A few days ago, Shanghai piloted the country's first beverage "nutrition selection" classification label. According to the content of four ingredients in the beverage, such as "non lactogenic sugar", "saturated fat", "trans fat", and "non sugar sweetener", the evaluation grade is from high to low, marked with ABCD four, and the recommendation degree is gradually decreasing. Before the graded pilot, the disease control department in Shanghai had conducted nutritional analysis on some "on-site milk tea" in the market, and the results were worrying. Only the sugar content was one item, and more than 93% of the milk tea with the nominal "extra no sugar" might be rated above Grade B; Nearly half of the milk tea with "nominal sugar content" may be rated above Grade C.
The reason why this pilot project has attracted widespread attention is that beverages are increasingly important for health. Now there are more and more "little fat people" on campus, and the overweight rate and obesity rate of adults are also getting higher and higher. Obesity may come from eating or drinking. Teenagers are especially fond of drinks. It is common for them to queue in front of the beverage store for several hours to rush to buy online red drinks. Some teenagers even use drinks as boiling water. Due to the high sugar and fat content of many drinks, some people become obese simply because they like to drink drinks.
In the past, there was no grading based on the sugar and fat content of the drinks, and businesses were used to preparing drinks based on taste, which easily led to high content of some ingredients in the drinks. For example, because many people, especially teenagers, especially like sweet taste, adding more sugar to drinks can increase sales, which leads to high sugar becoming a "common problem" of some popular drinks. With this classification, businesses only focus on taste rather than ingredients will become unsustainable. In order to survive in the market, businesses will pay more attention to health when launching new products. This will also strengthen the guidance for consumers, who will have a "consumption guide" when choosing drinks.
In recent years, relevant departments have launched many intervention measures for diet and weight loss. For example, the Outline of the "Healthy China 2030" Plan focuses on solving the problem of excessive intake of high calorie food such as fat for some people. By 2030, the daily salt intake per capita in the country will be reduced by 20%, and the growth rate of overweight and obese people will significantly slow down. In November last year, the National Health Commission issued the "Healthy China Action - Implementation Plan for Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease Prevention and Control Action (2023-2030)", which clearly defined the need to promote the construction of food nutrition standard system and strengthen the guiding role of food nutrition labels. Not long ago, once the "Adult, Children and Adolescents Obesity Dietary Guidelines" was released, "The National Health Commission teaches you how to lose weight scientifically" hit the hot search. However, there is still a certain distance between similar programs and guidelines and real life. These measures can be further refined by carrying out classified pilot programs for beverages.
How this will work remains to be seen. For example, this classification mainly focuses on sugar and fat in beverages, while there are many nutritional ingredients in foods, and the substances included in the "nutrition selection" classification label need to be expanded. In addition, the number of drinks participating in the pilot project is small, and the drinks produced on site are the main ones. The sales volume of finished drinks is larger, which has not yet been included. The coverage of grading labels also needs to be expanded.
This action is undoubtedly a beneficial attempt, which is of great benefit to the implementation of the goal of scientific diet. Only by introducing more similar measures will the development of drinks and food be strongly constrained by the standards, thus becoming more in line with the health concept. In terms of oil control, salt control, sugar control and other aspects, consumers will be given scientific guidance, so that people can better "manage their mouths" and constantly improve their health level. Drawing/Vision China
