Chester Sam­bra­no

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day called out cer­tain fast-food brands, as he once again lament­ed what he de­scribed as the scourge of hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes fac­ing this coun­try.

Speak­ing at the launch of the U-Health and Well­ness Ex­po at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, Deyals­ingh main­tained that the mega chains and com­pa­nies had to take some blame for the health con­di­tion of some sec­tors of so­ci­ety, not­ing the fo­cus had to be on pre­ven­tion rather than cure.

“There is not enough work go­ing on there and even if there is enough work go­ing on there, peo­ple are ad­dict­ed to Coke (Co­ca-Co­la) and Pep­si in the same way they are ad­dict­ed to co­caine. They are ad­dict­ed to the fats in KFC and Roy­al Cas­tle, and I am call­ing brands for the first time in eight years be­cause we need to face the truth,” Deyals­ingh said.

The min­is­ter con­fessed that it has been an up­hill bat­tle for his min­istry.

“We have to work so much hard­er be­cause we can’t out­spend Domi­noes, $774 mil­lion US, we can’t out­spend Mc Don­ald’s, $638 mil­lion US, we can’t out­spend Wendy’s, $538 mil­lion and we sure­ly can­not out­spend Co­ca Co­la, $4 bil­lion US.

“Co­ca-Co­la’s ad­ver­tis­ing spend last year is our bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for the whole coun­try, but we freely con­sume their prod­ucts, know the words I am us­ing, we freely and vol­un­tar­i­ly con­sume that poi­son then we turn to the free pub­lic health sys­tem, save me,” he said.

Deyals­ingh was adamant that this was some­thing that need­ed to be ad­dressed frontal­ly adding this was why he was speak­ing out in such a man­ner.

He said he was al­so pre­pared to face any reper­cus­sions.

“I can’t wait for the back­lash I am go­ing to get to­mor­row (to­day) but I think it needs to be said,” he said.

Notwith­stand­ing any pos­si­ble fall­out over his com­ments, Deyals­ingh said he want­ed his mes­sage to be about con­sum­ing these prod­ucts in mod­er­a­tion, as he re­mind­ed it was al­so more about per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Please re­mem­ber the cen­tral mes­sage was to eat and drink these things in mod­er­a­tion. A bit of per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on be­half of us all, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents when it comes to their chil­dren’s health,” he ex­plained.

In a brief re­sponse to the min­is­ter lat­er yes­ter­day, head of the Domi­no’s Piz­za fran­chise, Omar Hadeed, said they have been work­ing to make their menu op­tions health­i­er af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with the health min­istry.

Wendy’s man­age­ment, how­ev­er, said they were re­serv­ing com­ment un­til they heard ex­act­ly what the min­is­ter said.

Al­so con­tact­ed, Si­mon Hardy, CEO of Pres­tige Hold­ings, the par­ent com­pa­ny of KFC, said he could not com­ment up to press time, as he too had not heard what Deyals­ingh said.

The Co­ca-Co­la and Mc­Don­ald’s fran­chis­es could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.

In June 2023, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh met with the heads of some of the lo­cal fast food chains and restau­rants to dis­cuss health­i­er menus for cus­tomers.

Present at the meet­ing was Stephen de Gannes, for­mer T&T Cham­ber CEO, with heads from Restau­rant Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, Glob­al Brands, Mario’s Pizze­ria Lim­it­ed, Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, Jen­ny’s on the Boule­vard, Pap­py’s Fried Chick­en, Chuck E Cheeses, Arazzi and Salt n’ Pep­per Clas­si­cal In­di­an Cui­sine.

In a me­dia state­ment fol­low­ing the meet­ing, the Min­istry of Health said the dis­cus­sions fo­cused on calo­ries per meal in restau­rants, sodi­um and fat con­tent and strate­gies for healthy-seek­ing be­hav­iours in re­la­tion to food con­sump­tion.

It said ad­di­tion­al­ly, the restau­rants agreed that more con­sumer aware­ness ini­tia­tives were need­ed to sup­port the health and well­ness of the na­tion. It said af­ter ini­tial dis­cus­sions, there was agree­ment by the restau­rants to de­vise strate­gies to in­clude health­i­er op­tions on their menus and to re­duce salt and sug­ar con­tent.

Ad­dress­ing the talks yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh told Guardian Me­dia, “The ball is now in their court. They pledged last year to roll out healthy op­tions.”

Deyals­ingh al­so ex­plained that his min­istry es­tab­lished the Hearts Pro­gramme to treat the prob­lem of hy­per­ten­sion and as of De­cem­ber 2023, 62,207 peo­ple were en­rolled with 29,632 now be­ing list­ed as con­trolled.

But di­a­betes, he said, is a much big­ger prob­lem and it all had to do with Caribbean cul­ture.

“The Caribbean has al­ways been colonised in a way that does not serve our best in­ter­est. To­day, we are colonised by the brands,” he said.