Freshly made drinks, can they be delicious and healthy at the same time?

At 8:30 in the morning, Xiaohua (pseudonym), who is engaged in writing work, started her day's work. In order to relieve her work anxiety, she would order a cup of milk tea two or three days a week. "Compared to bottled drinks, freshly made milk tea tastes better, has more choices, and is updated quickly. The process of choosing ingredients and sweetness is also very enjoyable." In Xiaohua's eyes, "This is a life ritual for contemporary young people."

There are many young people like Xiaohua, and their popularity is closely related to the rapid development of the ready-made beverage industry. Among them, new tea brands that are produced and sold with tea, fruits, milk, etc. as the main raw materials are emerging in endlessly. The "2022 New Tea Drinks Research Report" released by the China Chain Store and Franchise Association shows that as of the end of 2022, the total number of new tea drink stores nationwide will reach 486,000. But at the same time, issues such as the opaqueness and low standardization of the types and dosages of additives in ready-made beverages have also repeatedly caused concern.

So, what are the attractive features of freshly made drinks? How to balance "drink" and "health"?

1. Unknown ingredients: Hidden concerns behind “freshness”

Beverages have a long history. When human beings first entered the gate of civilization, they were no longer satisfied with just using water as a daily drink. As early as thousands of years ago, beer fermented from leftover grains had stimulated the taste buds of the ancestors of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In ancient Greece and Rome along the Mediterranean coast, wine became the standard on the tables of dignitaries. In modern times, beverages made from plants such as tea, coffee, and cocoa have arrived in every corner of the world with the sails of European and American navigators. With the development of industrialization, the preparation of beverages has entered the era of assembly lines. While the types are extremely rich, different "schools" such as ready-to-sell and pre-packaged have gradually differentiated into different "schools" with their own characteristics to satisfy different beverage enthusiasts. preferences and needs.

In today's era of extremely fast-paced life, different enthusiasts have given their own answers to the attractiveness of freshly prepared drinks.

“I drink coffee almost every day, order takeout on weekdays, and go to coffee shops on weekends.” Jiuli (pseudonym), who has been drinking coffee for many years, said, “In addition to refreshing myself, coffee can create a psychological feeling for me. The state of work is just like reading in the study room, which is more efficient than at home.”

"For me, milk tea may be something that is not so daily, but relatively easy to obtain. It will give me a small sense of psychological satisfaction, which is not the case when buying bottled drinks." Xiaohua added road.

“What attracts me most about freshly made drinks may be that they are fresh, and it seems like there aren’t that many preservatives.” Xuesong (pseudonym), who drinks milk tea every week, said, “Moreover, new products and joint models are launched more frequently, and more It satisfies curiosity.”

Freshness, atmosphere, instant gratification... When talking about the charm of freshly made drinks, interviewees mostly focused on the above points. In the interview, most of the interviewees also said that when ordering freshly made drinks, they usually choose sugar-free. Most of the reasons are that they don’t like sweets, prefer original flavors, and worry about gaining weight. It is not difficult to see that while drinking freely, young consumer groups also attach great importance to health.

"Actually, I am a person who cares about the healthiness of food ingredients, but once I have a problem with my mood, I will still get used to having a drink." Although I try to choose sugar-free styles with simple ingredients when purchasing, over the past few years, Xiaohua's weight, There are still some changes in sleep.

"I occasionally meet some patients with dyslipidemia, especially girls. During the dietary survey, I found that she may not like to eat meat, but she likes to drink milk tea." Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Clinical Nutrition, Beijing Tiantan Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University Xu Yingxia said, "In fact, the calories and sugar contained in drinks such as milk tea are not low."

"I am more concerned about food ingredients, and I hope that freshly made drinks can also be labeled." Xuesong added.

2. Different standards: gradually disclosed ingredients

How many calories are in a cup of milk tea? What are the ingredients in the cup? Are the sugar content and other standards consistent among different milk tea shops?

"Four years ago, I led students to conduct a small survey and found that the quality control of these ready-made drinks was not very good. Different people in the same store may have different understandings of 30% sugar and 70% sugar. There were still some problems during the test. It was found that a drink with 30% sugar had more added sugar than a drink with half sugar in the same store,” Xu Yajun, associate dean of Peking University School of Public Health and professor of the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, told reporters, “It’s different. The sugar content of '3-point sugar' in milk tea shops also varies greatly, which may be one of the reasons why it is difficult to clearly label the sugar content of freshly made drinks."

"Actually, I don't recommend that you drink milk tea often, because you don't know what you are drinking." Xu Yingxia said, "Bottled drinks will at least have specific ingredients labeled on them, so you know what is in them. But milk tea generally does not label it. "

At present, my country has clear regulations on the label content of pre-packaged foods, requiring the food name, ingredient list, net content, allergenic substances, etc. to be clearly stated. However, there are no rigid regulations for ready-made and ready-to-sell foods.

"Some catering brands have made similar attempts before, but the results are not ideal. For example, if a restaurant makes a dish of Kung Pao Chicken, how to label the nutritional content? There are still some implementation problems." Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center Zhong Kai suggested starting from the upper reaches of the industrial chain.

"For example, it is difficult to specify the final product, but the raw materials used can be regulated. Fruits must have purchasing standards for fruits, milk must have milk purchasing standards, and the amount of additives must also have standards, and they must all pass Procurement through formal channels. If the front-end is well supervised, no matter how the merchants match the products within the safety range, there will be no major problems with the finished product," Zhong Kai said.

Nowadays, beverage brands are paying more and more attention to the health of the ingredients they use. Some brands have slogans such as "real milk", "real tea" and "real sucrose", and some brands emphasize the use of healthy natural sweeteners. For example, recently, a tea brand announced the calories and nutritional content of six products through its official account.

"Labeling the ingredients will make it clearer for consumers to drink, which is worth advocating." But Xu Yajun said frankly, "Before labeling, the amount of addition in the entire production process needs to be relatively 'standardized', otherwise the numbers written on the label are meaningless. of."

3. Intake is controllable: standardization process is accelerated

Freshly made drinks are inseparable from manual operations, and once manual operations are involved, it is difficult to be as accurate as a machine.

Among the interviewees, Xuesong had the experience of working in a new tea brand store of a chain. According to her, “When I first started working, I would receive a list with the preparation process for various drinks. There were specific requirements for how much of each ingredient to put in. All I needed to do was memorize it and follow the process strictly. For large-scale chain brands, when preparing a drink in a store, the personal operating space is actually not that large, and the degree of standardization is higher. "

The reporter checked relevant national standards and found that they include GB/T10789-2015 "General Principles for Beverages", GB7101 "National Food Safety Standard for Beverages", GB2759-2015 "National Food Safety Standard for Frozen Beverages and Ingredients", GB2760-2014 "National Food Safety Standard for Beverages" Many current national standards, including the "Standards for the Use of Food Additives" and GB14880-2012 "National Food Safety Standards for the Use of Food Nutritional Enhancers", have specific regulations on the ingredients that may be involved in the beverage preparation process. Take the sweetener aspartame as an example. Among beverage foods, according to current national standards, it is allowed to be added to 6 types of beverages, including fruit and vegetable juice (slurry) beverages and protein drinks. The maximum usage amount is 0.6g. /kg, for solid beverages, the usage amount will be increased according to the dilution factor. As a separate category, ready-made beverages have not yet formulated special national standards. The supervision of this category is mostly implemented with reference to the above standards.

"The "General Principles of Beverages" was proposed by the China Beverage Industry Association. It mainly targets pre-packaged beverages. Ready-made beverages are not included in this." Zhong Kai explained, "Strictly speaking, the category of ready-made beverages is actually considered a category of catering. As long as people are operating in the industry, it is difficult to be 100% standardized. However, for example, the dosage of full sugar, half sugar, reduced sugar, whether to use sugar or sweeteners, etc., relatively unified standards can be established within the company and even within the industry to avoid There is a situation where the half sugar in one store is sweeter than the full sugar in another store.”

Although there is no national standard yet, in recent years, in response to the rapid development of the ready-made beverage industry, different social groups have successively proposed group standards for the industry to comply with. In December 2019, the China Cuisine Association took the lead in issuing the group standard T/CCA 009-2019 "Operation Specifications for Freshly Made Beverages", which stipulates the terminology, classification, venue facilities, equipment and raw materials, food additives, etc. of freshly made beverages. In March 2021, the Fujian Chain Store and Franchise Association released the group standard T/FJCFA 0001-2021 "Freshly Made Milk Tea". Subsequently, the Cross-Strait Tea Industry Exchange Association issued the "Tea Beverage Series Group Standards", which clarified the scope, requirements, inspection rules, etc. of five categories of products, including freshly made milk tea and freshly made milk-covered tea. The requirements further subdivided the microbial limits. , contaminant limits, food additives and other specific indicators. In recent years, the China Chain Store and Franchise Association has successively released group standards such as the "Terms and Classifications of Freshly Made Tea Drinks" and "Self-Inspection Guidelines for Food Safety in Freshly Made Tea Drinks Stores". The standardization process in the freshly made beverage industry is gradually accelerating.

"In general, processed foods are not as good as natural foods, especially those that pregnant women and children are advised to use with caution. We recommend that everyone control their intake," said Xu Yingxia. "Limit it to a few times a week or a month, and stop when you are full." (Reporter Jia Yueyang)

Source: Guangming.com-"Guangming Daily"