Chef’s Perception on Nutrition and Health

Of late there is a tremendous increase in the eating out episodes of our population. In order to meet the demand there is an increase in the establishment of Food service units the throughout the country. In the western world the consumers are habituated to eating out. In view of the increase in the incidence of obesity and associated chronic health problem such as CVD, CHD, diabetes mellitus etc. a focus is being given to healthy eating out practices. The study surveyed chef’s working in select hotels and restaurants at Tirupati and Tirumala, which is a world renowned Pilgrim centre located in ChittoorDistrict in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The chef’s perception on the four aspects vizhealth, nutrition, practices and consumer concerns were assessed in the context of menu planning and food service. The results revealed that in both locations the chef’s of hotels showed a better Perception in all four areas when compared to the Chef’s of restaurants. The differences were significant out 0.01 percent. The findings also revealed that chefs of restaurants at Tirumala showed good perceptions in the areas of nutrition and health. A low level of perceptions was evident in practicing nutrition and consumer concern. Chef’s in general believed that nutrition is important in menu planning. Effortshowever, need to be to facilitate nutrition related practices in the Food cateringunits and increase consumer awareness and healthy eating out habits of consumers. Chefs thus, in strongly believed that nutrition is important in menu planning in food catering institutions, there is a great need to create facilitating environments to convert perceptions into sustaining practices.