Tips For Opening a Healthy Food Outlet

If you are planning on opening a food outlet, why not make it a healthy one? Statistics show that around twenty-four million adults in the UK are overweight and many health risks can be dramatically reduced by adopting a healthier diet. Current trends point to an increasing amount of food being prepared and eaten outside the home. Therefore, when opening a food outlet the caterer is in a position of influence. Whether you are opening a food outlet in a college or staff canteen, a local cafe, takeaway or fast food restaurant, you could be serving the same clients on several days of the week, which means you will be serving up a significant portion of their daily diet.

Today, many customers are seeking healthier options. A bad diet is now known to increase the risk of many cancers as well as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, tooth decay and osteoporosis. It surely makes sense when opening a food outlet to consider serving healthy choices and to make all your food as healthy as possible. It is possible to serve healthier food without compromising on taste and also while saving money at the same time. For example, you could reduce the amount of salt and fat in your cooking and increase the use of tasty herbs, such as basil, chives and oregano.

You could increase the amount of rice or pasta you use and at the same time reduce the quantity of rich sauces. Carbohydrates such as rice, noodles and pasta are cheap and filling and you could offer wholegrain varieties as an option, although these tend not to be too popular. Use more pasta and vegetables and less meat in your lasagne and make pizzas with a thicker base and use less cheese. You can serve extra vegetables, salad and bread with your main dishes and use more rice and less curry, or more potato and less meat in Shepherd's pie. Thick home-made vegetable soups and casseroles are especially popular in winter, being satisfying and filling and they are full of vitamins and goodness, while also being relatively low in calories.

If you serve sandwiches in your food outlet, you can offer wholemeal or granary bread (so much tastier than boring white!) and reduce the amount of butter or mayonnaise, which are very high in fat. Low fat or olive oil based spreads could also be offered, along with a choice of crisp and tasty salad ingredients, lean meats and fish.