Opinion

No low-fat products a big issue

By Stuart Beaton (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-30 15:50

Where has the low-fat milk gone? The brand I usually buy has disappeared from the supermarket shelves, which is not good news for my diet.

I know it doesn't seem like a big issue, but to me it is a growing concern, especially around my waist!

Long ago, lost in the mists of time, my family in Australia switched from full-fat milk to the lowest possible one available. We also changed from butter to low-fat spreads, cut salt and sugar out of our diet, and generally tried to be as healthy as possible.

These shopping habits followed me wherever I went.

Living in Japan, I quickly found out which line in the nutrition information on the side of a carton was the fat percentage.

Unfortunately, I couldn't pick the difference in characters between yoghurt and milk, and spent a few agonizing weeks drinking the worst cups of tea I'd ever had. A chance encounter with another foreigner in my local supermarket soon set me back on the path of "whiteousness" in my cuppa, and returned my cornflakes to their normal flavor.

My first visit to China five years ago saw me doing a bit of homework to find out how to find the lowest-fat milk around, and I certainly tried - but there just wasn't the range available. Milk was either full-fat or flavored, and even I am not mad enough to tip strawberry milk in my breakfast tea.

Other low-fat alternatives weren't to be found either. There was a small amount of butter in supermarkets, but no low-fat spreads. This applied to cheese and most of the other products I'd been used to buying back in Oz.

Even artificial sweeteners weren't available, and so I was back to putting sugar in my full-fat milk coffee.

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Needless to say, I started to gain weight and at the end of that year, I returned a larger lad than when I'd left.

When I returned to China after a year away, things had changed. Low-fat milk was now on the shelves, and low-fat spreads and cheeses were beginning to roll out. I even managed to source the sweetener tablets for my coffee!

It seems to me, however, that there is room for more low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar products in the growing Chinese food market. Maybe it's because I have become used to doing without salt and sugar that a lot of the things I buy are either exceptionally salty or sweet, but my wife, Ellen, doesn't seem to notice.

She has even, on occasion, asked me to put extra salt in food I've prepared for her, "to make it taste better". That time the pinch of salt was taken with a lecture on cardiac health.

With the growing trend of younger people in China turning towards eating fast- and pre-prepared foods, it could be time to begin putting pressure on food manufacturers to reduce the salt, sugar and fat contents of their products. This will, in the long term, be of great benefit for everyone, and could reduce the strain on healthcare.

Of course, there's no substitute for a healthy, balanced diet, and plenty of exercise to maintain a healthy weight, but ingredients that start with a lower fat, salt and sugar content are going to be good for you in the long run.

While you chew all that over, at least the lack of low-fat milk has increased my exercise, as I walk further afield seeking it out.