FOOD FOR THOUGHT


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Welcome to our blog all about food! At Quotesearcher, we’re not just interested in restaurant insurance we are also fanatic foodies who really love our Restaurants! If you also love all things food too read on.

Temporary Wahaca Restaurant made from Recycled Materials in London

May 16th, 2012

Wahaca, the Mexican street food chain will be opening a temporary restaurant on London’s Southbank which is to be made with recycled shipping containers.

It plans to open at the end of June during Southbank Centre’s summer long Festival of the World and is described as “pushing the boundaries of sustainable restaurants”.

The temporary restaurant will be located on the terrace of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the shipping containers will be arranged in a two-storey overhanging structure, allowing space for a terrace, bar, 130 diners and lots of outdoor seating.

Tristan Manco, one of the world’s biggest influential commentators on street art, will be working with Wahaca to pick a series of graffiti artists to decorate the restaurant.

The initial artwork will be completed by street artist Saner, who is travelling from Mexico City, to complete what’s promised to be the first of a striking series of murals on the site.

Co-founder of Mark Selby, said, “This is a great experiment for us. Placing eight sea containers on Southbank Centre’s terrace without gas and scarcely any electricity and expecting to open up a fully functional restaurant and bar has certainly caused an extensive amount of head scratching, but over the last five years that seems to be what we’ve done best at Wahaca.”

This exciting project will be experimental as staff will continue to play around with the design of the restaurant and food. The seasonal Mexican specials will change frequently and Thomasina Miers, executive chef, will be inviting other chefs to cook alongside her to try out new ingredients and adapt the menu on an on-going basis.

This will allow the chefs to understand which foods the public enjoy most, before bringing the foods and dishes to their main Wahaca restaurants.

Wahaca was lauched by Selby and former BBC MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers and currently has restaurants in both the Westfields in London, Covent Garden, Soho, Canary Wharf and Bluewater.

The Mexican restaurant chain celebrates its 5th birthday this year and will open its 8th restaurant on Charlotte Street which will have the group’s first breakfast bar and market store, once the restaurant insurance, staff, supplies and decor have all been put into place.

It’s always great to hear about restaurants doing well when the news in mainly focused around businesses struggling during this hard economic times.

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How Should Food be Labelled?

May 14th, 2012

People in the food industry including health experts, manufacturers and supermarkets will be asked about their views on the best way to label the nutritional information of food.

In the last few years, there have been many discussions about how to label and display the amount of calories, fat, salt and sugar in food, with many different systems in place.

The consultation that will be launched across the UK will take place by the government over the next 3 months.
Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said that it was “common sense” to get everyone using the same system as it makes it easier for consumers to make a healthier choice when food shopping.

Some manufacturers and retailers have used a “traffic light” system which lists the healthiest foods are labelled in green and the least healthy foods are in red.

Some use a Guideline Daily Amounts or GDAs which gives consumers a percentage of recommended intake and others use both.

Consistency

At the end of last year, European regulations were agreed that nutritional information must be labelled per 100g or per portion. Lansley said to the BBC that it was “not possible” for him or other health ministers to “impose a solution other than the EU solution”.

But he said that he was eager to work with businesses to find a “consistent” approach which could be introduced across the UK.

Langley suggested that uniting both the GDA systems and the traffic light system could help consumers.
He suggested that combine both the traffic light and GDA systems could help consumers.

Langley said he was looking for a system which “incorporates not only what Europe requires in terms of recommended daily allowance for calories and sugar and salt and saturated fats, but in addition to that to give a means by which consumers can look at a glance, for example, using things like colour coding.”

Head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, told the BBC “We’re great fans of traffic lights, the simpler the better.”

However, she said the best system would be to have both the colour coding as well as the more detailed GDAs.
Dr Nathanson explained that everyone using the same system would be “enormously” helpful as people were put off by “having to adjust to a different label every time you look at a different food”.

In restaurants, mainly fast food ones, we have started seeing calorie content of foods displayed. Nutritional information has also been more widely available online if consumers want to check the content of their foods.

However, consumers can still be confused about what to eat that’s healthy, so it’s also about finding and sharing healthy recipes that families can cook themselves at home. Healthy eating should also be supported by everyone in the industry including chefs, restaurants, UK restaurant insurance providers, nutritionists and manufacturers.

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UK’s Eating Habits Dominated by Convenience Foods

May 11th, 2012

A new study reveals that reliance on convenience foods and routine is driving the UK’s nutrition intake and eating habits, which could be taking a toll on us.

The survey showed a distinct lack of variety of foods in British diets and a preference for a ‘beige palette’. It involved 3,000 adults, which was conducted for PAGB, the UK trade association for over the counter medicines and food supplements.

The research revealed that most British people eat the same foods everyday at meal times for lunch and breakfast and rely on a small choice of foods for dinner including chicken tikka masala and spag bol. It shows that British people are creatures of habit as 68% go shopping for the same foods each week.

Helen Bond, State Registered Dietician and member of the British Dietetics Association (BDA) said, “Eating the same type of food every day is not only boring but could lead to deficiencies in certain nutrients if the foods are lacking in key nutrients,

“Not eating a variety of food groups, including lots of fruit and vegetables can also compromise the immune and digestive systems and, ultimately, long term health.”

The most popular foods for breakfast included toast, tea and cereal and for lunch, sandwiches were the most popular choice. Nearly half of the respondents ate pasta at least once a week followed by chips and pizza for dinner. A quarter of the participants had takeaways like fish and chips on a weekly basis. The survey suggests that the vast majority of people regularly eat meals based on the colour beige, despite the diversity of foods available in the United Kingdom.

Bond says, “Often the first area to be compromised when we are busy, watching our wallets or feeling stressed is our diet. Hectic lifestyles can lead to a reliance on convenience foods such as mass produced and beige coloured white pasta and pizza, which often lack essential vitamins and minerals. The combination of a stressful modern lifestyle and often a nutrient poor diet makes the inclusion of a food supplement to support our nutritional needs a welcome addition to our daily routine.”

Usually, the average British dinner will include two veggies – carrots, broccoli and onions are the favourites. But even so, 1 in 20 people do not eat any vegetables and 1 in 5 only manage one.

The most popular fruit included bananas, apples and grapes. Bond says, “Traditional selections all provide a good source of vitamins and minerals that keep the body healthy but selecting more exotic varieties such as pineapple and mango can revitalise your taste buds and deliver a host of different nutrients at the same time.”

Similarly to eating in, many Brits, including some of us at QuoteSearcher, mostly order the same foods in restaurants and we know that ordering a masala can be even unhealthier for us rather than cooking at home.

Some of us know that we are not eating very healthily as nearly a third of UK adults who took part in the survey expressed concerns that their current diets aren’t meeting nutritional needs and 1 in 10 who admitted to never eating a balanced, healthy diet.

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McDonald’s Latest Addition

May 9th, 2012

The newest addition to the McDonalds range is a new healthy soft drink called Fruitizz. It will be available in all stores from next week (16th May).

This product is finally released after three years of product development research. They wanted to create a healthy new drink that still excites children but has a nutritional benefit. It consists of 60 per cent fruit juice from grapes, apples and raspberries combined with sparkling water. There are no added sugars, colours or flavours.

The chief executive and president at McDonalds UK said, “We are thrilled to be unveiling Fruitizz, a refreshing fizzy fruit juice drink that will help parents give children one of their five a day.

“For the past three years, we have been working hard behind the scenes to create a fizzy drink that is unlike anything else currently available in high street restaurants. We tried and tested 80 formulations in order to create the right product that delivers nutritional benefit as well as a new, exciting taste.”

The product went on trial in 62 McDonalds branches in Wales last year and 75 per cent of people who bought Fruitizz with a happy meal said they would choose it again.Fast food is traditionally unhealthy but McDonalds looks set to break the mould as they have embarked on a salt and sugar reduction programme. Last year the average happy meal contained 50 per cent less salt, 21 per cent less saturated fat and 31 per cent less sugar compared to the same product that was sold in 2000. Other healthy options that have been introduced to the happy meal menu are, carrot sticks, fruit bags, mineral water and semi skimmed milk.

By having this new healthy addition to the happy meal menu hopefully this will encourage good press as opposed to the bad press that has been featured recently that all fast food is bad for you. As a result we are sure that all people in the food industry will support the new release including, commercial restaurant insurance companies, manufacturers, critics, suppliers, staff and the general public.

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Should we eat more Seaweed?

May 4th, 2012

Seaweed is a popular food in Asia, but not so popular in western countries. In the UK we usually eat it with sushi or with a Chinese takeaway and new research says that seaweed is unexploited here. It used to be eaten by coastal people since prehistoric times and has 145 species of green, brown and red seaweed which are used as food worldwide, but not so much in the UK.

Professor Ole Mouritsen from the University of Southern Denmark says, “We’ve forgotten to eat seaweed.”

In Korea, Japan and China, seaweed has for centuries been part of an everyday diet and demands are high.
According to new research in the journal, Trends in Food Science and Technology, despite us embracing sushi, eating seaweed is “minimal”.

Mouritsen says it’s because people do not like the thought of eating something washed up and smelling on the seashore. He says, “You wouldn’t go to an orchard and eat the rotting food on the ground”.

However, his research suggests that it’s time we took notice of seaweed and embraced it as an important food. He says, “There’s a whole world of algae out there that can be developed”.

Only around 35 species of seaweed have been used for cooking in the UK, even though the UK waters hold about 630 species. Therefore, there is plenty of untapped potential, agrees Fergus Drennan, trained chef and forager.

He says, “If you were absolutely genius in the kitchen you could probably push that figure up to about 90
“We have a coastline that’s almost as big as the coastline of Japan, which is the greatest seaweed-eating culture in the world… we’ve got as many varieties but we just don’t use it.”

Seaweeds have natural antioxidants such as polyphenols and have a high amount of minerals such as calcium. They are also high in both soluble and insoluble dietary fibres.

Protein from seaweed content ranges between 7-35% of its dry weight, although some species contain as much as 47% protein, such as “nori”.

At QuoteSearcher, we think that it would be good to see seaweed on more menus so we can try it, as it’s not something that many of us are familiar with cooking! What do you think? Would you eat seaweed?

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Noma voted Best Restaurant in the World

May 3rd, 2012

Noma, chef Rene Redzepi’s restaurant based in Copenhagen, for the third year in a row, has been named the best restaurant in the world!

On Monday night in London, the 10th annual World’s 50 Best Restaurant’s awards took place. For most restaurateurs, it’s one of the most anticipated events of the year for the industry and Redzepi took position as the “standard bearer for the New Nordic movement” after Noma was named the best restaurant in the world!

Restaurants that are nominated for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants are voted by a panel of over 800 food critics, restaurateurs and chefs, unlike the Michelin star based system. The Academy is split up into 27 seperate regions around the world and each region has a panel of 31 members.

Each of the members get 7 votes each and 3 of those votes has to be for restaurants outside of their region. The members must also have eaten in their nominated restaurants in the last 18 months.

The Michelin stars are carried out by inspectors, most of who are graduates with between 5 to 10 years experience in the restaurant industry. The stars are awarded based on what’s on the place, whereas the World’s 50 Best takes into account the whole dining experience from the service to the decor.

Redzepi is following in the footsteps of Ferran Adria, whose restaurant El Bulli has won the World’s Best restaurant 5 times and has now been accepted and known as the best chef in the world!

Three restaurants on 2012’s list remain unchanged from 2011’s list. These include Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca based in Spain, as well as Noma.

This is great news, especially when in the food industry we are more used to hearing negative news lately, like the increased cost of supplies and restaurant insurance and how food establishments are having to shut down because of the economic climate.

It has certainly been a superb year for Redzepi as in April; the chef was on the cover of Time magazine as a “Locavore Hero”. There has also been mentions of opening a pop up restaurant in London to mark the 2012 Games.

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