Chinanews.com client, Beijing, November 24 (Zuo Yukun) The development of online celebrity delivery and live delivery delivery is in full swing, and "rollover" incidents are not uncommon.
Recently, there has been a lot of turmoil in the confrontation between Internet celebrity Simba and professional counterfeit Wang Hai over bird's nest.
This makes the bird's nest, a popular health-care circle, the Internet celebrity food is once again pushed to the forefront-do you think the nourishing holy product is collecting IQ tax?
Image source: Taobao Mingzhi flagship store
Bird's nest in syrup, is it syrup or bird's nest?
Recently, Kuaishou head-carrying master Simba’s live broadcast room sold a bird’s nest product under the Mingzhi brand.
After purchasing, some consumers found that this bird's nest tasted like sugar water and questioned it as a fake.
In response to this, Simba and the apprentice showed the product test report in the live broadcast room, and opened a can of the product on the spot, filtered out the filaments with a filter spoon, saying that these were bird's nests.
Screenshot source: Simba clarification video
Subsequently, the company affiliated with the bird's nest brand also issued a lawyer's statement stating that the products issued this time are all qualified and genuine, and have passed the quality inspection process of various links in compliance and legally, and there is no quality problem.
However, a report by Wang Hai, a professional faker, pushed "Sweet Bird's Nest" to the peak of public opinion.
Wang Hai accused Simba’s instant bird’s nest products as “just sugar water”.
According to the test report released by Wang Hai, this bird’s nest contains 4.8% sucrose, 5% carbohydrate, 1.4% sialic acid, and contains no protein and amino acids.
Image source: Weibo @王海
Simba responded that he was conducting live broadcast promotion based on the product information provided by the sales company. After the incident, the product was submitted for inspection as soon as possible, and the results were notarized and announced to the majority of netizens after the results were returned.
If consumers are dissatisfied, they can apply for a refund and return, and they will do their best to help defend their rights.
The same product, different conclusions.
Why is it so difficult for a bird's nest product to prove that it is a bird's nest?
In a mixed market, whether bird’s nest is good or bad depends mainly on experience
"Eating experience, low threshold, lack of standards, the water in the bird's nest business is really deep." Mr. Lin, who has been in the bird's nest business for many years, told Chinanews.com. According to his experience, the price of natural bird's nest is 16-30 yuan per gram. of.
"In the past, when the price of bird's nest was very high, and information was blocked, some black-hearted workshops used rice noodles, seaweed, pig skin, snow fungus, etc. to make fake bird's nests, and sold them to customers who did not understand. Mr. said.
"But now that the information has developed and the price of bird's nest has come down, and the nature of the sale of fakes is serious, fake bird's nests are rare." Mr. Lin said, "but these fakers have changed to a different form, such as using brush glue Ways to increase the weight of the bird’s nest. In principle, these are real bird’s nests, but you bought the bird’s nest and the bird’s nest with the money you bought the bird’s nest. Isn’t this also a cheating!"
Mr. Lin introduced that natural bird's nests should be picked with better light swans, while those made with brush glue can be used with cheaper heavy swallows. The cost of wool can save 6-8 yuan per gram.
The main producing areas of bird's nest are in Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries.
In the early years, a considerable part of the Chinese bird's nest market did not enter China through formal channels, and there were great security risks.
"There is a package of 3,000 yuan to take all kinds of photos throughout the whole process." Countless micro-businessmen active in Southeast Asia have made a lot of money.
Data map: The bird's nest with traceable source code is being boxed.
Photo courtesy of CCIC Malaysia
Later, China began to establish a bird's nest traceability management system.
Every bird's nest imported through formal channels will be affixed with a CIAQ traceability label provided to the enterprise by the domestic inspection and quarantine department, representing its formal and qualified identity.
"The source code guarantees food safety. It guarantees that the bird's nest you eat has no medicine, but does not guarantee the quality of the bird's nest. Whether the bird's nest is good or bad is still judged mainly by experience." Mr. Lin said.
Turns out instant bird’s nest, using canned food standards
In addition to the difficulty of identification, the dry bird's nest needs to be manually cleaned, soaked, and stewed. The production process is quite complicated.
Faced with the increasing demand for health preservation, bird’s nest product forms are constantly advancing-from the 1.0 era of dry bird’s nest, to the 2.0 era of instant bird’s nest, to the 3.0 era of fresh stewed bird’s nest.
If the bird's nest market is already in a relatively disordered state, the entry of instant bird's nest can be said to have poured fuel on the fire.
"The instant bird's nest is more messy, such as mixing agar to increase the consistency to save the amount of bird's nest raw materials." Mr. Lin said, "Besides, is the instant bird's nest bird's nest, bird's nest or bird's nest? I won't tell you in the ingredient list."
In addition to reporting that Simba sells bird's nests as sugar water, Wang Hai's target also points to all instant bird's nests.
"All instant bird's nests are sugar water," Wang Hai said. "The instant bird's nest industry does not need to actually add bird's nests. It can be produced with water, sugar, sodium alginate, calcium lactate and a small amount of sialic acid."
Image source: Weibo @王海
After testing, a blogger said that when sodium alginate meets calcium lactate, something similar to bird's nest will be formed, and the solids synthesized by this additive account for about 50% of the product.
Wang Xianzhi, a researcher in the food industry at Xinhua’s Lookout Think Tank, once said that most of the bird’s nest manufacturers currently produce canned food in accordance with the national standards.
Yun Wuxin, PhD in food engineering and popular science writer, also pointed out in an interview with the media that there are currently no strict production standards for instant bird's nest, and the manufacturer adopts the "instant bird's nest group standard."
“Dry bird’s nest as a raw material only has a quality grade standard. First, the standard content of sialic acid in the current premium bird’s nest is 10%, the first grade is 7%-10%, and the second grade is 5%-7%. There is no standard for instant bird’s nest. "Yun Wuxin said.
This also means that in the context of a wide variety of bird's nests on the market, there is no current national standard for determining bird's nests.
And this is where Wang Hai and Simba argue.
Some media found that there are no fewer than four current industry standards related to bird's nest in China. At the core, they are mainly studying a component called "sialic acid".
The Bird's Nest Market Professional Committee of the National Federation of Urban Farmers' Centers once stated that the standard for evaluating bird's nest nutrition is not protein, but sialic acid.
Sialic acid is also Simba’s “reason for defense”.
In response, Simbafang pointed out that according to the quality inspection report provided by Wang Hai, in addition to the sugar that the rock sugar bird's nest products should contain, the product also contains sialic acid, a bird's nest ingredient.
The nutritional value that is widely questioned, the efficacy only stays at the level of animal research
"Sialic acid plays a very important role in nerve development, epithelial tissue, and immunity, especially in the development of fetal brain nerves." Some experts have said that among all known foods, the content of sialic acid in bird's nest is all food. The highest of them.
But in closer detail, more professionals have questioned the special nutritional value of bird's nest.
First, all mammals, including humans, can synthesize sialic acid from the liver on their own; second, sialic acid is widely present in many foods people eat daily, such as milk, eggs, cheese and even pig brains. Bird's nest is not the only one.
So what is the point of taking sialic acid from bird's saliva with great effort?
Data map: Smuggled bird's nest seized by the anti-smuggling police of Guangzhou Customs.
Photo by Guan Yue
Dr. Dingxiang wrote an article to analyze that the effect of sialic acid in bird's nest only stays at the level of animal research, and it cannot explain the health effects of humans.
In other words, the nutritional value of bird's nest to the human body is still inconclusive.
"The efficacy of the active ingredients in bird's nest is currently still at the level of animal experiments, and the human benefits are more at the psychological and social level, and should not be over-promoted." Zhu Yi, associate professor at the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, also told Chinanews.com , Everyone must have a normal heart for the consumption of bird's nest, and have a certain ability to distinguish.
"The characteristics of bird's nest products are in line with the current trend of big and healthy consumption. The reason why some urban middle-class people are willing to pay for this is not only the nutritional value, but also the psychological and sociological value." Zhu Yi said.
The placebo for "sincere spirit"
More than 600 years ago, Zheng He's voyages to the West brought back bird's nest, turning bird's nest into a nourishing holy product for dignitaries and dignitaries, and also nurturing heavyweight fans such as Qianlong and Cixi.
Bird's nest is eaten by rich people. This is the first impression many people have of it.
Later, in order to open up the market, the bird's nest brand sponsored a lot of Hong Kong sisters and actresses; nowadays, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Shu, Liu Tao and others are also present.
An advertisement for a bird's nest product.
"In the commercials, the beauties with icy muscles and bones hold bird's nest to taste carefully, even if they are more than half a hundred years old, they look younger than me." Some netizens commented, "beauties all eat bird's nest" and "eat bird's nest" The concept of "being a beauty" couldn't help being confused in my mind.
Bird's nest is eaten by delicate beauties. This is the second impression of it.
When eating bird's nest is labeled the "high society" label of wealth and beauty, it opens up a vast market.
According to the "White Paper on China's Big Health Consumption Development in 2019", in the nourishing health category, bird's nest turnover accounted for nearly 30%, leading the way.
During this year's "Double 11" period, among the health supplement categories such as ginseng, sea cucumber and bird's nest, the growth rate of fresh bird's nest and bottled bird's nest reached 300%.
Among them, the sales of Xiaoxian stewed fresh stewed bird's nest, a representative company in the bird's nest field, exceeded 465 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 263%, ranking first in the health, nourishing and bird's nest industries.
The cumulative number of views in its live broadcast room is close to 4.76 million, which is also the first brand live broadcast room in the history of Tmall food category to exceed 100 million.
After the tide of health preservation has passed, the nourishing logic of "sincere spirit" has inevitably taken up the mainstream among young people who consume impulsively.
The head of Xiaoxian stew's market once said that the current users who choose Xiaoxian stew are users who believe in the efficacy of bird's nest, but they are also working hard to conduct scientific research in the bird's nest industry, trying to prove the nutritional value of bird's nest with more scientific evidence.
However, Wang Hai issued an article that “Xiaoxian stewed fresh stewed bird’s nest and Simba bird’s nest are no different. It is also an IQ tax!”
Have you ever eaten bird's nest?
Do you believe in its nutritional value?
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