IVU and Malaysian Vegetarian Society delegation meets the Nutrition Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia: presenting the vegan nutrition guide and children’s nutrition books

Anchay TV News – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 30 October 2026. On the afternoon of 30 October 2026, following the morning meeting with ProtectHealth Corporation, the delegation from the International Vegetarian Union (IVU), the Malaysian Vegetarian Society (MVS) and the organising committee of Health360 Summit 2026 visited and held a working meeting with the Nutrition Division (Bahagian Pemakanan) of the Ministry of Health Malaysia. The meeting began at 3.30 p.m. in the Division’s meeting room, chaired by Mr. Nazli Suhardi Ibrahim, Director of the Nutrition Division, together with the Division’s officers.

The body behind the national dietary guidelines

The Nutrition Division is the Ministry of Health Malaysia’s dedicated nutrition body. It issues the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines and runs community, maternal and child, and school nutrition programmes. According to the display board at its offices, the Division’s vision is to be the nation’s leader in nutrition towards a healthy generation, and its mission is to develop and implement effective nutrition programmes for individuals, groups and communities; to integrate nutrition into national development policies and programmes; and to strengthen cross-sector cooperation and encourage community participation. This is the body to which the proposals on updating the dietary guidelines and on school nutrition, raised at the morning meeting with ProtectHealth, need to be taken.

The working session

To begin, Ms. Sangeeta Krishnasamy, Organising Chair of Health360 Summit, introduced the nine-member delegation from Brazil, Malaysia and Vietnam. The two sides then discussed plant-based dietary guidance and possible cooperation in preventing non-communicable diseases. Throughout the session, Nutrition Division officers looked through the IVU’s vegan nutrition guide at the table.

Dr. Vythilingam, Adviser and Honorary President of the Malaysian Vegetarian Society, thanked the Nutrition Division for issuing the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines for Vegetarians, the result of ten years of advocacy by the Society, and hoped the Division would keep updating them in the next revision of the national dietary guidelines. He shared the results of 20–30 day vegetarian challenges in companies (Top Glove, Hitachi, Toshiba): blood tests improved markedly but only about 10% of participants kept it up, which is why schools are the most effective place to intervene. He proposed that the Division consider a controlled pilot of school meals rich in fruit and vegetables and low in frying, salt and sugar at one or two schools, with the Society ready to volunteer, and raised the issue that nutrition counselling is not reimbursed by payers.

Mr. Lê Vinh Thao, IVU Representative for Asia and head of Anchay TV, introduced Anchay TV, the first licensed vegetarian media channel in Vietnam, and proposed media cooperation with the Nutrition Division: presenting the Dietary Guidelines for Vegetarians and the Pinggan Sihat Malaysia (#SukuSukuSeparuh) model to audiences in Vietnam and the region’s vegetarian community, producing bilingual content on IVU – Ministry of Health Malaysia cooperation programmes, and connecting Vietnamese vegan businesses with Malaysian partners.

An exchange of publications

The delegation presented the Nutrition Division with the Guide to Vegan Nutrition for Adults (health professional edition), compiled by the IVU’s Department of Medicine and Nutrition, together with “HayLey’s Happylicious Series”, a set of children’s books on healthy eating by Mohana Gill; one of them, “HayLey’s Vibrant Vegetables”, won a Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2016 (National Winner in Series).

In return, the Nutrition Division gave the delegation two official Ministry of Health Malaysia publications, the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines 2020 and the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines for Vegetarians, along with gift bags from the “Pinggan Sihat Malaysia” (Malaysian Healthy Plate) programme and its slogan #SukuSukuSeparuh: a quarter of the plate grains, a quarter protein-rich foods, and half vegetables and fruit.

Two meetings that complement each other

While the morning at ProtectHealth revolved around health financing, health screening and community advocacy, the afternoon at the Nutrition Division was a meeting with the national nutrition policy body, which holds the Malaysian Dietary Guidelines and the school nutrition programmes. The fact that Malaysia already has dietary guidelines for vegetarians is a favourable foundation for the next steps in cooperation between the IVU, the Malaysian Vegetarian Society and the Ministry of Health.

The meeting closed with souvenir photos at the Nutrition Division’s display area, ending the delegation’s first working day in Malaysia.

Delegates at the meeting

Souvenir photos

Two days later came the summit itself: Health360 Summit 2026: putting plant-based nutrition at the centre of the fight against non-communicable diseases.

Report: Anchay TV & Health360 Summit News · Photo: Thuỳ Chi, Anchay TV