Light eating, qingshi (轻食) has been an issue in China for some time. It includes foods that are low(er) in salt, fat and sugar, but also has broader health connotations. Moreover, it is also about eating smaller meals or portions than usual. That is not just about food but about a complete life style concept, for many also including more exercising. This is reflected by the fact that many Chinese speak of ‘light-eating-ism’ (qingshizhuyi 轻食主义).

This post starts with a description of traditional Chinese concepts about nutrition. These concepts have not only never disappeared, young Chinese show a renewed interest in this tradition. Concepts and terms in this first chapter will reappear in following reports as well.

After that introduction, I will highlight the various aspects of light eating in separate chapters, and end with a review about the future of this movement.

Embedded in an ancient tradition

Qingshi is not just a Western trend catching on in China. The ancient Chinese medical classic Huangdi Neijing, the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, written during the Qin (221 BC – 207 BC) and Han (206 BC ~20 AD) periods, warned against overeating in general and consuming too much fish or meat.

Huangdi Neijing was the first systematic medical book to be published in China. It incorporated the accumulation over centuries of medical experience and observations by the Chinese herbal doctors. The theory of Chinese medicine is heavily influenced by ancient Chinese philosophy, especially that of cosmology and movement of the universe. This world outlook views that things are compassed of five elements – metal, wood, water, fire and earth – and that all material is in a process of change between the universe and the human body. Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) doctors believe that each individual is both a part of the universe and a complete unit, so that a cosmic view of health was required. A well-nourished body was therefore also regarded as a condition for maintaining mental health.

Within this philosophy, phenomena are understood in terms of contradictory relations, for example, the sun versus the moon, the sky versus the earth, the day versus the night, the male versus the female and the positive versus the negative. TCM doctors analyse the physical signs and symptoms of a case by differentiating the appearances into two opposite categories, for example, into yin (阴 dark) and yang (阳bright), han (寒 cold) and re (热hot), xu (虚weak) and shi (实strong), wai (外exterior) and nei (内interior). It is thought that these extremes exist at the same time and are interchangeable, moving to the opposite extreme when conditions change; for example, water becomes air when temperature rises. This is expressed as ‘things at one extreme must go to the opposite extreme’.

Don’t think that these terms are esoteric, only known to TCM doctors who have studied for years. Most Chinese, including the young and hip, know these terms and use them regularly. E.g., a woman can warn a female friend not to eat too much of a certain food during menstruation, because it would make her diet too cold (han). Another Chinese can tell his colleague that his complexion is getting a little plump, which could indicate that his ‘spleen is too weak (pi xu)’.

The concept of a ‘balanced diet’ and ‘a complete diet’

TCM doctors pay a lot of attention to proper nourishment by selecting appropriate food in a way which is somewhat philosophical. By appropriate amounts of food was meant not too much or too little, otherwise it was thought that one health extreme or the other could result.

Huangdi Neijing provides a few recommendations for food intake: (1) Poisons (毒du) (substances to rid or destroy unwanted principles in the body) and medicines provide cure. (2) Five cereals (rice, sesame seeds, soya beans, wheat, millet) provide nourishment. (3) Five fruits (dates, plum, chestnut, apricot, peach) produce complementarity. (4) Five animals (beef, dog meat, pork, mutton, chicken) give advantage. (5) Five vegetables (marrow, chive, bean sprouts, shallot, onion) are for supplementarity. (6) If the food tastes and smells good, eat it to replenish the body’s needs.

The first quotation refers to an important aspect of the TCM view on food and nutrition: food and medicine come from the same sources (药食同源 yao shi tong yuan). The concept of du, literally meaning poison, can be confusing. In the Western perception, poising is something that makes you ill. In TCM is can be that as well, but the same substance that makes you ill can also help restoring the balance. In this sense, it resembles the Western tradition of homeopathy: curing a disease using a very thin solution of the substance that causes it.

The following four parts of the statement describe basic food groups and reflect principles, like having a variety of cereal like foods in order to nourish the body. The number ‘five’ (derived from the five fingers of a hand) does not mean a number per se, but signifies the varieties of cereal, fruit, animal and vegetable derived food. Cereals are considered basic and staple foods for nourishment Fruits are placed second because they compensate for shortages in whatever cereals provided. Animal-derived foods are perceived to be important for the human body, with its resemblance to the animal. Vegetables are regarded to provide an extended range of substances.

With the development of society, people and their circumstances change and cultural exchanges between countries include those of food and technology. Sometimes cultures integrate. Thus the food produced in the Chinese restaurants or home kitchens today will not be representative of the traditional diet, because it will have been modified to suit the taste of people in various locations and countries. However, it has been shown in the 1988 National Nutrition Survey of China, that most people living in the countryside and cities still follow traditional food patterns.

The concept of han (cold) and re (hot)

Han and re literally mean ‘cold’ and ‘hot’. However, the meanings of these essential concepts in TCM nutritional thinking are much more complex. They refer, not only to the body’s status, but also to its function, reaction and symptoms. For example, when a person has ingested cold food, (s)he may respond with related characteristics. Thus, han food may cause diarrhea and re food may cause constipation; han foods may cause nausea while re foods may cause gut problems such as heartburn. On the other hand, han food could combat constipation and re food diarrhoea. These symptoms do not relate to food temperatures, but to the relationship between food and the human body.

Whilst food is believed to provide our bodies with nourishment, the body reacts to food in different ways. For example, if a person eats too much meat, its metabolic effects through acid production may be uncomfortable. This is what is described as re (literally: hot; Westerners also speak of heartburn). Modern nutritional science concentrates on the nutrient components of foods and on the metabolism of nutrients. It rarely acknowledges that there are both nutrient and non-nutrient substances in food which might affect the body. Unripe guava may cause constipation and this may be explained by contemporary food chemistry in terms of tannic acid; this phenomenon is regarded as re in TCM nutrition. Ripened guava does not have the same effect and therefore is not considered as re.

Research has been made in China to link modern food science with TCM concepts. It has been argued that food which contains more or less cation than anion can create a situation of either han or re, although such a generalization is still difficult to accept at a point in nutrition science where the effects of any one cation or anion are recognized as complex. Most fruit and vegetables are considered as han which means that food high in dietary fiber belongs to the han category. That both han food and foods containing dietary fiber can cause ’emptying of the bowels’ is a proximation of the two streams of thought.

Water can be both han or re, depending on the mineral composition of the water, having different biological consequences. E.g., water which contained a lot of magnesium has been considered as han.

Neutral (温 wen) and supplementing (补 bu)

Food that is in-between han and re is considered neutral (wen) (literally meaning ‘warm’). Rice is an example of a neutral food. Wen food is usually compensated for by bu (literally meaning ‘to supplement’), to avoid nutrient insufficiency. According to TMC, wheats are slightly han, beans are neutral, most fish are neutral as well. Beef is wen, mutton is very re and pork is slightly han. Usually han food is cooked with some re food to neutralize it. For example, vegetables (a han food) are usually cooked with ginger or pepper (re foods) to neutralize them.

It is tempting to compare these TCM observations with modern food research. E.g., existing research shows that a given amount of carbohydrate or carbohydrate containing food can cause very different glycemic responses. Such contemporary nutrition science concepts may be regarded as analogous of traditional Chinese food concepts. However, this is a bridge too far for this report.

Staple vs non-staple

A traditional Chinese meal contains two parts – 饭 fan the staple food, i.e. a cereal, and the rest of the meal, referred to as ‘dishes’, 菜 cai. Cereal is the staple food in the Chinese diet and this may include rice, wheat, corn sorghum and millet, but tubers like (sweet) potatoes, taro, etc. and beans are also regarded as staples. The word cai in everyday Chinese is the same as that for vegetables, because Chinese dishes mostly contain vegetables, with other kinds of food added as supplementary ingredients. It also means ‘accompanying food’ which indicates that ‘dishes’ is only a side dish to accompany the main course – rice (in Southern China) and wheat products like noodles in the North.

Medicine and food come from the same origin

Chinese herbal medicines are part of the normal diet. Chinese scholars believe that what we eat and drink should provide all the nutrients that the body needs. Some medicinal plants may be used as part of a normal diet to maintain a healthy life.

Certain foods have preventive effects. For example, the lingzhi or reiki (the Japanese pronunciation of the same characters), a kind of mushroom and is believed to contain substances prolonging life expectancy. Liver it believed to cure night blindness, seaweeds goiter, and that black beans anaemia. However, as there was no knowledge of vitamins or minerals, the reason behind these assumptions could not be given.

Herbal medicines which were used as medicine were sometimes also cooked as food in a combined dish. They were used as bu. Ginseng and dates are popular examples. These foods or medicines used to be prescribed according to the needs of the patient or healthy person. However, in modern times some have become so popular that they are part of a regular diet. Linked to the current nationalist trend (国潮 guochao) in China, there is a noticeable increase in interest in TCM-based supplements among young affluent Chinese consumers. I will revert to that later in this report.

The Chinese authorities are regulating this use of TCM herbs as food ingredients. There is an official list of herbs and their extracts that are allowed to be used as food ingredients. TCM materials not listed are prohibited in regular foods and beverages.

Low sugar

Chinese have a sweet tooth. We all have, of course, but my first impression of Chinese food products, when I studied in China for a year in the mid-1970s, compared with their counterparts that I was used to Europe, was that they tasted significantly sweeter.

The reason for this is not much different from that in the Western nations. Sweet is an attractive flavour and sugar used to be a luxury item, so a high sugar content marked a high standard of living.

The ultimate sweet food is candy. The Chinese word tang refers to both sugar and the generic category of candy. This poses an interesting linguistic problem when you seriously start thinking about reducing sugar in food. Candy should then be an important focus product, but how do you express ‘sugar-free candy’ in Chinese? It would be something like ‘coffee-free coffee’. However, these expressions are regularly used in professional and commercial literature, so apparently Chinese can distinguish between tang = sugar and tang = candy.

Obesity

The inevitable effect of consuming sugar-heavy foods and drinks, obesity, has also become a problem in China. Among Chinese adults aged 18-69 in 2018, there were about 85 million obese people, of which 48 million were men and 37 million were women. There were 11 million more men than women. In 2004, there were only 28 million obese people in China. In other words, in just 14 years, the obesity rate in China has risen from 3.1% to 8.1%. A report from 2021 estimates that the number of obese people at 230 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.

Children are also affected. The latest research shows that the incidence of childhood obesity in China has reached 20%. Data from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention shows that there are more than 550,000 obese people under the age of 17, and 12% of children are overweight. Apart from consuming too much sugar, part of the childhood obesity is caused by parents who still adhere to the traditional Chinese belief that a fat body is a sign of health and therefore give their children too much food, including modern manufactured foods and drinks.

Concerned consumers

This is a good point to mention that modern Chinese consumers are possibly the most ingredient conscious people in the world. Many Chinese do read ingredients lists of the foods they buy (or before they buy them) and discuss their concerns on social media and other Internet platforms. One reason for this is the experience with a number of serious food safety issues during the past decade, which has made Chinese consumers suspicious of statements about food quality from the manufacturers of those foods.

Chinese tend to take statements like ‘sugar-free’ literally. Moreover, the Chinese food industry has recently started using the term ‘zero sugar’(0 tang 0糖) to indicate sugar-free, which conveys an even more absolute feeling that the product does not contain any sugar. Many people doubt whether they can believe such a statement. The government met this suspicion with clear specifications.

Item	denomination	specification
Sugar	sugar free	<= 0.5g/100 g/ml
	low sugar	<= 5g/100 g/ml

Related to this problem is the statement ‘zero calories’ (0ka 0卡) that often follows the indication ‘zero sugar’. This is even more tricky, because the energy in a food product does not only come from sugar. Articles informing consumers that sugar replacers are just that, replacing sugar, but do not mean that a food does not provide calories appear regularly in the Chinese press. Interestingly, no party in China has so far proposed to prohibit using the term ‘zero calories’ on food packaging.

Chinese doctors also point out in such publications that the use of artificial sweeteners also does not affect the chance of developing diabetes. Diabetes is big problem in China. One study states that the number of new patients increases with approximately 12.7 million p.a. The total number inf 2021 was 140 million. Another doctor points out that marketing a food like steamed bun (mantou 馒头) would be useless, because eating it would still increase the glycaemic index. We knew this already, but I am adding this to show that topics like this are discussed in the Chinese media in much more detail than in similar Western media geared to consumers.

Communities

Chinese culture is high communitarian. Chinese prefer to do whatever they do in groups of linked minded people. Many consumers concerned with the state of their own health and that of their loved ones form groups seeking to reduce sugar intake. On Xiaohongshu, an app popular with users mostly between 18 and 34, searches for phrases such as “quitting sugar (jietang戒糖),” “sugar control (kongtang控糖),” and “sugar reduction (jiantang减糖),” show tens to hundreds of thousands of results. On social media platform Douban (also known as Tik Tok), also popular among the under-35 population, forums for users wanting to quit sugar can host thousands of members. One, the “Quit Sugar Commune” established in July 2018, has over 5,000 members who “check in” each day to record their low-sugar milestones and progress toward health goals.

Celebrities have also taken up the craze. In April 2018, singer and actress Zhang Shaohan told her over 15 million followers on Weibo, a Chinese platform that can be best described as a combination of LinkedIn and Twitter, that her “secret” to staying young is a zero-sugar diet: “Highly processed sugar … is probably one of the most harmful inventions in human history,” she wrote, earning 190,000 likes and 50,000 forwards on the platform.

The National Health Commission (the former Ministry of Public Health) has also announced a goal of getting consumers to cut down their sugar intake to below 25 grams as part of the “Healthy China Initiative,” as well as updating standards for labeling sugar content on food products and restricting the sale of high-sugar foods.

Less knowledgeable manufacturers

While the large Chinese food manufacturers will have sufficiently knowledge in-house, quite a number of smaller local producers lack such knowledge. This can lead to interesting discussions on Chinese food industry online platforms. E.g., a local manufacturer of pastries (he does not provide much personal information on his personal home page, but he seems to be an elderly baker in Henan province) inquires if someone in the discussion group is familiar with sugar-free biscuits or pastries. In particular, he asks people to ‘introduce raw materials that can be used’ in such products. The first reply comes from a man with a university background (Master degree) and working in a food research institute. He answers that there are no real sugar-free biscuits or pastries, as the starch in the products are transformed into sugar by the human body. Another person (hiding his background, except for working in cereal processing) adds that you should distinguish between ‘sugar-free’ (wutang 无糖) and ‘no sucrose’ (wuzhetang 无蔗糖). The discussion continues for some time, but the above suffices to show the level of knowledge among manufacturers in China.

Sugar substitutes

A new problem is that sugar substitutes come with their own problems. Almost all substitutes are produced in China, and the country is a major producer of some. However, food additives in general have a bad name in China. China used to be food additives heaven. Ingredients lists on food packaging (if provided at all) could be quite long. I remember reading an article in Chinese newspaper entitled: ‘does ice cream really need 12 types of additives?’. This is the Chinese consumer again (see above) who actually reads such lists. Even the more natural sugar substitutes like stevia, are regarded as unnatural and therefore something you would rather not have in your food. Some of the older ones like aspartame or acesulfame-K, are linked to cancer in many publications in popular media. A report from Chinese news outlet The Paper of November 2021 warned that consumers of sugar substitutes are 14 percent more likely to experience depression. It also noted that consumption of aspartame on an empty stomach may cause a blood sugar imbalance, and erythritol can lead to gastrointestinal troubles. An article by the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission of August 2021 warned about the risks of excessive consumption of sweeteners. It suggests that low-calorie sugar substitutes don’t satisfy the brain’s sense of hunger, leading people to eat more food, which in turn increases their risk of weight gain and diabetes.

Then there is the issue of price. Using sugar substitutes come at a cost. Established in 2018, Nice Cream uses natural sugar substitutes like erythritol (rather than artificial sweeteners like aspartame), but this is expensive, and it is a part of the reason why Nice Cream products retail for up to 10 times the price of other ice creams. There is a market segment for expensive but healthy leisure foods like this, but it is relatively small.

Low fat

Unlike sugar, fat is a macro-ingredient indispensable in the human diet. In processed foods, fat adds to the flavour and texture and contributes to the satisfactory feeling consumption. We love fat, but not as a part of ourselves. While body fat is not only produced from consumed fats, consumers in more advanced markets, who start caring about their weight and health in general, first of all blame the fat in their foods.

A concurrent problem in China in this respect is the rapidly increasing ratio of meat in the Chinese diet. With the increasing spendable income, consumers can and want to buy foods that until then were regarded as luxury. Meat, in particular beef is one of such foods. The ratio of meat in the Chinese diet has almost doubled in a couple of decades. As even lean meat contains fat, this has increased the fat intake of Chinese people considerably.

Low(er) fat

Low fat as a marketing issue therefore started in China considerable earlier than the current Light Eating vogue. However, it was mainly literally lowering fat in the formulation and compensating its effect on the texture by adding additives like modified starch, emulsifiers, etc. When the Western food industry launched that ‘low sugar, low fat, low salt’ slogan, it was readily taken over by the Chinese government and therefore also by the Chinese food industry. Lowering fat was then approached in a much broader way, including e.g. substituting fat with other, more natural, ingredients.

In restaurants and home cooking, Chinese started eating more Western style salads. One of the eating habits Westerners brought to China when they started living there was eating mixed chopped raw vegetables as meals. Chinese observing this described those Westerners as ‘eating grass (chicao 吃草)’. This expression is quite flattering, as it implies eating animal feed. This attitude has changed considerably.

Zero fat (?)

After lowering fat in food was aligned with low sugar and salt, the designation zero fat (0zhifang ) also appeared on food packaging and marketing campaigns. However, as is the case with sugar, 100% fat-free is a  close to impossible to reach. The Chinese government has therefore promulgated the following specifications.

Item	denomination	specification
Fat	fat free	<= 0.5g/100 g/ml
	low fat	<= 3g/100 g/ml

Fat in food formulations cannot be simply replaced by ‘artificial fats’ as is the case with artificial sweeteners. I already mentioned additives like modified starch or emulsifiers to mimic the effect of fat on textures. This is technically a good solution, but adds additives, often several, to the ingredients lists on the packaging and Chinese consumers like to study those lists.

Fibre

Chinese food technologists are therefore focusing on adding more texture to foods in the shape of dietary fiber. It does not deliver the same texture, but it can replace the bulkiness of food that is delivered by fat. This has also a psychological aspect. If a food company would directly advertise with replacing meat with vegetables or coarse grains, a considerable segment of Chinese consumers would object, as it sounds like giving up on a luxury food that they now can afford. On the other hand, adding ‘dietary fibre’ (shanshi xianwei 膳食纤维) sounds fancy and modern and therefore gives a luxury feeling.

Candy

Low fat obviously is less important for manufactures of candy. One related issue linked to candy is fruit jelly made from konjac. Fruit jelly are extremely popular among Chinese children, and female consumers of all ages. They can be a source of calories, but those made from konjac are relatively better in this respect. Manufacturers of konjac-based fruit jellies therefore make sure that consumers get the message by printing it on the packaging in huge characters.

Bakery

Fat replacement is more important for producers of bakery products. Bread is an interesting item in this product group. White refined flour and food made from it were until recently regarded as a luxury products and with the increase of spending power, Chinese consumers bought more and more of it to enjoy the same delicate foods, e.g immaculately white steamed bread, like the rich. That has changed very quickly in recent years. Whole meal flower and bread, pastry, biscuits, etc., made from it are now the thing to buy by the health conscious young urban professionals.

Other, coarser, cereals than wheat or rice have also become popular (again). An example is millet (xiaomi 小米). Millet was the sustenance that Chairman Mao and the Red Army relied on to sustain them during the arduous campaigns against the Kuomintang and the invading Japanese. Millet has some of the properties we might associate with the soldiers who relied on it back in 30s and 40s. While it prefers a warm climate, it possesses the ability to adapt to other environments, as well as being remarkably drought resistant and able to survive in poor, heavily acidic or alkaline soils. The nutrients millet contains are hard to digest. However, it is rich in calcium, phosphorous, iron, carotene, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, niacin, zinc, manganese, selenium and oestrogen, amongst other things.

The Chinese food industry has also discovered chia seeds as a source of fibre that also provides protein. Other sources of fibre incorporate in bakery products are vegetables, fruits and TCM herbs. The also provide functionality. Water chestnuts, dates (jujubes) and goji berries are examples of plants that also have medicinal functionality according to TCM and are nowadays widely used to enhance food and beverage recipes.

Modernization

The most essential aspect of the production of Babao Porridge is the combination of emulsifiers and thickeners. Babao Porridge consists of a viscous liquid part and solid parts. Manufacturers need to formulate the product in such a way, that the solid parts are more or less evenly distributed over the liquid part upon opening of the can. A number of Chinese manufacturers of emulsifiers and thickeners supply products specially formulated for Babao Porridge. Industrial recipes for so called ‘low calorie Babao Porridge,’ proposed by manufacturers of ingredients use sticky rice as the macro-ingredient, where part of the rice can be replaced with pumpkin. Various combinations of fruits (dates are most popular) and nuts (including peanuts) are added. Frequently suggested micro-ingredients and additives: pumpkin powder, xylitol, oligoxylose, CMC, konjac powder, and EDTA.

Low salt

Salt is the most generally used flavoring ingredient in food all over the world. It is currently one of most dangerous food ingredients in terms of food borne diseases. Until purified salt was only available in small volumes and therefore relatively expensive, the latter was not an issue. Now that salt is available in abundance excessive use has become a global problem as well.

High intake

In China, salt intake has consistently been very high and is believed to account for 40% of all deaths. Despite various governmental campaigns since 2007, the latest estimates show that salt intake in adults still averages at 11 g/day,6 making it one of the highest intake levels in the world. Importantly, the slow progress made so far in salt reduction could be offset by the rapid increase in the consumption of processed and out-of-home foods that comes with urbanisation.

The Chinese authorities had already started a salt reduction program, when the Western ‘low sugar, low fat, low salt’ campaign reached China too. This seems to help. In the beginning, Chinese consumers were reluctant to reduce salt in home cooking (a major contribution to salt intake in China) or restaurants. Salty snacks also remained popular. In the context of Light Eating, the affluent health conscious have not at least taken the lead in salt reduction.

Regulation

As is the case with sugar and fat, zero salt (0 yan 0盐) is not really attainable. The Chinese authorities have therefore also set a number of specifications.

Item	denomination	specification
Salt	salt free	<= 5mg/100 g/ml
	low salt	120mg/100 g/ml

Easier

Low salt is harder to accept by consumers, but easier to accomplish than low sugar or fat, as salt has less influence on the products texture. Chinese publications suggest a series of ways to adapt formulations to a lower salt content.

• Use vegetables and fruits with stronger flavours (peppers, onions, lemons, etc);
• Use spices or strong flavoured animal products like dried fish;
• Use TCM herbs. These usually also have strong flavours and you can advertise with the herb’s functionality (date, cinnamon, etc);
• Add ingredients with a high potassium content (black mouse ear fungus (mu’er 木耳), laver, banana, potato, etc.).

The main challenge for the authorities is the same as in most other parts of world: how to gradually wean consumers of the salty taste they are so addicted to.

Soy sauce

A special ingredient that needs highlighting here is China’s favourite savoury ingredient: soy sauce. Already in 2017, Sichuan-based Cuiwei Food launched a low salt soy sauce, produced by natural fermentation. While salt reduction is a positive development, soy sauce has always been a typical savoury seasoning product, so completely salt-free soy sauce can only succeed when marketed as general flavouring ingredient.

End note: Light Eating, fad or there to stay?

Light Eating is certainly not a fad of the day, but something that will have a long term influence on the Chinese food market in the broadest sense. As a concept has been launched a few years ago, first of all among patrons of fitness centres, who became more conscious about the long term effects of eating too much. Their income increased rapidly, but not so much their traditional eating habits. This resulted in a rapid increase of obese people in China. However, that additional income allowed them to start exercising ‘like the Westerners do’, which introduced them to regard eating salads as complete meals. Western was (and still is, although it is fading) synonymous with modern.

The movement grew with the increasing number of people who started exercising regularly and caught the attention of entrepreneurs who set up shops offering healthy (light) foods. When the Western low salt – sugar – fat concept entered China, it was linked to the Light Eating concept almost immediately, which drew the food and beverage industry into the movement as well. The academic world (medical science, food science) followed soon.

While writing this end note, I made search in the Chinese search engine Baidu with the longer term qingshizhuyi (light-eating-ism). Baidu came up with 9,170,000 web pages including this term. This indicates that the concept is a real ism, a world outlook. It will be influential for some time to come.

What could the next step be? One possibility could be ‘clean label’. The concept has caught attention in China. I indicated above that China used to be food additive heaven, but that Chinese consumers have become wary those long lists of additives. However, you can still see such lists on products marketed as ‘light’. I expect that this will become an issue of debate within the light eating movement in China soon.

This post is a summary of our continuous research of the developments in the Chinese food and beverage industries. Contact us for a larger, if needed tailor made, study, including concrete examples of Chinese products that are already on the market.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.