22 Aug 2009
The Department of Health is committed to promoting healthy eating and fostering a supportive environment for people to adopt healthy eating habits to improve their health.
The Director of Health, Dr P Y Lam, made the remarks today (August 22) at the Prize Presentation Ceremony of "EatSmart Restaurant Cooking Competition 2009" (competition) organised by the department.
"Recent medical research showed that moderate consumption of a balanced diet could reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even cancer," Dr Lam said.
He urged people to enjoy delicious dishes having more fruit and vegetables and those which were cooked with less oil, salt and sugar at EatSmart restaurants.
With the full support of the catering industry, 555 restaurants enrolled in 2009 to become an "EatSmart Restaurant".
Since the launch of the EatSmart@restaurant.hk campaign last year, about 800 practitioners in the catering business have received training on preparation of healthy dishes.
The competition was held to encourage EatSmart restaurants to provide tasty and healthy recipes to customers.
Response from the industry was overwhelming and more than 110 entries from 51 restaurants were received.
The entries, categorised into "Fruit and Vegetables", "Seafood", "Poultry" and "Meat" groups, had to fulfil the criteria of "Dish with more Fruit and Vegetables" or "3 Less Dish”.
These dishes are available at the EatSmart restaurants concerned to September.
"Dish with more Fruit and Vegetables" means that fruit and vegetables are the sole ingredients or they occupy at least twice the amount of meat present in the dish.
"3 Less Dish" means that the dish is cooked or prepared with less fat or oil, salt and sugar.
After the Department of health's assessment and an open election by the public, 16 dishes with the highest number of votes entered the final round of the competition.
Eight renowned celebrities - legislators Ms Audrey Eu and Ms Cyd Ho, Mr Dick Lee, Professor Joseph Sung, Mr Walter Kei, Ms Shadow Kwan, Mr Michael Lam and Ms Fiona Yuen tried the dishes and selected the champion, first, second and third runners-up of each category.
The dish with the highest number of votes was presented with "The Most Popular Dish Award".
People are invited to visit the department's EatSmart Thematic Website (
www.eatsmart.gov.hk
) to share the fun of the competition, search for an updated list of Eatsmart restaurants, learn about Eatsmart recipes, appreciate celebrities' smart talks and obtain useful nutritional information.