Chinese cuisine is rich in dairy, tea, and tofu so it’s ideal for research
The Age of Health in China: A Global Health Perspective from the viewpoint of Lin, Wang, Campbell, Peking University, Beijing, and other Chinese Agricultural Policy
A study shows that more than 75% of people over the age of 60 have at least one chronic disease. More than half of older people have hypertension and 20% have diabetes. China’s public health is being affected by chronic disease in an aging society. LijingYan, a global-health researcher at Duke Kunshan University in China, says that the current situation is only the beginning.
Although people think diet no longer matters when you are older, we show the opposite. She co-authored a study of 35,000 Chinese people aged 80 and over that shows sticking to a healthy diet is associated with a significant reduction in overall mortality7. Even though it is not too late to pay attention to healthy eating, it is never too late.
Lin’s doctoral adviser was Colin Campbell, a nutritional biochemist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and co-author of The China Study, a 2005 bestselling book. It is based on a 20-year study that connected the diets of people in rural China — which are vegetable-rich and low in animal products — with a much lower risk of heart disease than is the case for people in other parts of the country. Although the project’s findings and statistical analyses have been disputed, there’s no doubt that China’s diet has changed.
The central government is paying close attention to residents’ health. But the policies have yet to be fully implemented by local governments and agencies.
The documents are generally advisory, says Jikun Huang, director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy at Peking University in Beijing. “We made a nutrition plan advising people. But the guidelines aren’t that specific — they apply to women, men, children, rural and urban people. If you’re advising on the meat consumption and calorie count for everyone, you’re not going to get it right.”
The government’s approach has been to focus on food security before worrying about good nutrition, he says. “It’s transformed gradually from grain economy and security. There will be more interest in policy for health and nutrition, in the next ten years.
Urban and rural Chinese consumers have increased disposable income since the 1970s, according to a new data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China
For example, the metric of body mass index (BMI) is widely used worldwide to measure whether a person is underweight, healthy, overweight or obese. But research has found that Chinese people are more susceptible to the effects of obesity on blood pressure and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease than are people of other ethnicities5. People in China are also more likely to develop metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, for each unit increase in BMI.
China is still the main source of salt in the country, but if the consumption of processed and restaurant food continues to increase, we could see China becoming more like Western countries where salt comes from processed foods, says Tan.
After the government lifted restrictions on travel to China, most people in the capital city ofShanghai are likely to return to eating out at least once a week. The Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has a research team that works in hot-pot restaurants, barbecue restaurants and bubble-tea shops.
People in rural areas increased their consumption of purchased and processed foods as their income increased. He said there are new kinds of food in the cities and rural areas. But they are convenient, and they often taste better.”
The boom began in the late 1970s, when the Chinese government introduced elements of a market economy to the communist country, championed by then-leader Deng Xiaoping. The countryside saw an exodus of rural residents, who moved to cities to take jobs with higher incomes. Zhan says that this migration led to more people purchasing food and less consuming food from their families.
Since Zhan’s childhood, the average Chinese consumer has seen their disposable income increase by 100 times. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the disposable income of urban residents in 1980 was less than 500 yuan each per year (US$294 at the time). Rural residents, who then accounted for 80% of the country’s population, each had only 190 yuan to spend or save per year. By 2021, the annual disposable income of an urban dweller had risen to more than 47,000 yuan ($7,288 at 2021 rates), and people in rural areas each had almost 19,000 yuan a year.
“When I was a child in the 1980s, my main food was a vegetable- and grain-based diet,” says Shaohua Zhan, a sociologist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Zhan grew up in rural China and witnessed the drastic dietary shift at first hand. Even though his family raised chickens, animal products were rare when he was growing up. They had to sell most of the eggs and some chickens to supplement their income, Zhan says.
Indeed, the literature offers evidence that soya-based foods such as tofu might instead confer some defence against breast cancer. A team of nutrition experts at the No. 902 Hospital of the Chinese people’s Liberation Army Joint Logistic Support Force in Ningbo have found that high tofu consumption is related to other health benefits. More robust prospective studies will need to be done to establish a meaningful anti-cancer effect.
Historians think that tofu, a foodstuff derived from curdled soya milk, was first produced nearly 2,000 years ago. Tofu was a popular substitute for meat. Some studies have estimated that Chinese individuals consume anywhere from 10–40 grams of tofu per day on average, depending on the region12.
Introducing selenium as a dietary supplement in China: a study of soy sauce with melanoidins and polysaccharides
Sesame oil is highly enriched with unsaturated fatty acids — which are generally linked with improved cardiovascular health relative to their saturated counterparts — including several essential lipids that cannot otherwise be produced in the human body, such as linoleic acid.
The richness and diversity of Chinese culinary culture is unsurprising given the country’s vast size and ancient history. But even though it would be reductionist to refer to a monolithic ‘Chinese cuisine’, there are some ingredients and foodstuffs that are particularly commonplace in the Chinese diet and whose roots stretch back across millennia, originating in the nation’s early history.
But researchers are also looking to leverage the love of soy sauce as an opportunity to deliver dietary micronutrients. Selenium is an essential cofactor for proteins involved in cellular functions, including DNA repair and metabolism of thyroid hormones. Low levels of the element selenium in the soil are the reason for the problem of deficiency in people around central China. A group of food scientists is looking at the possibility of using soy sauce with selenium as a supplement for people in those communities.
The complex mixture of constituents produced during the fermentation process includes diverse antioxidant molecules such as melanoidins, which contribute to the sauce’s distinctive deep-brown colour, as well as polysaccharides that arise from the degradation of the soya-bean cell walls by microbes. Potential anti-Inflammatory properties were shown in experimental settings. There is no evidence that these compounds help people with their health.
qingjiang is a foodstuff made from soya bean paste and grain and was described in an agricultural book. This savoury condiment represents the earliest-known ancestor of soy sauce, a mainstay in kitchens across Asia — and indeed, much of the Western world.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01842-z
A brief history of traditional Chinese medicine: nutritional considerations on the physical and nutritional benefits of tea and other herbal medicines for the Chinese emperor Shennong
Evidence for other health benefits is murkier. There is not much support for tea’s claims of anti-cancer activity, as neither the Inoue-Choi or Lee studies observed any reduction in cancer mortality. It’s not clear if tea protects against weight gain and metabolic syndrome. Some studies show support for the hypothesis, while others show no protective effect. A study of more than 2,000 Chinese adults who are at high risk of diabetes could show that regular tea consumption can amplify the risk.
The Chinese diet has changed greatly, with a growing middle class wanting more Western food. But traditional foods and ingredients continue to enjoy huge popularity at home as well as abroad, both for their flavour and for their nutritional benefits. Here is a summary of recent nutritional research into some of these traditional favourites.
For much of its early history, tea was brewed as a prescription rather than a refreshment. Legend has it that the Chinese emperor and herbalist Shennong — known as one of the fathers of traditional Chinese medicine — consumed the first cup of tea nearly 5,000 years ago, touting the drink’s detoxifying and invigorating effects.
