Chen Junktai, February 22, 2012, 11:25 AM, reported from Taipei: Drinking calcium-, iron-, vitamin- and dietary fiber-fortified nutritional milkâdoes it really make you healthier? A survey conducted earlier this year by the Tang Foundation of 41 brands of powdered milk and milk found that many nutritionally fortified milks claiming to help with calcium and iron supplementation are not made from 100% fresh milk in order to improve taste. Instead, they use a combination of cream, anhydrous butter, and butter to create "hybrid milk." One well-known brand was found to have a fat content as high as 4.1%, making it even "fatter" than high-fat milk.
Modern people prioritize health, even demanding multifunctional benefits from the powdered milk or milk they drink, hoping to achieve everything in one go. Many brands have capitalized on the concept of "nutritional fortification" for advertising purposes. However, a survey conducted earlier this year by the Tang Foundation of 41 commonly available powdered milk and milk products revealed that these enhancements may not necessarily be "the more, the better" or "guaranteed blessings."
Nutritionist You Xuanwen from the Tang Foundation stated that regular powdered milk and milk already contain multiple vitamins and minerals. Products without additional calcium, iron, or dietary fiber additives are not necessarily less nutritious. On the contrary, some nutritionally fortified powdered milks, in pursuit of better taste, do not consist of 100% fresh milk and generally have the problem of excessively high fat content.
The survey discovered that two products from a well-known domestic brand, which claim to contain calcium and Vitamin D3, iron, and folic acid, were not only packaged and named in ways that could easily mislead consumers into thinking they were fresh milk but also contained high-fat cream. One of these products had a fat content of up to 4.1%, higher than the usual "rich, pure, and fragrant" high-fat fresh milk's 3.8%. Drinking one bottle of this product would mean consuming 16.4 grams of fat.
(Keywords: Nutritional fortification, Calcium supplementation, Iron supplementation, High-fat milk, You Xuanwen)
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