New Healthy Food Initiative puts healthy eating at the heart of the Qatar International Food Festival
To celebrate the seventh edition of the Qatar International Food Festival, Qatar Museums is launching the Healthy Food Initiative – a programme of activities designed to raise awareness of healthy lifestyles and promote healthy eating.
The initiative has been developed under the visionary guidance of HE Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums with the support of Alain Ducasse – whose first Middle-Eastern restaurant, IDAM, is located in the heart of the iconic Museum of Islamic Art.
UPDATE: Check out our features on the QIFF 2016 – The Pearl Qatar Beach Pop Up and QIFF 2016 – Katara Foodie Zone. It will help you plan your way around Qatar International Food Festival. You will find Menus with pricings, and our rather surprising first impressions!
For full coverage about QIFF 2016 check out the following Features:
Held from 22nd to 28th March, the Qatar International Food Festival is an unmissable gastronomic event that showcases the best cuisine and culinary skills of many of Doha’s top chefs, as well as celebrity cookery experts from around the world.
To mark this year’s event, Qatar Museums is organising a series of promotional events, talks and activities designed to encourage a widespread focus on healthy eating. In celebration of the Healthy Food Initiative, MIA Café is launching a series of recipes that have been developed through a unique collaboration with a selection of lifestyle and food bloggers from the local community. The brand new, updated menu features a range of healthy eating options.
Healthy Food with QMA
The Healthy Food Initiative is an innovative programme designed to increase awareness amongst Qataris about leading a healthier lifestyle. Qatar has one of the highest rates of adult obesity and diabetes in the world, and against this backdrop, the Healthy Food Initiative aims to improve awareness and understanding amongst parents, teenagers and children on the importance of a balanced diet and eating well.
The initiative seeks to highlight the link between being overweight, diabetes and other illnesses. It also conveys positive messages about healthy eating habits and demonstrates that healthy food can be easy and delicious too.
Commenting on the initiative, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums said “The international food festival provides the ideal opportunity to highlight the relationship between food, healthy eating, exercise and wellbeing. We’re delighted that leading figures such as Alain Ducasse and Nasser Al Attiyah have chosen to back our initiative. With their involvement and support, we hope to engage as many people as possible in taking positive steps to eat well and lead a healthy lifestyle.”
Explaining his involvement, world renowned chef Alain Ducasse said: “Today, I am happy to support Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani’s initiative. I am convinced taste development is a significant lever for a good diet. Developing a wide and varied taste palette is the key to diversify a healthy diet while enjoying it.”
During the Qatar International Food Festival, Qatar Museums is organising a Healthy Food Show including a full afternoon of panel talks, a debate with a leading nutrition expert, a conversation with Alain Ducasse and a session on physical exercise with an international athlete.
On March 25th from 4:30pm to 8:30pm, as a centrepiece of the Qatar International Food Festival, Qatar Museums will be bringing together three world-renowned experts to share dietary advice and promote physical exercise during the following events:
- What does our body need? Let the experts talk! With Valérie Espinasse, doctor & nutritionist: As a detox diets expert, Valérie Espinasse will explain how to improve health and well-being by simply changing some eating habits.
- Eating simple, healthy food with Alain Ducasse: As a world renowned chef committed to supporting healthy and delicious food, Alain Ducasse will share ideas on how to balance creating great tasting food with eating well.
- Physical exercise and maintaining physical well-being with Nasser Al Attiyah: During this talk, rally driving and ball trap champion Nasser Al Attiyah will explain how regular physical activity and a healthy diet can go hand in hand.
QIFF 2016 – QMA HEALTHY SHOW
While a global transformation in social habits has brought on alarmingly high rates of obesity and diabetes around the world, these changes are particularly drastic in fast changing countries like Qatar. The country’s population has gone from a physically demanding desert lifestyle to a far more sedentary living over the last generation as nutritional habits change with an increase in snacking, eating out, larger portion sizes and manufactured foods. As a result, Qatar ranks fifth globally in terms of obesity levels and has one of the highest diabetes rates in the world:
- 77% of Qatari adults are overweight, 41% are obese and nearly ¼ live with diabetes
- 1 % of Qatari girls and 33.5% of Qatari boys under the age of twenty are overweight or obese
How can one break through this vicious cycle and encourage people to adopt a healthier way of living by rediscovering food that is good for you?
Healthy eating doesn’t have to be dull and boring. The Healthy Show Initiative will pinpoint how to make healthy eating easy and fun. The event is organised as part of Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa’s Healthy Food Initiative, with Alain Ducasse’s support. Renowned French Chef, Alain Ducasse opened IDAM – his first restaurant in the Middle East – in Doha, at the Museum of Islamic Art.
TIMETABLE OF EVENTS – 25th March 2016 from 4.30pm
- How can I improve my health and my wellbeing by implementing small but efficient changes in my eating habits?
4:30 PM – 5:00 PM UPDATE starts from 4.00 PM
FIRST PART – WHAT DO OUR BODIES NEED? LET THE EXPERTS TALK!
SPEAKER: VALERIE ESPINASSE, NUTRITIONIST
- The cause of obesity and diabetes: more sugar, less walking, less physical activity, change in eating habits and manufactured food.
- Junk food and excessive weight: unexpected consequences on the body
- How to change eating habits?
- What are the concrete results of dietary changes?
- Vitamins & anti-oxidants, trace elements, omega 3 and fats, sugar, proteins: why are these nutrients essential? What are their benefits?
- How can I make healthy cooking simple and delicious?
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM
PART TWO – EATING SIMPLE, HEALTHY AND TASTY FOOD
SPEAKER: FRENCH CHEF ALAIN DUCASSE
- The main principles for eating healthily: planning meals, choosing ingredients, picking varied foods
- Eating healthily without compromising flavour and ingredients or preparing complicated recipes
- How will exercising on a regular basis help me stay fit? What is an athlete’s typical diet?
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM UPDATE – CANCELLED
PART THREE – HOW TO COMBINE FOOD AND SPORT?
SPEAKER: NASSER AL ATTIYAH, QATARI RACING DRIVER AND SHOOTER
- Food and exercise: finding the balance
- Practicing physical activity: a key component in weight management and improving life expectancy
- helping improve the health of our hearts, lungs and blood vessels
- helping maintain our muscles, joints and bones and keeping them in shape
- reducing the risk of colon, breast and even lung cancer
- Choosing the right food to combine with any kind of physical activity
