New Year Resolutions: Going on a Diet?

by Rashed Islam

With New Year fast approaching, many of you may be considering your new year’s resolutions, and if like us you have managed to lose track of your diet post Ramadan, this could be the perfect time to start afresh. In Jeddah there are more restaurants than you could shake a stick at, and yet when it comes to healthy eating, the city’s offerings leave much to be desired.

It was the lack of healthy meals in restaurants or otherwise (e.g on the go) that almost led us on a wild goose chase, starting in the centre of town at ‘Teayana’ and ‘Sushi Yoshi’ and ending in Obhur and beyond where we found ‘Lite Bite’ and put their healthy snacks to the test.

It all started online, what search doesn’t these days? And after raising this very topic on the Jeddah Food discussion forum on Facebook, we were confronted with a bunch of different names, most of which we had not come across before.

Self control is obviously a big part of any diet, and as the saying goes a bad workman will always blame his tools, but there’s something to be said for a healthy diet over calorie counting at McDonalds. A diet has to be sustainable, We really don’t need to follow in the footsteps of Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me), although he certainly wasn’t calorie counting. But once you’ve decided you have the will power, it doesn’t hurt to know where you can eat out in town without having to worry too much about what you are eating. So without further ado, here are a few of the healthier venues we have come across, in a bid to meet our new years resolution, to eat more healthy food.

Read all the restaurant reviews in Oasis Magazine issue 6/Winter 2009 (now in stores)