Tag: nutrition

Experts: Children Over One Year Old Do Not Need Formula Milk

Mr Corey Sta Maria’s five-year-old daughter takes formula milk twice a day, before breakfast and after dinner. He believes that the milk contributes to her overall well-being, especially her good immune system.

“She has her milk alongside her meals, and it’s convenient, because she may not finish her food and we don’t know whether she’s getting enough nutrients,” said that 44-year-old sports marketer, who added he was not sure if he would continue to give her milk after she turns six in November. His younger daughter, who is just over two years old, also drinks formula milk three times a day.

He continues to give them milk after a little experiment showed they did not like fresh cows’ milk, which nutritionists recommend after 12 months.

To save on costs, his family drives over to Johor Baru, Malaysia, to stock up on their formula milk supply – which brings about savings of S$20 to S$30 a tin. They settled on a particular brand of milk after extensive research on its benefits and reviews from other parents.

Formula milk came into the spotlight after parenting portal Babyment.com revealed prices of infant milk formula in Singapore increased by an average of about 27 per cent from December 2012 to March 2017. The average price of formula milk has more than doubled over the last decade to S$56.06 for a 900g tin, according to Singapore’s Department of Statistics.

HEALTH CLAIMS A MARKETING PLOY: EXPERTS

While parents may rely on health claims to choose a formula milk brand for their children, experts say such claims meant for children above one are a “marketing ploy” because the same nutrients can be found in everyday food.

Referring to nutrients like docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), taurine and choline which are prominently promoted on milk tins, paediatric dietitian Meave Graham from Child Nutrition Singapore said: “These nutrients are found in breast milk and in normal balanced diets. Children do not need special supplements of these nutrients.”

In fact, giving formula milk to picky eaters can worsen the situation.

“The higher sugar level (in formula milk) gives a sweet taste and can be very filling, reducing interest in trying other foods. Formula milk offers no nutritional benefit over a balanced diet,” she said, stressing that formula milk is not recommended for children above 12 months.

While these nutrients have become common in formula milk, Dr Han Wee Meng, head of nutrition and dietetics at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, said that there is more research on the role of choline in fetal brain development during pregnancy than in toddlers, and that taurine is removed during processing in formula milk. Since the late 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States permitted the addition of taurine to formula milk.

These nutrients, along with DHA, arachidonic acid (AA) and lutein, have been promoted by milk manufacturers as giving health benefits like brain and eye development, healthy immune system and helping fat digestion.

Continuing on formula milk beyond 12 months may make the child overly dependent on milk, which may impede the transition to eating family meals, Dr Han explained.

“Formula milk may feel like an easier option for parents, especially when faced with difficulties to wean a child to a solid diet. However this may further perpetuate the feeding difficulties, as the child is given limited opportunities to learn and practise the necessary feeding skills,” she said.

Dr Chua Mei Chien, head of neonatology at KKH, added that an infant who weans well and is having excessive formula milk intake can become obese. This carries a negative impact on long-term health with the child having a higher risk of developing metabolic conditions such as adult obesity, diabetes and heart disease, she said.

Senior dietitian at National University Hospital Charlotte Lin said children above the age of one need nutrients that are similar to an adult but in smaller portions. These include macronutrients such as calories and protein, and micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium, she said.

While Ms Lin said formula milk is useful if children are not able to eat solids very well, formula milk may contain extra sugar when compared to cows’ milk.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

May 24, 2017
Catered Food For Workers Need More Regulation, Urge Researchers

The authors of a study that highlighted the dismal quality of food that Bangladeshi construction workers in Singapore were being fed have called for greater government regulation of such caterers.

The workers were provided catered food that was “foul-smelling”, “rock solid” and lacking in nutrition as it had been prepared hours in advance. The issue flummoxed many when TODAY reported on the preliminary findings of the study in March. The news report was widely circulated for more than a week and has since prompted two to three food-business owners to volunteer help to rectify the situation.

In their White Paper summarising findings from a two-year study released today (June 11), researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and non-governmental organisation HealthServe said regulating caterers would be an “important step towards ensuring food safety and security”. “We learnt about the large number of unlicensed operators that operate without accountability. These unlicensed caterers often work thorough middlemen and are unable to control the quality of food,” they wrote.

At a press conference today, Professor Mohan J Dutta, director of NUS’ Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation, which co-authored the White Paper, added: “Caterers who are not licensed (have) a variety of practices, such as food being left outside the dorm. And often, we hear stories of rats pulling away at the food.”

Currently, the National Environment Agency requires all caterers to be licensed. Packed food would have to come with time stamps, indicating when it was prepared and by when it has to be consumed.

Apart from greater oversight of these businesses, HealthServe director Goh Wei Leong said providing cooking facilities in all dormitories could be a solution. Foreign workers may also save costs by pooling money for ingredients.

The researchers’ findings also showed that foreign workers often liaise with a middleman for meals to be delivered to their dormitories. About a quarter of the average S$120 to S$130 they pay each month for the meals goes to the middleman, leaving the caterers scrimping on quality ingredients, said Prof Dutta, who suggested that employers work directly with caterers. “That’s so that the food is directly catered to a worksite. That could prevent the gap between the cooking and the delivery. Employers will have more ability to control the quality because they’ll be negotiating with the vendor,” added Prof Dutta.

Today, CARE and HealthServe launched a campaign to raise awareness of the food woes of foreign workers through bus and MRT ads and a TV commercial. A documentary will also be released online later this month. Materials for the campaign came from the interviews, focus-group discussions and surveys with Bangladeshi construction workers conducted between September 2012 and December last year.

A survey pertaining to the quality and hygiene of food, which involved 500 Bangladeshi migrant workers, showed 86.2 per cent had fallen ill after eating catered food. Common illnesses include vomiting. More than nine in 10 felt their food was unhygienic. Nearly all respondents (97.4 per cent) were dissatisfied with the quality of their food, with some describing it as “bread (that) is so tough, it … feels like eating a tyre”.

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 12, 2015
Construction Workers In Singapore Not Getting Proper Nutrition

Foul-smelling curry, rock-solid fish with scales still intact, and roti prata so hard that it feels like one is “chewing on plastic” — these are how some foreign workers describe the food catered for them at work sites.

The situation is made worse by the fact that the meals are often delivered several hours before meal times. Construction supervisor Zakir Hossain Khokan told TODAY: “If you come by construction sites or shipyards early in the morning, you will see how packs of food are left along the roadside. By the time workers have their meals, often the plastic bags would have been broken (by cockroaches or rats). The food is so smelly it has obviously gone bad.”

The poor nutrition of meals catered for foreign workers, which can cost as much as a quarter of a worker’s monthly salary, is the subject of an ongoing study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and HealthServe, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Based on interviews and focus groups with some 60 Bangladeshi workers living in the Tai Seng area, the researchers found that the meals – usually a pile of rice and some tinned meat or curry – are often delivered hours in advance. “Breakfasts and lunches are delivered to workers’ dormitories as early as 6am. By lunch time, the food smells rancid,” said Mr Manishankar Prasad, a researcher from NUS’s Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation. The meals are also sorely lacking in nutrition value, and some workers often complain of stomach problems, he added.

According to some foreign workers interviewed by TODAY, their packed meals do not come with time stamps. The National Environment Agency (NEA) requires caterers to provide time stamps with their packed food, indicating when the food was cooked and when to consume it by. The NEA recommends that cooked food kept under temperatures of between 5 and 60 degrees Celsius be consumed within four hours of preparation.

Caterers said that breakfasts and lunches are delivered to construction work sites as early as 5am, and dinner at 5pm.

A spokesman for Aysha Catering said the caterer provides time stamps but he noted that once the food is delivered, it is up to the employers when they want their workers to consume it. He added that the meals are cooked by 3am. While it provides employers the option of separate deliveries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, they usually do not take up the option as it would cost S$50 more per person, the spokesman said.

NGOs working with foreign workers said catered food is a perennial complaint. Ms Debbie Fordyce, an executive member at Transient Workers Count Too, said: “The men complain about lack of protein, expired ingredients, and spoiled food. Men arrive in fairly good health, lose weight when they start working — a result of the hard work and long days as much as the food.”

Mr AKM Moshin, editor-in-chief of local Bengali newspaper Banglar Kantha which champions the rights of Bangladeshi workers here, said that there are no cooking facilities in many dormitories. “Employers and dormitory management urge the workers to eat the catered food,” he said.

Mr Akhlas Sakar said that it would be too expensive for him and his fellow construction workers to buy their own meals. “Eating outside costs S$5 to S$6 a meal. Where I can get so much money? If I spend all my wages to eat good food then my family back at home will go without food,” he said.

Nevertheless, a foreign construction worker who declined to be named said he would buy food on his own on most of the days as he ends up throwing away the catered meals. Foreign construction workers whom TODAY spoke to said they pay more than S$100 a month to have catered meals three times a day.

Construction worker Mohd Zahirul Islam said his weight dropped from 70kg to 55kg after living on catered food for three years. In 2011, he switched employers so that he could stay at a dormitory where he could cook his own meals. He has since put on about 10 kg, he said.

Nevertheless, some workers noted that the cooking facilities at the dormitories are insufficient. Mr Sromik Monir said he has to wait in line for as long as 1.5 hours to use the cooking equipment. “Sometimes we finish work at 9pm. We won’t sleep enough if we cook,” he said.

Employers TODAY spoke to said meal arrangements vary according to the location of work sites and the size of the company.

Sharing his company’s good practices, Mr Desmond Hill, deputy general manager of Penta Ocean construction, said his firm usually delivers food to work sites an hour before meal times. Where possible, it also sets up quarters on site where workers can cook, he added.

An industry insider who wanted to be known only as Mr Lim said some caterers are offering cheaper packages and cut back on the quality and quantity of the food.

Holland-Bukit Timah GRC Member of Parliament Christopher de Souza, who has spoken up for foreign workers’ welfare in Parliament, hopes the situation can be addressed. He said: “I hope the workers who give up much to support their families in their hometowns will be provided healthy meals to sustain them through a hard day’s work.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

March 20, 2015