Tay Ping Hui ate cheng tng every day as a kid

SINGAPORE — As a primary school student, actor Tay Ping Hui adored sweets, and could not resist desserts such as cheng tng and bubur cha cha.

The 46-year-old recalled that as a child, his indulgences led to him weighing around 60kg by the time he was 12 years of age. For a kid who stood 159cm tall, this put him in the “borderline overweight” category.

“I’d buy a pack (of sugar-coated sweets) and in a single day, I would eat 40 of those,” Tay said. “It was a diet that was really high in sugar.”

After school each day, he would also hit a Chinese dessert stall in a back alley near his school, to order a bowl of cheng tng or bubur cha cha — and eat the whole thing.

Tay — who slimmed down as an adult thanks to eating more wisely, and by taking up sports such as basketball — spoke to TODAY at Raffles Girls’ Primary School (RGPS), where he was supporting the first Jamie’s Italian Canteen Takeover in Singapore.

The event coincided with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Day, which Oliver’s company and its partners celebrate on May 19. Oliver’s Food Revolution movement has seen the British chef take over school canteens in Britain and the United States, serving healthier meals than what is typically on offer. At RGPS, event organiser Jamie’s Italian Singapore, along with supporting partners, rolled out meals to all 1,800 RGPS students.

At the school, London-born chef Gary Clarke — executive chef of culinary operations and development at Jamie’s Italian South East Asia — and Tay served bento boxes to the kids. Those contained chicken breast, some fruit, and Oliver’s Secret Seven Tomato Pasta. The recipe for the pasta is vegetarian, and was created to get kids to eat more vegetables — not an easy task, said Clarke.

Key vegetables used in the recipe are carrots, tomatoes, onions and carrots. But while children might balk at eating those on their own, Oliver’s idea was to “put it all in a sauce”, said Clarke, thereby “hiding” the vegetables and making it palatable to picky eaters.

Excited students from ages six to 12 responded well to the meal, munching away happily in the school canteen.

While this might mark some high-level healthy eating for the kids, RGPS has quietly been changing its canteen food up on its own, said Goh E-Lynn.

Part of the Food Revolution mindset is to get kids to think about eating whole, fresh foods, rather than “convenience” foods, which are often high in sugar and highly-processed.

Goh, 43, an English teacher, noted that in the last couple of years, deep fried food has been cut down at RGPS.

“Canteen vendors were told not to serve things like fries and chicken nuggets,” said Goh, adding that unhealthy snack offerings are also being phased out.

The snacks stall now offers up steamed chicken buns, sandwiches and red bean baos. It might also have waffles and cupcakes, but this is an improvement over fried snacks, said Goh.

Parents from the school’s Parent Support Group also run events such as the Healthy Food Eating Fair. As part of the fair, fruit is handed out to students during recess. Vendors also hand out samples of multi-grain snacks and organic chips, as well as yoghurt to the students.

RGPS now wants its Western food stall to use Oliver’s Secret Seven Tomato Pasta recipe, according to Goh.

Oliver’s message is that food ought to be as wholesome as possible, said Clarke.

“Food is a language of its own and this (event) is about us having the opportunity to teach that language to younger children,” said Clarke. “We want to teach the children that it’s not all about convenience when it comes to food.”