Nowadays recipes are available to consumers through a wide range of different channels (for example, food advertisement, television programmes, social media, food blogs, cookbooks, trade journals and other media). The nutritional quality of the recipes is of great importance in ensuring that diets are in accordance with the nutrition recommendations. They also guide consumers’ buying behaviour. There is a great need for recipes with high nutritional quality in households and large-scale catering establishments so that they can offer meals that meet the nutrition recommendations.
Contents
Preparing food/meals that meet the nutrition recommendations will be made easy for consumers and catering professionals.
Operators are encouraged to develop recipes that help consumers to make dietary selections on the basis of the nutrition recommendations so that the intake of sugar, salt and saturated fats and the use of vegetables in particular would be in accordance with the recommendations.
When operators are purchasing recipes as subcontracting, the nutrition commitment may also be made by the party producing the recipes/flood blogger/food journalist.
Targets
- More recipes supporting the adoption of diets that are in accordance with the nutrition recommendations will be made available in marketing and in different media.
- The energy and salt content in each portion will always be given in the recipes
The nutritional quality of the recipes will be improved by
- developing recipes that meet the Better Choice Heart Symbol criteria See also: https://www.sydanmerkki.fi/en/criteria
- developing recipes that meet the meal-specific nutrition criteria for food offered by catering services See also: Finnish nutrition recommendations (in Finnish), 2014
- by giving the exact salt content in the recipes (using units of measure)
- developing recipes for foods that do not have a high salt content under the statutory limit values. See also: Section 5.5.1.3 of Elintarviketieto-opas (Food guide for Finnish food inspectors and food business operators (in Finnish).
- developing recipes for foods that have a lower salt content under the statutory limit values. See also: Section 5.5.1.4 of Elintarviketieto-opas (Food guide for Finnish food sinspectors and food business operators
- paying attention to the size and energy density (energy content kcal/100 g) of the portions when preparing recipes (For average portion sizes for adults, see: https://www.sydanmerkki.fi/en/criteria
- replacing butter with oil, melted margarine or fat meeting the Better Choice Heart Symbol criteria
- replacing salt-containing spice mixtures with salt-free mixtures and by using basic spices
Examples of commitments
Example 1: All our recipes for everyday meals will be in accordance with the Better Choice Heart Symbol criteria by the year 2020.
Example 2: As laid down in the law, the salt content will be reduced in 50 per cent of our recipes by the year 2020.
Example 3: By the end of 2019, all our revised recipes for everyday meals will support the composition of meal portions in accordance with the Finnish food plate model.
Example 4: We will check the fat quality in all our recipes that will be available to consumers from the start of 2018, and in 80 per cent of them, it will be in accordance with the nutrition recommendations.
Example 5: From the start of 2018, all our recipes will give the energy content* for each portion and from the same date we will also define the size of the portions.
Example 6: From the start of 2019, all our recipes will give the salt content of each portion (all sources of salt and the natural sodium contained in the ingredients as converted into salt will be included).
Example 7: From the start of 2018, the online recipes based on recipes shown in our television food programmes will always give the energy content.*
Example 8: From the start of 2019, the portion-specific energy content in our recipes intended for consumers will be between 300 and 400 kcal.
Example 9: From the start of 2018, we will develop ten new recipes for professional kitchens each year in accordance with the Heart Symbol meal criteria and will communicate about healthier products included in our offerings.
Example 10: From the start of 2019, in recipes intended for consumers, we will use foodstuffs meeting the Better Choice Heart Symbol criteria whenever possible.
* The energy content/portion given in a recipe can be calculated using nutritional content calculation programs or the nutritional content data and calculation program of the Fineli database.