Eat fish twice a week, says the cabinet

The cabinet is to join forces with food producers, retailers, schools and other groups to promote healthy eating, ministers agreed on Friday.


The aim of the campaign is to put the Netherlands back into the top five countries in Europe in terms of life expectancy, the Telegraaf paper says.
By eating more fruit, vegetables and fish, spending on the health service will also come down – by €4.1bn over the next 20 years, according to government calculations. This also means that some 140,000 fewer people will die from diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Among the new targets being proposed: the daily intake of fruit and vegetables should be 200 grammes and fish should be on the menu twice a week, rather than three times a month, the Telegraaf says. The recommendations are in line with those made by the environmental health ministry a year ago.
However, health minister Ab Klink is not in favour of putting an extra tax on fatty or unhealthy food in an effort to cut consumption, believing this would go too far, the Telegraaf says.
The consumers association told news agency ANP it is disappointed that the cabinet is proposing so few concrete measures. ‘We had expected more from this paper, which we have been waiting for for a long time,’ said a spokesman.
In particular, the association said it wanted new rules on food labels because the current system is not clear.

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