Healthy Recipes Health Commission

The National Health Commission has never released a unified "healthy recipe" that applies to the entire population. Currently, all fixed menus labeled "officially produced by the National Health Commission" are false information. The only official guidance for residents' diets from the National Health Commission is the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" and dietary guidance documents for different special groups, which are only used as a programmatic reference for nutritional meals.

Why are the search volume for “healthy recipes and health commission” soaring recently? I was browsing the family group a while ago and saw that my third aunt had forwarded the "One-week diet for people with high blood pressure released by the National Health and Medical Commission". The caption was cryptic and said, "Just eat it without taking any medicine." When I clicked on it to read the menu, I had to drink oatmeal without additives in the morning. I could only eat 100g of boiled chicken breast at noon. Even the grams of salt were marked to one decimal place. I deliberately went to the policy document library on the official website of the National Health Commission to look around, but there was not even half of it relevant. After searching for the source for a long time, it turned out that a certain self-media copied the private catering of a nutrition studio and used it as a shell of the National Health Commission to gain traffic. Don't tell me, there are quite a few people who forwarded it.

Talking back to the official guidance of the National Health Commission, the latest version of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" released in 2022 actually gives a large dietary safety framework. For example, adults should eat 250-400g of cereals and potatoes every day, of which whole grains and miscellaneous beans account for one-third, and vegetables 300-500g. g, 200-350g of fruits, 120-200g of animal food, no more than 5g of salt per day, and 25-30g of oil. These values are baselines calculated based on the nutritional survey data of national residents, but they have never required everyone to make up the numbers based on fixed ingredients.

There is actually a lot of discussion in the nutrition community about the application scenarios of these standards. There is no need to regard the guidelines as golden rules. For example, regarding the proportion of whole grains, most chronic disease nutrition scholars recommend that people with high levels of obesity increase the proportion of whole grains to half or more, which can help stabilize blood sugar and control blood lipids. However, sports nutrition teams believe that for professional athletes or workers who do heavy physical work every day, too high a proportion of whole grains will increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract, so it is better to eat more refined rice and white flour to quickly replenish energy. For example, the guidelines recommend that the daily intake of added sugar should not exceed 25g. However, some clinical studies have pointed out that for patients with frequent hypoglycemia or those who work outdoors for a long time, adding more added sugar in an appropriate amount can prevent fainting. These controversies themselves show that there is no "perfect recipe" that can suit everyone, and the National Health Commission will naturally not issue a one-size-fits-all fixed menu.

When I was volunteering for nutrition science popularization in the community, I met Aunt Zhang. She followed the so-called "Health Commission Weight Loss Diet" posted online for more than half a month. She only ate 100g of staple food every day. She was so hungry that she felt giddy when she walked. When she checked her blood sugar, her blood sugar was much lower. Later, we adjusted her diet according to the dietary guidelines. First, we increased the amount of staple food to 200g. Half of it was rice, which she loved, and the other half added some steamed corn that she could tolerate. In the morning, we added a small amount of raisins, which she loved. When she was hungry, she could eat a small apple in the afternoon. After eating for half a month, we took a test. Her blood sugar stabilized and her weight gradually dropped. She said that she could eat healthily without having to chew oats that she could not swallow.

If you really want to make healthy recipes that suit you, just follow the guidance framework of the National Health Commission and modify it. There is no need to find a ready-made menu and copy it. For example, if you are a Hunanese who doesn't like spicy food, you don't have to follow the light recipes on the Internet. When frying the peppers, add less salt and throw in a few more pieces of lean meat. It still meets the requirements. ； If you live by the sea, eating fresh fish and shrimp every day to replenish protein will be much more comfortable than swallowing boiled chicken breast. I usually don’t stick to the grams when preparing meals. Sometimes when friends invite me to have hot pot, I cook more spinach and tripe, order fewer plates of processed meatballs, and eat more fruit the next day. It’s totally fine. I don’t have to eat like I’m meeting my KPIs.

After all, everyone wants to find officially endorsed healthy recipes because they are afraid of eating wrong. This caution is a good thing, but don’t be led astray by fake news that attracts traffic. If you really want to find an official reference, just go to the official website of the National Health Commission or the Chinese Nutrition Society and search for the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents". If you are really too lazy to prepare your own, the CDC in many places will also provide reference recipes that suit local tastes. For example, the Guangdong CDC has issued a Cantonese-style salt-reduction recipe, and the Sichuan CDC has also issued a low-oil meal menu suitable for the tastes of Sichuan and Chongqing people. These are much more reliable than the fake recipes disguised by the Health Commission.