Can freshly made drinks be delicious and healthy？
At 8: 30 in the morning, Xiaohua (pseudonym), who is engaged in word work, started her day’s work. In order to alleviate the anxiety at work, she will order a cup of milk tea two or three days a week. "Compared with bottled drinks, the freshly made milk tea tastes better, with more choices and faster updates, and the process of choosing ingredients and sweetness is also very enjoyable." In Xiaohua’s eyes, "this is the sense of life ceremony of contemporary young people."
There are not a few young people like Xiaohua, and their pursuit is not unrelated to the rapid development of the existing beverage industry. Among them, new tea brands with tea, fruit and milk as the main raw materials are emerging one after another. According to the "2022 New Tea Research Report" published by China Chain Store & Franchise Association, by the end of 2022, there were 486,000 new tea shops nationwide. At the same time, however, the opacity and low standardization of the types and dosages of additives in existing beverages have repeatedly attracted attention.
So, what are the attractions of ready-made drinks? How to balance "good drink" and "health"?
1. Unknown composition: the hidden worry behind "freshness"
The history of beverages has a long history. As soon as mankind entered the door of civilization, it was no longer satisfied with just taking water as the object of daily drinking. As early as thousands of years ago, beer fermented from surplus grain has stimulated the taste buds of ancestors in Egypt and the two river basins. In ancient Greece and Rome on the Mediterranean coast, wine became a standard on the tables of dignitaries. In modern times, drinks made of tea, coffee, cocoa and other plants have reached 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 line. While the types are extremely rich, there are also different "schools" such as making, selling and prepackaging, which meet the preferences and needs of different beverage lovers with their own characteristics.
In today’s fast-paced era, different lovers have given their own answers to the attraction of ready-made drinks.
"I drink coffee almost every day, order takeout on weekdays and go to coffee shops on weekends." Jiu Li (pseudonym), who has been drinking coffee for many years, said, "Besides refreshing myself, coffee can create a working state for me psychologically, just like reading in the study room is more efficient than at home."
"For me, milk tea may be something that is not so daily, but it is relatively easy to get. I will have a little satisfaction psychologically, but buying bottled drinks will not feel this way." Xiaohua added.
"The most attractive thing about the existing drinks is that they are fresh. I feel that there should not be so many preservatives." Cedar (pseudonym), who drinks milk tea every week, said, "And the frequency of new products and joint models will be higher, which will better satisfy curiosity."
Freshness, atmosphere and instant satisfaction … … Speaking of the charm of ready-made drinks, respondents mostly talked about the above points. In the interview, most interviewees also said that when ordering ready-made drinks, they usually choose sugar-free, mostly because they don’t like sweet food, prefer original flavor and worry about gaining weight. It is not difficult to see that while drinking, young consumer groups also attach great importance to health.
"In fact, I am a person who cares about the health of food ingredients, but once I have emotional problems, I will still get used to a drink." Although you will try to choose a style that is sugar-free and simple in ingredients when you buy it, there are still some changes in the weight and sleep of Xiaohua after several years.
"I occasionally meet some patients with dyslipidemia, especially girls. During the dietary survey, I found that she may not like meat, but she likes to drink milk tea." Xu Yingxia, deputy director of the Clinical Nutrition Department of Beijing Tiantan Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, said, "In fact, the calories and sugar contained in drinks such as milk tea are not low."
"I care more about food ingredients, and I hope that ready-made drinks can also be marked." Cedar added.
2. Different standards: gradually disclosed ingredients
What is the calorie of a cup of milk tea? What are the ingredients in the cup? Are the standards of sugar content uniform in different tea shops?
"I led students to do a small survey four years ago, and found that the quality control of these ready-made drinks is not good. Different people in the same store may have a lot of differences in the grasp of 3-point sugar and 7-point sugar. During the test, I also found that a 3-point sugar drink added more sugar than a half-sugar drink in the same store." Xu Yajun, deputy dean of Peking University School of Public Health and professor of the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, said in an interview, "Different tea shops ‘ 3 cents sugar ’ The sugar content is also very different, which may be one of the reasons why it is not easy to clearly label the sugar content of existing 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 be marked with specific ingredients and know what is inside. But milk tea is generally not marked. "
At present, there are clear regulations on the contents of labels in prepackaged foods, which require that the food name, ingredient list, net content, allergenic substances and so on be clearly written, but there are no hard and fast regulations on the foods that are made and sold now.
"There have been similar attempts by catering brands before, but the effect is not ideal. For example, if a restaurant makes a kung pao chicken, how do you label the nutrients? There are still some implementation problems. " Kai Zhong of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center suggested starting from the upstream of the industrial chain.
"For example, the final finished product is not easy to make specific provisions, but the raw materials it uses can be supervised. Fruits should have the procurement standards for fruits, milk should have the procurement standards for milk, and the amount of additives should be standardized, and they must be purchased through formal channels. Supervise the front end, no matter how the merchants match within a safe range, the finished product is unlikely to have big problems. " Kai Zhong said.
Nowadays, existing beverage brands pay more and more attention to the health of ingredients. Some brands slogan "real milk", "real tea" and "real sucrose", while others emphasize the use of healthy natural sweeteners. For example, recently, a tea brand announced the calories and nutrients of six products through official accounts.
"Labeling the ingredients will make consumers drink more clearly, which is worth promoting." However, Xu Yajun said frankly, "Before labeling, the relative amount of the whole production process needs to be added ‘ Standardization ’ Otherwise, the number written on the label is meaningless. "
3. The intake is controllable: the standardization process is accelerated.
Ready-made drinks are inseparable from manual operation, and once manual operation is involved, it is difficult to be as accurate as a machine at all times.
Among the interviewees, Cedar once had the experience of working in a chain of new tea brand stores. According to her introduction, "I will receive a list when I first go to work, which contains the preparation process of various beverages. There are specific requirements for how much each ingredient should be put. What I need to do is to memorize and operate strictly according to the process. At present, the large-scale chain brands, stores prepare a drink, the personal operation space is actually not that big, and the degree of standardization is still higher."
The reporter checked the relevant national standards and found that they included GB/T10789-2015 General Principles for Drinks, GB7101 National Standard Drinks for Food Safety, GB2759-2015 National Standard Frozen Drinks and Materials for Food Safety, GB2760-2014 National Standard for Food Safety, and GB14880-2012. Take the sweetener aspartame as an example. According to the current national standards, it is allowed to be added to six kinds of drinks, such as fruit and vegetable juice (pulp) drinks and protein drinks. The maximum dosage is 0.6g/kg, and the dosage of solid drinks is increased according to the dilution multiple. However, as a separate category, there is no special national standard yet, and the supervision of this category is mostly carried out with reference to the above standards.
"The General Principles for Drinks was put forward by China Beverage Industry Association, which is mainly aimed at prepackaged beverages, and the ready-made beverages are not in this." Kai Zhong explained, "Strictly speaking, the category of ready-made beverages is actually regarded as the catering industry. As long as it is operated by people, it is difficult to standardize it 100%. However, for example, the dosage of whole sugar, semi-sugar, less sugar, whether to use sugar or sweetener, etc., relatively unified standards can be established within the enterprise and even within the industry to avoid the situation that the semi-sugar in one store is sweeter than the whole sugar in another store. "
Although there is no national standard, in recent years, in view of the rapid development of the existing beverage industry, different social groups have put forward group standards for the industry to abide by. In December 2019, China Cuisine Association took the lead in publishing the group standard T/CCA 009-2019 "Code of Practice for Ready-made Drinks", which stipulated the definition, classification, facilities, equipment and raw materials, and food additives of ready-made beverages. In March, 2021, Fujian Chain Store & Franchise Association issued the group standard T/FJCFA 0001-2021 "Ready-made Milk Tea". Subsequently, the Cross-Strait Tea Industry Exchange Association issued the "Group Standard for Tea Beverage Series", which clarified the scope, requirements and inspection rules of five types of products, such as freshly made milk tea and freshly made milk cover tea. The requirements further subdivided specific indicators such as microbial limit, pollutant limit and food additives. In recent years, China Chain Store & Franchise Association has successively issued group standards such as Terms and Classification of Ready-made Tea, Guidelines for Food Safety Self-inspection of Ready-made Tea Stores, and the standardization process of the ready-made beverage industry is gradually accelerating.
"Generally speaking, processed foods are not as good as natural foods, especially those that remind pregnant women and children to use with caution. I suggest you control your intake." Xu Yingxia said, "A few times a week or a month is enough."
(Reporter Jia Yueyang)