Since a medical examination three months ago revealed the beginnings of a fatty liver, Shanghai sales manager Chen Junjie has embarked on a nutritional revolution, substituting much of his favourite food – grilled red meat – with vegetables cooked in as little oil as possible.
“I eat much less meat than before. When I do it’s only white meat – fish and chicken – which contain less fat than pork or beef,” said Chen, in his early 30s, who picked up nutritional advice from the internet and relatives.
A healthy diet and regular swimming and football for exercise helped Chen to drop 3kg to 80kg. He said he would continue such a lifestyle to prevent liver disease in future.
In China, where chronic illnesses account for 87 per cent of deaths, people are beginning to attach more importance to what they eat and are preparing healthier meals at home. Books on nutrition sell quickly, online lectures go viral and expensive courses are popular.
Rising demand for healthy food was being fed by China’s constant food safety scandals, said Kimberly Ashton, a nutrition consultant from Australia and a cofounder of Sprout Lifestyle in Shanghai, which sells natural food and teaches people how to cook in healthy ways.
Her company launched cooking classes in April and so far more than 20 people have bought at least 10 classes that last 90 minutes and cost 200 yuan (HK$250) per class.
“In the West it’s not an issue. People just want to be healthier and learn how to be healthier. But here a lot of people are drawn by concerns over food safety,” Ashton told the Post. “My class can help people because we teach people how to cook fresh food. If food is processed in more steps, chances increase that it will be contaminated. So fresh food has less pollution.”
Ashton said she was often invited by multinational companies in the city to address their staff.
At Shanghai Lan’s Kitchen, about 100 members sat in on founder Ellen Chen’s nutrition courses. Many were middle-aged women caught up in high work pressure and unhealthy lifestyles, but were open to new knowledge and willing to change, she said.
“Many people learn about nutrition because they want to provide healthy food for their kids and other family members,” she said. “Compared with senior citizens who are stubborn, this group are willing to change their dietary habits.”
According to a report on nutrition and chronic disease released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in June, the diets of most mainlanders provide enough energy and their physical development and nutrition began to improve noticeably about a decade ago.
Obesity has become a chronic issue, as people are consuming more sugar, refined carbohydrates and fat and fewer vegetables and fruits.
The report showed that one quarter of mainland adults have hypertension and one tenth are diabetic, with both conditions more common than in 2002.
Ashton said many urban residents ate convenience foods or ate out, rather than cook at home, because their time was tight and stress levels were high.
“Under such conditions, people can’t control sugar, salt, oil or other unhealthy things in their food,” Ashton said.
When people cook, they used MSG and too much sugar, Ashton said. Another problem was that they ate only highly-refined white rice and seldom the more nutritious and slowly digested whole grains.
Xiong Miao, a Beijing-based nutritionist who has taught and consulted for the past decade, said urban residents were over-nourished while rural residents often lacked necessary nutrition.
“Urban people ask me questions such as what kind of food can help people to reduce dampness in summer. Many rural people don’t know what a nutritionist does and regard me as a doctor and ask me which pills they should take,” she said.
Li Shuguang, a public health professor from Fudan University, said the nutritional training industry had mushroomed across the mainland by tapping into people’s increasing demand for knowledge, but official supervision and regulation lagged far behind the market boom.
“Many nutrition trainers are not qualified and what they teach misleads their audience,” Li said. “It’s because teachers at those institutions haven’t received long-term, professional training.”
The exam to qualify as a nutritionist was once so easy that people attending a week’s class could pass the test, said Fan Zhihong, a professor of nutritional science at China Agricultural University.
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