The proposal to develop an Out of Home Strategy for Scotland was included in the recently published Scottish Government Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan, which sets out a package of actions designed to help people make healthier choices, change their eating habits and live healthier lives.
It is vital that the public can make informed choices about food. Improved informative labelling should be given more emphasis so that the consumer is aware of how many calories and adverse food sources are in out of home foods.
The College is keen to support positive action to encourage and/or reward out of home outlets serving healthier foods/labelling informatively rather than have only punitive options. There could be encouragement on reducing unnecessary additions to prepared foods, such as mayonnaise on sandwiches, sauces on restaurant dishes, dressings on salads etc. On a menu, instead of low fat or reduced fat listed on sauces or dressings, direct the consumer to lower fat as standard and label others as full fat or high fat as the exceptions.
