Though the COVID-19 pandemic has badly affected the food industry, the prefabricated food (预制菜) market has witnessed a fast growth.

“I bought some prefabricated food in late April when my community was locked down due to the coronavirus outbreak,” a Beijing-based resident Yu told Global Times. “It was then that I realized there were so many different sorts of prefabricated food. All you need to do is to put some water into the heating package and a fair meal would be ready in minutes.”

Prefabricated food has become increasingly popular over the last two years, with plenty of companies entering the business and different kinds of productions keeping hitting the shelves. The total market scale for prefabricated food reached 345.9 billion yuan in 2021. It is expected that China’s prefabricated food market will stay a high growth rate in the near future, with a market scale estimated to reach 1.07 trillion yuan in 2026.

Many investors have started to pour money into it. From 2013 to 2021, a total of 71 investments were conducted in the prefabricated food sector(行业). Even so there are problems linked to the growth of the industry. For instance, the prefabricated food industry is made up of a long value chain from production, cold-chain logistics(冷链物流) to delivery, which requires companies to realize smooth operation.

In addition, the sector’s product quality problem has also begun to come under the spotlight, becoming one of the most common complaints by consumers, according to an analysis released by China Consumer Association(CCA). “There are prefabricated food products with no detailed labels and many restaurants do not inform customers when offering them prefabricated food.” CCA’s analysis said.

CCA emphasized that with the rapid development of the prefabricated food market, relevant rules need to be rolled out to promote the standardized development of the industry and to guide the industry’s healthy growth.

Changing the wording about expiration dates (保质期) on food items of easily going bad — which is currently unregulated (缺乏监管) and widely variable — could help reduce food waste, according to a new Cornell University study.

This work results from the “wild west” landscape of food date labels which is expected to be driven, to a large extent, by manufacturers’ (制造商) strong wish to sell more products. It is important for both the government’s decisions regarding date labels and the market impacts of reducing food waste.

A survey of consumers found that certain wording — “best by,” as opposed to “best if used by,” for example — had the possibility to reduce food waste, but that result differed depending on the type of food in question. The easier food is to go bad, the more likely it is to be thrown away.

“There are no practical rules about food date labels in the U.S. If you go into the yogurt section at a U.S. grocery store, you would see various date labels — ‘use by’, ‘best by’, ‘best if used by’, ‘fresh by’, or ‘sell by’, etc. Some consumers might smell the food to see if it is still good, while others might just look at the date label and drop it,” said Rickard, leader of the study team. “And the truth is that these date labels are not food safety dates; they’re just food quality dates.”

The 15 food items selected for the survey, including bread, cookies, chicken, packaged salad greens and canned soup, all typically use date labels with different wording variations. Survey results showed an increase in throwing intentions with the “use by” and the “sell by” date label, inferring that food with these date labels was more often thrown and replaced. So they think that the word “use” spoke more directly to the food safety impact of consuming food past the date listed on the package, and could therefore lead to an increase in food waste. However, the wording “best by” seemed to refer only to food quality beyond a certain date and led to less waste.

Some people swear that they cannot function until they have coffee flowing through their system in the mornings. It is the reason why there are Starbucks everywhere in the world. 【小题1】 .Read on to see why replacing your morning cup of coffee with tea can provide numerous health-related benefits.

You'll trim your waistline

One of the benefits of drinking green tea is that it can help you lose weight by making fat cells smaller and speeding up muscle cells. It also contributes to a slimmer waistline by speeding up your metabolism（新陈代谢）．A study once proved daily green tea consumption over 12 weeks helped individuals lose weight. 【小题2】, especially if you are used to drinking your coffee with creamer.

You will boost your mood

【小题3】.Tea, on the other hand, helps you remain calm with herbs. Drinking a cup of tea before a stressful day at the office will help relieve any exhausted nerves and thus increase your overall performance.

You will have a stronger immune system

Tea can help boost your immune system, especially green tea. 【小题4】Buying teas can also provide an extra layer of protection against germs.

You will not be as dependent

【小题5】, which explains why you can experience headaches if you stop drinking it. Tea on the other hand is n í habit forming, but still has a bit of caffeine in it that can give you a head start in the morning. Try a black or green tea to wake your body up first thing in the morning.