"White sugar is barred in my restaurant, and we use honey for sweetness. But the food does not just have to taste good; it needs to look good, too. I ask the chefs to make the most of presentation so that everything is colorful and nutritious as well."

In the four years that the Tribe Sanlitun outlet has been open, Yu says, it has sold more than 48,000 brunch salads using a total of more than 230 ingredients and more than 50,000 grain bowls, and served more than 30,000 cups of Americano coffee and more than 5,500 glasses of "green energy cold pressed juice".

"In addition to good eating, if you can do exercise at least once or twice a week it's going to be beneficial," says Yu, who organizes various kinds of exercise for customers.

Last year Tribe held an event combining healthy dining with exercises that included games of box jumping, kettlebell lifting and burpees (a push-up where the chest touches the ground followed by a jump in the air with both hands held behind their ears) and ended with an organic buffet.

Li Chen, who took up the habit of eating salad three years ago, says she practices yoga each morning and became familiar with the benefits of healthy eating three years ago when she joined a three-month training program organized by Sweetie Salad (now updated to Delight), a sub brunch of HAI, a brand in Shanghai and Beijing that offers dishes aimed at the health conscious and which offers a delivery service.

Over the three months the company offered a dozen volunteers free salad twice a day Monday to Friday and free training courses.

Li says she lost 7.5 kilograms while she was on the program, and since then eating salads has become second nature to her.

"I met a bunch of interesting people in the program and we became good friends. You realize that something that seemed impossible, such as eating salad for three whole months, is in fact doable. As my eating habits changed, so did my body. Apart from losing weight my skin has become healthier and I sleep a lot better.