Can meal replacement foods really make you "lie thin"? Eat for a long time, beware of malnutrition!

There are many loopholes in meal replacement foods

Reporter Of this newspaper, Yan Sheng

We often say: Don't lose weight in March, and sad in April.

With the approaching of summer, rapid weight loss has become a top priority for many people, and it is difficult to control the mouth and open the legs, so meal replacement food has become a good choice.

So, can meal replacement foods really make us "lean"?

Recently, the WeChat public account of Jiangsu market supervision has issued a reminder that the current lack of national mandatory standards for meal replacement food has led to the inevitable existence of problems such as uneven product quality, excessive marketing, and false publicity in the meal replacement food industry. In actual consumption, the effect is also different, and should not be consumed for a long time.

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There are no mandatory national standards

On major e-commerce platforms, there are many types of meal replacement foods and prices, ranging from a few yuan to a few hundred yuan. There is no shortage of meal replacement shakes, meal replacement cereals, vegetable meal replacement soups, multi-grain protein biscuits, meal replacement chicken breasts and so on. Product introduction has no sucrose, fat-free, satiety, nutrition, challenge 7 days 30 pounds, etc., some meal replacement products are selling hot.

Meal replacement food, also known as meal replacement food, as the name suggests, is to replace some or all of the food for the meal. At first, it was for patients to eat, such as some people who could not eat normally before and after surgery and needed nutritional support, or people with chewing and swallowing dysfunction; later it spread to weight loss and fitness circles, and quickly set off a boom.

At present, the mainstream meal replacement foods on the market are meal replacement powder, meal replacement shakes, meal replacement porridge, meal replacement snacks, protein bars and so on. Such products are often labeled with keywords such as convenience, low fat, and slimming in the promotion.

However, it is understood that there is no clear mandatory national standard for meal replacement food, and only the "Meal Replacement Food Group Standard" issued by the Chinese Nutrition Society can be used as a reference, which is only the guidance given by the Nutrition Society. Professor Yang Yuexin of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention once said that the mainland meal replacement food market has problems such as unbalanced nutrition of products, unscientific formulas, uneven quality, irregular use methods, and exaggerated publicity. One of the reasons for this is the lack of national standards for meal replacement foods, and there is no classification of meal replacement foods, and it is urgent for all parties to work together to promote the establishment and development of relevant national standards.

Long-term consumption is prone to malnutrition

Many consumers are concerned about whether meal replacement foods can achieve healthy weight loss, And the Jiangsu market supervision department reminds that meal replacement is only a "tool" in the process of fat loss, not a simple replacement for using meal replacement. In addition, the nutrients of each meal replacement variety such as vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, etc. are different, and long-term single consumption of the same meal replacement is easy to cause malnutrition. Meal replacement foods cannot completely replace ordinary foods to meet the nutritional needs of the body.

Most meal replacement foods can only maintain the most basic and necessary nutrients needed by the human body, while other diversified nutritional needs are difficult to meet. Sun Guiju, a member of the Special Committee of the Food Safety Commission of Jiangsu Province and a doctoral supervisor of the School of Public Health of Southeast University, also said in an interview with the media that the consumption of meal replacement foods is for the purpose of weight control, has time, should not be long-term, but can be eaten intermittently. Because some products on the market are low in energy and do not strengthen nutrients, the nutrient content is low, which will cause a lack of dietary nutrients. It is recommended that when the weight reaches a certain ideal range, a normal diet should be restored, the energy should be properly controlled and the exercise should be increased, and the dietary fiber should be eaten more to achieve energy balance to maintain a healthy weight.

In addition, many current meal replacement foods do not use sucrose, but use sucralose. Zhu Yi, associate professor of the College of Food Science of China Agricultural University, once introduced that sucralose belongs to artificial sugar generation, so far, the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the health risks of sugar generation, but clinical observations have found that long-term consumption of sucralose has an impact on insulin sensitivity. Long-term use of artificial sugar substitutes is discouraged for diabetics, so sucrose-free is not necessarily healthy.

In fact, the most scientific way to lose weight is to control the mouth, open the legs, control the diet while carrying out appropriate exercise, and maintain the balance of eating and moving.

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There is no need to use meal replacements

Obesity in addition to the general population,

Pregnant women, the elderly, children and the chronically ill

all may have problems with overweight and obesity,

So, is it suitable for everyone to lose fat with meal replacements?

Sun Guiju said that meal replacement is mainly for overweight and obese people, ordinary fat loss people do not need to use meal replacement, appropriate control of diet and exercise is the healthiest. It is not recommended for pregnant women, lactating women, infants, children, the sick and the elderly to consume meal replacement foods. In addition, meal replacement foods generally speak of high dietary fiber content, and should not be consumed for gastrointestinal disorders and digestive insufficiency.

As mentioned above, meal replacement foods cannot be consumed for a long time,

So, how long can meal replacement foods be eaten continuously?

Dr. Wang Zhengyuan of the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention also introduced that meal replacement food is to meet the nutritional needs of adults during weight control, a kind of energy-controlled food meal specially processed and formulated, with less energy, protein, minerals, vitamins and dietary fiber are sufficient. But seemingly all-round meal replacement foods also have some "innate deficiencies". For example, iodine is not an ingredient that must be added to meal replacement foods, and long-term consumption of meal replacements will cause iodine deficiency in the human body. For this reason, it is recommended that continuous consumption of meal replacement foods should not exceed two months.

If you really want to buy meal replacement foods, you must choose them correctly. Sun Guiju suggested that attention should be paid to the selection of large brands, especially the content of food labels.

One is to look at the composition of the formula ingredients;

The second is to look at the nutritional composition value list, give priority to the selection of more ingredients, the main nutrients such as B vitamins, iron, zinc, calcium and other products with relatively high content, it is recommended to refer to the "Meal Replacement Food Group Standards" issued by the Chinese Nutrition Society. It should be noted that if the product purchased is a health food approved by the state and has a slimming function with a blue hat, it should be taken according to its product instructions and labels.

In addition, considering the principle of food diversity, you can eat some low-energy foods such as fruits and vegetables during meal replacement foods, which is also conducive to health while obtaining a sense of happiness and positively guiding chewing function and gastrointestinal function.

The pictures in this article are from the Internet

Edit || Swallow sound Wan Tao

The duty director || Fan Hongbo