s population will suffer from overweight which can lead to many diseases.

Healthline reports that most adult women need 1,600 to 2,200 calories per day, while adult men need 2,200 to 3,000 calories.