The Shack wins second place in the healthy restaurant project. From left to right: The Shack\u2019s Moses Pedro, Randy Rosario, owner Glen Hunter, CHCC medical director for Public Health Dr. Daniel Lamar, The Shack owner Svetlana Hunter, REACH local project assistant Kaitlyn Neises-Mocanu, CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a, CHCC registered dietitian Kate Campbell, DPH director Margaret Aldan, and NCD Bureau administrator Becky Robles. (Jayson Camacho)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Tropical Blendz took first place, The Shack took second place, while runners-up were Caravan and Everest Kitchen.<\/p>\nTropical Blendz front supervisor and cashier Rossana de la Vega said she was speechless and thankful for the recognition. She said their best-selling items are their salads.<\/p>\n
The Shack owner Glen Hunter said he was honored to receive the recognition on behalf of the restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so happy to see that CHCC got into a program like this and accentuate healthy food and restaurants to provide healthier alternatives and it is a great step in trying to combat obesity,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n
Caravan owner Abed Younis was also happy to receive the award, noting that they only have healthy foods and have been offering healthy fare to their customers.<\/p>\n
Everest Kitchen owner Laxmi Shrestha, who was also on hand to receive the award, said they serve all healthy foods and that people now have an alternative if they want healthy options.<\/p>\n
CHCC REACH local project assistant Kaitlyn Neises-Mocanu, who is the program\u2019s coordinator, said that she and CHCC registered dietitian Kate Campbell worked together to make the final selection of the Healthy Food Champions. She said the program started a month ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to define \u2018healthy,\u2019 especially when scientific food analyses are impractical to use for this project,\u201d Neises-Mocanu said.<\/p>\n
To select the Healthy Food Champions, they looked for restaurants that offer a healthy food environment, with sensible food portions, no sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, no alcohol, with fresh whole vegetables, fruits, and grains easily identifiable throughout the menu.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealthy food environments make it easy for patrons of these champion restaurants to make smart food choices,\u201d Neises-Mocanu said.<\/p>\n
CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a said the four restaurants were some of the top restaurants in the community that are making healthy choice the easy choice for residents.<\/p>\n
NCD Bureau administrator Becky Robles said that in addition to core nutrition requirements for select menu items, restaurants can make small changes in their menus that would foster a healthier food environment.<\/p>\n
More information on the Healthy Restaurant Project is being finalized and will soon be posted in the REACH website, reachcnmi.wix.com\/reach. Restaurants or caterers interested in participating in the project are encouraged to sign up for updates through the website. Email Neises-Mocanu at kneisesm@hawaii.edu or contact her at (670) 286-8427.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. and Division of Public Health\u2019s Non-Communicable Disease Bureau recognized yesterday four…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":191692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1615,666,1984,1985],"class_list":["post-191691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-becky-robles","tag-chcc","tag-healthy-food-champions","tag-kate-campbell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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