Regarding health food, there is no medical and legal definition in Japan, and no one can tell the difference from ordinary food. Therefore, some scholars suggest that it should not be called "healthy food" in general, and what has not been strictly recognized can only be called "healthy food".
Some health foods are recognized by the government and the Japan Health Food Association, and are produced in strict accordance with the standards of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. They can be called "health functional foods", including nutritional functional foods and specific health foods. Nutritional functional food contains vitamins, minerals and so on. Specific health food refers to health products suitable for a group of people and certain diseases, such as pregnant women and the elderly. Recognized health care products are printed with special signs on their packages, and all kinds are available now.
Japan has a specialized health food manager, which is a folk qualification recognized by the Health Food Manager Certification Association. They often come from basic medicine, food science, food hygiene, pharmacology, clinical examination and other majors, which are not qualified by ordinary people. At present, there are about 5,000 health food managers in Japan, who are responsible for identifying the ingredients and efficacy of health food, and they decide what kind of influence the product has on the human body.
A Japanese woman president I know said that she spends more than 65,438+00,000 yen on healthy food every month, such as health and beauty food, vitamin food and so on. Because of the stress of work, she had to rely on supplements to adjust.
In Japan, the most popular health food is vitamin, because it is the most practical and effective health care product. Wage earners often buy healthy carbonated drinks on vending machines, which contain many vitamins. When waiting for the bus at the station, buying a bottle to drink can not only quench your thirst, but also make you feel refreshed at once.
However, health food also has safety problems. The edible oil of Kao Company was initially recognized as the first edible oil-specific health food in China, but not long ago, it was found that the content of carcinogens in Kao edible oil was higher than other edible oils. The "epoxypropanol" produced by the decomposition of "epoxypropanol fatty acid" in edible oil is carcinogenic.
Regarding the intake of healthy food, Dr. Zhai Qin Zheng, a Japanese doctor of pharmacy and director of Tuluha Comprehensive Research Institute, reminded people not to take too much iron from healthy food, otherwise excessive iron will accumulate in the liver, which will easily cause gastrointestinal discomfort and diarrhea. How to ingest nutritional health products, it is best to listen to the opinions of doctors and experts, rather than blindly thinking that eating more is better. What you need to supplement is only the nutrients that your body lacks.