The 'favorites' of the post-00s generation are becoming a 'high-incidence area' for food safety.
With the boom of mobile internet and social media influencer marketing, internet-famous foods continue to heat up: from homemade private delicacies to home-brewed fruit wine, from morning tea snacks to late-night snacks, everything you want is available in your 'Moments'. Along with this, food safety problems have been exposed one after another. In the past year, news such as 'internet-famous snacks look good but are 'toxic'', 'a certain internet-famous food has been taken off the shelves', and 'a certain snack is banned from sale' have been heard from time to time, interpreting the 'red and black' on the tip of the tongue. These foods, which are closest to young people's 'dining tables' and 'stomachs', are gradually becoming the front line of the 'battle to protect the tip of the tongue'. A consumer is watching a video about internet-famous foods on their phone. Photo by Li Zhengni, reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Online. Photo by Xinhua News Agency, Xu Jun. Smoking ice cream, self-heating hot pot, transparent bag milk, dirty bun, dirty tea, latiao... If you haven't heard of half of these names, you might be revealing your age—these are the 'favorites' of today's young people, especially the post-00s and post-05s. They have a common name: internet-famous foods. In the past year, with the boom of mobile internet and social media influencer marketing, internet-famous foods have continued to heat up and increasingly entered the public eye: from homemade private delicacies to home-brewed fruit wine, from morning tea snacks to late-night snacks, from beauty soups to food-based remedies, everything you want is available in your 'Moments'—there is nothing they don't have. Along with this, food safety problems have been exposed one after another. In the past year, news such as 'internet-famous snacks look good but are 'toxic'', 'a certain internet-famous food has been taken off the shelves', and 'a certain snack is banned from sale' have been heard from time to time, interpreting the 'red and black' on the tip of the tongue. These foods, which are closest to young people's 'dining tables' and 'stomachs', are gradually becoming the front line of the 'battle to protect the tip of the tongue'. As Meng Suhe, chairman of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology, said, internet-famous foods have more safety hazards and are becoming a 'high-incidence area' for food safety. -01- Internet-famous foods bring blind spots to food safety supervision What are 'internet-famous foods'? In the view of Ma Guansheng, director and professor of the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene at Peking University School of Public Health, foods that are marketed using the rapid dissemination characteristics of the internet, spread quickly through word of mouth and forwarding, and are sold online can be called 'internet-famous foods'. According to the 2019 China Internet-Famous Food Market Big Data Monitoring Report, in 2020, the online retail sales of internet-famous foods in China will grow by more than 37.3%. Under this trend, some sellers use the special publicity and marketing methods of social media to dress up homemade foods as 'internet-famous foods' and sell them briskly in their 'Moments'. 'This method of leveraging consumers' curiosity to boost the popularity of internet-famous foods is understandable, but some situations are not the case,' Ma Guansheng said. Behind the popularity of internet-famous foods, issues such as safety, standards, and quality have become the focus of supervision. He told reporters that internet-famous foods attract wave after wave of consumers with their novel appearance, photos, or taste. However, when purchasing food, consumers often overlook the quality of the food itself, including the raw materials, production date, shelf life, production address, etc., which may lead to some problems. He cited the 'milk tea without milk' incident as an example. According to tea beverage standards, milk tea beverages and milk tea-flavored beverages refer to liquid beverages made from tea water extract or its concentrate, tea powder, etc., with the addition of milk or dairy products, sugar, etc. 'Although the standard has clear requirements for the protein content of milk tea, i.e., ≥0.5%, milk or dairy products are still only one of many optional ingredients, not a mandatory requirement,' Ma Guansheng said. The lack of clear standards for freshly made milk tea has led to the awkward situation of 'milk tea without milk', while also providing room for merchants to manipulate. This not only creates cognitive and scientific blind spots, but more importantly, it creates blind spots in supervision. Ma Guansheng said that internet-famous foods, through special sales channels, have problems such as management difficulties, bringing blind spots to food safety supervision. -02- The 'high-tech internet-famous' that is 'unclear but impressive' 'No fire, no electricity, no hot water; give me a cup of cold water, and I'll give you a steaming hot pot.' In the past 2019, 'self-heating hot pot', 'self-heating packs', and 'self-heating foods' were among the most watched internet-famous foods, and they are also a 'high-tech internet-famous' that makes people 'unclear but impressed'. The so-called 'self-heating food' refers to products that use a flameless self-heater to heat food and quickly reheat it to an edible state. Originally, this was a special convenience food developed for dining in outdoor environments. Lu Fuping, vice chairman of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology and vice president of Tianjin University of Science and Technology, said that driven by consumption upgrading, self-heating series products represented by self-heating hot pot have developed rapidly. In addition to common self-heating hot pot and self-heating rice, there are also self-heating porridge, noodles, rice noodles, soup, etc. Behind all these is self-heating technology. 'Simply put, self-heating food uses the chemical reaction between a heating agent and water to generate heat to heat the food,' Lu Fuping told reporters. Although the safety of self-heating food is generally controllable, the safety risks of 'self-heating packs' should also be given full attention. Phenomena such as 'self-heating food rupture' or 'unstable temperature of self-heating food' occasionally occur, raising concerns about the safety of self-heating food. Taking China's current self-heating technology as an example, the chemical self-heating packs used in self-heating food are mostly aluminum-water type. When this type of heating pack generates heat, it produces a small amount of hydrogen gas. At this point, we need to consider two situations: if an individual eats or a small number of people eat together, even in a closed environment, the amount of hydrogen produced by the heating pack is far below the explosion limit. Under normal circumstances, if regular products are consumed according to the regular operating procedures, there will be no risks such as rupture or safety issues. However, if in a closed environment, many people eat a large amount of self-heating food at the same time, or if the vent holes on the packaging box of self-heating food are blocked, there may be safety hazards. 'This is worth attention and vigilance,' Lu Fuping revealed. At present, experts are actively discussing how to establish unified standards, such as regulating the chemical composition and proportion of the heating pack, heating intensity, hydrogen production, etc., in order to raise the industry's entry threshold through the establishment of standards. He said that for self-heating food to go further, it must overcome the safety hurdle. For the general public, he also reminded, 'Before eating self-heating food, observe whether the packaging box has cracks or extrusion damage. If you find that the liquid in the heating pack layer has penetrated, do not eat it.' -03- A 'high-incidence area' for food safety and food fraud Latiao, another internet-famous food, how popular is it in the world of young people? Some call it 'the favorite snack of young people in the new century', while others call it 'national snack' and 'a symbol of the taste of childhood'. Not long ago, a university staged a campus confession of 'giving latiao to girls'. Even in the eyes of many experts, 'latiao' can be regarded as a concrete manifestation of grassroots, national, original, and traditional food industrialization, and should be appropriately supported and guided. Tan Bin, chief researcher at the Academy of National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, told reporters that the so-called latiao, also known as big gluten or vegetarian beef tendon, is a food made mainly from wheat flour or other grains and beans. It has high moisture content and good chewiness, so it is very popular. However, this internet-famous food, which is highly sought after, has also been exposed for its 'dark side'. On March 15, 2019, the 3.15 Gala exposed 'dangerous latiao', and latiao has since been labeled as 'junk food'. 'A few unscrupulous merchants ignore production regulations and standards, lacking safe and hygienic production management, and overusing food additives beyond the scope and amount. They should be punished and banned,' Tan Bin said. Meng Suhe said that many rapidly developing internet-famous foods have 'brands but no factories', mostly making quick money through 'OEM production' processing methods, and the safety construction of the industrial chain is hollow and fragmented. This contradiction of 'fast' and 'empty' makes it a 'high-incidence area' for food safety and food fraud. She told reporters that 'online shopping' has a significant impact on the present and future of the food market. It has become the preferred shopping channel for most consumers, especially young people, and the focus is gradually shifting downward, with 60%-70% coming from third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities and rural areas. These should be the focus of regulatory authorities and public opinion. In fact, after the 3.15 Gala exposure, the latiao industry underwent major changes, with the number of enterprises nationwide decreasing from 512 to 427, and 85 substandard enterprises were eliminated, with an elimination rate of 16.6%. Tan Bin told reporters that the sweeteners allowed in 'latiao' products have been reduced from the original 7 to 3; preservatives have been reduced from the original 6 to 'no longer used'; and pigments have been changed from synthetic pigments to natural pigments. 'We must strictly prevent the conversion of 'red and black',' Ma Guansheng said. Government departments should crack down on illegal activities in online food sales, strictly investigate behaviors such as 'fake orders' and 'fake reviews', and protect consumer rights and safety with the 'strictest supervision'. Of course, the general public should also continuously improve their health and food safety literacy, and not 'blindly chase the red' or 'buy just because of advertising'. At least, try to choose foods with food ingredient labels, and when purchasing, check the ingredient list as much as possible, paying attention to the production date and shelf life. Ma Guansheng said, in the face of 'internet-famous', be wary of the 'black' behind them. Source: China Youth Daily Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.