Photographed by Xue Gui-Ping Xue Translated by Mindy Chen Proof Read by Chui Suen Yee

Dietitian Gladys Wong from Singapore shared her experience in promoting “Meatless Monday” in Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. She stated, “Vegetarian diet is not choice but responsibility.”

Human beings cannot live without food. However, have we ever thought whether the food we eat every day are healthy? What impact on the environment and the Globe will the dietary habits make? On the morning of September 22, 2018, Gladys Wong, a senior dietitian of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore, was invited to share her promotion of “Meatless Monday Campaign” and the tips for healthy eating.

Gladys Wong delivered a keynote speech starting from the activity of “Health Promoting Hospitals” promoted by World Health Organization (WHO). In her opinion, the hospital should offer a healthy green environment for patients. Eating smartly is essential to health and environmental protection. It includes purchasing, supporting and promoting local sustainable food.

What is “sustainable fool”? It is the food that is produced, processed, distributed and disposed of in ways that avoid damaging the environment and save food resources now and for the future. Sustainable food not only promotes a healthy life but also protects the diversity of both plants and animals, and the ecosystem.

Currently, 33 percent of croplands are used for livestock feed production. The carbon and water footprints of every kind of food are having an influence on the sustainability of the Globe. Many researches show that the carbon and water footprints of rice and vegetables are lower than those of meat. Therefore, vegetarian diet is eco-friendly; it can reduce carbon footprint, put a brake on global warming, conserve water resources and overcome the food crisis.

In recent years, more and more medical evidence has showed that vegetarian diet helps improve health. According to “Singapore Chinese Health Study,” following a vegetarian diet may not only reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 40-60% but also prevent cancers, heart diseases and obesity. The natural disasters caused by the global warming for the last ten years make Gladys strongly believe that medical professionals should save the Globe through sustainable food. Accordingly, she makes Khoo Teck Puat Hospital become the first hospital to promote vegetarian diet in Singarpore.

However, it’s not easy to promote vegetarian diet in Singapore, especially in the hospital, because most people thought that patients should eat meat for optimum nutrition to get well. Therefore, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital started with “Meatless Monday.” Meatless lunch was offered for Monday’s meeting. What’s more, nurses also educated patients about the benefits of a vegetarian diet and reminded them that the vegetarian meals were available. That “Meatless Monday, One More Day of Health” became the well-known slogan. The Hospital also asked the hospital meal providers to provide at least one meatless dish. Posters and cardboard posters made for vegetarian diet promotion could be seen here and there in the hospital. Besides, the vegetarian cooking class was held to teach cooking healthy meatless foods.

However, Gladys Wong mentioned that the vegetarian diet does not intake only vegetables. It must rich in protein from beans, egg products, milk diary, nuts, seeds, whole grains and so on. Diet short of protein causes muscular dystrophy and therefore damages health.

Since she promoted “Meatless Monday” in the Hospital, she has met many challenges. She stated, “For example, in the beginning, doctors preferred not to work on meatless Monday.” Upon hearing such a challenge, the audience burst into laughter.

“We constantly obtain experience from other hospitals. For example, we visited Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital in Taiwan to share experience with Vice Superintendent Lin Ming-Nan; we also often shared experience with others from abroad. Fortunately, the activity was supported by many people; they started to encourage Hospital staff, patients and the public to have sustainable food for a healthy life.

Vegetarian diet has become more and more popular in Singapore. Gladys Wong emphasized that vegetarian diet is not choice but responsibility. If meatless diet is hard for us, we can start with meat-reduced diet and limit the frequency of eating meat.

Human beings cannot live without food. However, we must save the Globe through sustainable food and life quality. Dr. Saw Aik, a Malaysian Orthopedist, was greatly inspired by the speech. He said, “Many people with a longer lifespan usually have a large amount of vegetables in their diet. Obviously, vegetarian diet greatly benefits us. Although Malaysians have many different religious beliefs, they, however, bear with one another. I would like to promote the vegetarian diet to local people—having the vegetarian diet once a week, twice a week, three times a week and…, and every day if possible. It is very nice if they can become vegetarians eventually. I will try my best to do it.” 56-year-old Saw Aik motivated himself.

Dr. Saw Aik from Malaysia was greatly inspired by the speech.