Students of Istanbul Gelisim University BESYO, opened a healthy life café, inside university facilities to emphasize the importance of healthy and balanced nutrition. Selling handmade organic food and beverages, the café serves different menus for each meal.

Students of Istanbul Gelisim University (IGU), School of Physical Education and Sport (BESYO), opened Fit Café, under the lead of Academician Dr. Haluk Saçaklı, with the aim of a healthy life. Students can make their choices in the café among the food on the menu, which includes food with cereals, grills and dried fruits,  seeing their calories.

Feeding the brain is as important as feeding the body

Academician Dr. Haluk Saçaklı from Istanbul Gelisim University (IGU), School of Physical Education and Sport (BESYO), who states that they are the pioneer in Turkey by opening Fit Café,  said that they aim the café to be used by not only athletes but by all students. Saçaklı who stated that feeding the brain is as important as feeding the body, said “our brain is an organ which is highly selective. It doesn’t accept all we eat. If we consume wrong food, on a wrong time and by wrong quantity, we affect badly the development of our brain and our productivity in work and school decreases. Once a food is digested and entered into the blood stream, the first place it reaches is our brain. We have to send proper food to our brain. It doesn’t accept all the food we consume. We need to protect our brain’s health. When a student starts the day without having breakfast, the brain will not be able to give proper answers, even if s/he gets the best education from the best professors, perception period will be very short and the memory will not function effectively, s/he will not understand what is told”.
 
 
“Most of the students do not have breakfast”
 
Haluk Saçaklı who emphasizes that breakfast is the main and indispensable element of nutrition stated that most of the students do not have breakfast and that this situation causes a decrease in their educational productivity. Saçaklı, saying that one must have breakfast between 7:00 and 9:00 am, said “we consume sugar while we sleep, when one goes to school without having breakfast, the brain takes carbohydrates as nutrition and does not use fat and proteins. We must consume, by a good and proper breakfast, carbohydrates with low glycemic index. There are breakfasts containing cereals, special mixes. To fortify immune system, they have to take a coffee spoon of turmeric and black sesame during their breakfasts”.
 
“We fight with cancer”
 
Saçaklı said that they do not sell bread, bagels, cakes, cookies, pastries made of white flour in the café, emphasized that consuming this kind of food outside causes huge danger for everybody and continued saying “when starch based food, containing corn syrup, which is worse than sugar, is consumed, it quickly causes cancer. Erkan Topuz said in 20-30 years most of our young people will be struggling cancer. As we are aware of the danger, we wanted to pioneer in this way”.
 
Special mixes, herbal tea, alkali water
 
Saçaklı emphasized that especially athletes are inclined to a wrong method called steroids and said he is very sorry for that. He said that he is preparing beverages for his students so that they do not use steroids and continued by saying:
 
“They will be able to go to weight lifting training after having their milk, banana, bitter chocolate mixes here. We have prepared herbal tea with special herbs. We also prepared relaxing herbal tea for exam periods. All are natural and healthy. So our youngsters are having qualified nutrition. We are investing in the future, because in the future everything will be different for us due to the young people. If we do not pay necessary attention now, it will cause a lot of risks in the future. We are going to spread this habit among other students also and we will be able to protect them against risks such as obesity. They will be more successful in the exams when they consume tea we have prepares using special herbs. We have herbal tea recipes specific to the period when cold and flu is affecting people.”
Saying that even the best water has a low pH value, Saçaklı cited that they prepare alkali water for students adding apple, citron and cinnamon sticks to the water in 2 liter carafes.
 
“All food we consume inclines to be synthetic now”

Mr. Abdülkadir Gayretli, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of IGU, saying that Fit Café is very important for students’ health and that they care deeply for students’ nutrition continued saying:

“All food we consume inclines to be synthetic now. This, eventually causes an increase in cancer occurrence. We opened Fit Café to raise qualified athletes. We want to raise qualified athletes. I recommend this café to all our students. It is very important to consume healthy food both for education and brain development.”
All menus prepared by diet and nutrition specialists are changing on weekly basis and students see the calories of the food they consume on café’s lists.