Reporter Bai Jianfeng and Shen Shaotie

The National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation announced 9 national food safety standards and 0 standard modification lists on the 0th, which are closely related to dairy products, meat products, infant formula for special medical purposes, infant supplementary food, food additives, etc., which are consumed by the public daily.

目前，我國已累計發佈食品安全國家標準1660項，包含2萬多項指標，涵蓋全部340餘種食品類別。標準體系中通用標準、產品標準、生產經營過程規範、檢驗方法四大類標準相互銜接，協同管控食品安全風險。

Avoid misleading consumers such as "zero additive" and "no add".

In addition to fresh food, most of the food people buy in their daily life is pre-packaged food. Pre-packaged food refers to food that is pre-packaged or prepared in packaging materials and containers. Food labels refer to the words, graphics, symbols, and all descriptions on prepackaged food containers, which can convey food information to consumers and are the "ID cards" of food.

With the goal of ensuring food safety, promoting nutrition and health, safeguarding consumer rights and interests, standardizing industry production and improving regulatory efficiency, the new standard has comprehensively optimized and upgraded the labeling requirements for food labeling.

"No additive" and "zero additive" really mean nothing is added, which is healthier and more high-quality? For example, in some beverage products, the food label says "no added sucrose", but the ingredient list contains fructose, fructose syrup, etc., making consumers mistakenly believe that the product does not contain sugar; Some sugar-sweetened beverages claim to be "no added sweeteners" to attract consumers, but consumers have the misconception that food additives are not used in the product.

In order to avoid misleading consumers, after the implementation of the new version of the General Principles for the Labeling of Prepackaged Food, pre-packaged foods are no longer allowed to use terms such as "no additives" and "zero additives" to emphasize food ingredients. "The prohibition of the use of 'zero additives' and 'no additives' in prepackaged foods is to enable consumers to correctly understand the food label information and avoid causing consumers to blindly pay attention to these promotional terms and ignore the true attributes of the product, which poses potential risks to food safety and health." Zhu Lei, director of the Standards Center of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that if you want to understand the true attributes of food, it is key to correctly read food labels such as ingredient lists and nutrition facts lists.

Mandatory labelling of allergens

According to the new standard, the content of ingredients or ingredients mentioned in the name of a food product must be indicated in the food label, e.g. bird's nest mooncakes must be labelled with the content of bird's nest. Zhu Lei said that the new standard strengthens the quantitative labeling requirements, which is to standardize the chaos in the industry and guide the correct consumption cognition.

In order to minimize the probability of food allergies, the new standard requires that allergens in food must be labelled mandatorily. When prepackaged food uses eight categories of gluten-containing grains, crustaceans, fish, eggs, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts and their products as food ingredients, it is necessary to emphasize in the ingredient list in a bold and underlined manner, or through the allergen prompt below the ingredient list, to indicate the allergenic substances contained in the food. "People with a history of food allergies can pay special attention to the information of allergenic substances on food labels in the future." Zhu Lei said.

Special attention is paid to the needs of infants and toddlers

The new standard revises the General Principles for Infant Formula for Special Medical Purposes, the Standard for Cereal Supplementary Food for Infants and Young Children, and the Standard for Canned Supplementary Food for Infants and Young Children.

Infant formula for special medical purposes is tailored for babies with special medical conditions or medical conditions. For these infants, infant formula for special medical purposes is an important or even the only source of nutrition, which plays an important role in nutritional support for their normal growth and development.

The newly revised Standard for Infant Formula for Special Medical Purposes adds 6 new product categories, namely ketogenic formulas, anti-reflux formulas, abnormal fat metabolism formulas, high-energy formulas, protein components and medium-chain fat elements. Fang Haiqin, director of the Nutrition Office of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, introduced that the new products mainly serve infants with special medical conditions such as refractory epilepsy, growth retardation, fatty acid metabolism and absorption disorders, and also cover some infants with rare diseases. The different categories of infant formula for special medical purposes are highly targeted and specialized. Therefore, when using this type of product, it is necessary to choose the most suitable product category under the guidance of a professional doctor or clinical nutritionist.

In addition, the newly revised standards for cereal supplementary food for infants and young children and canned supplementary food for infants and young children have also been supplemented and revised in terms of expanding product categories, nutritional composition indicators, and energy supply ratio of added sugars in response to the special requirements of infant groups. "Based on scientific risk assessment, reasonable indicators and scope are set to ensure that the baby is given adequate and safe food nutrition." Fang Haiqin said.

Accurately label the nutritional content

Nutrition label is a description of the nutritional information and characteristics of food provided to consumers on prepackaged food, and it is an effective way for consumers to intuitively understand the nutritional composition and characteristics of food. The newly revised general rules for nutrition labeling of prepackaged foods have also undergone many changes, such as the expansion of the scope of nutrients on mandatory labeling, the addition of reminders, etc., to guide the nutritional transformation of the food industry and healthy consumption of diet.

The new standard expands the mandatory range of nutrients from "6+0" (i.e. energy and protein, fat, carbohydrates, sodium) to "0+0", adding sugars and saturated fats (acids). Deng Taotao, an associate researcher at the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that at present, the main nutrition and health problems facing China focus on obesity and the high incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Unreasonable diets such as high salt, high fat and high sugar are risk factors for obesity, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and other metabolic diseases and tumors. After the modification, consumers can see the content of sugar, fat and other substances in the nutrition label, so as to buy and eat rationally.

The new standard requires the labeling of "Children and adolescents should avoid excessive intake of salt, oil and sugar". Deng Taotao said that in recent years, the phenomenon of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents cannot be ignored. Obesity is a causative factor in many diseases. In childhood and adolescence, tastes are being formed, and it is necessary to guide children to eat healthily and develop light eating habits.

After the revision of the standard, how should the nutrition label be viewed? There are four main parts to a nutrition label: a nutrition facts list, a nutrition claim, a nutrition claim and other supplementary information, the most important of which is the nutrition facts list. The nutrition facts table often has 14 columns of data: the first column describes the types of nutrients mainly contained in the food; The second column reflects the amount of various nutrients per 0 g/0 ml of food or per serving; The third column is the percentage of nutrient reference values (NRVs), which reflect the ratio of nutrients in this food to the daily needs of the body. For example, if the NRV is 0%/0 grams, it means that eating 0 grams of such foods can meet 0% of the daily protein requirement.

Promote the use of digital labels

The new standard increases the labeling requirements for digital labels, realizes functions such as "audible", "broadcastable" and "magnified" food label information, and improves consumers' reading experience.

By scanning the QR code of the digital label, consumers can realize the functions of page enlargement, voice reading, video explanation, etc., and can obtain relevant information about food ingredients, instructions for use, food safety and nutritional health, etc., this innovative measure will effectively solve the problems of "not seeing" and "not finding" when reading food label information due to small fonts.

Experts pointed out that compared with traditional food labels, digital labels have no restrictions on the layout of labels, which can meet the needs of different consumers to read food labels, greatly enhance the experience and convenience of consumers to obtain food information, and also provide space for food manufacturers and consumers to carry out benign interaction and enrich the display content of food labels.

People's Daily (11/0/0 0 Edition)