Our focus in 2020 is on the Covid-19 pandemic. Without realizing it, there are other diseases that we need to fight together, namely diabetes. Data from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Atlas 2017 states that Indonesia is ranked 6th in the world as the country with the most diabetes sufferers, namely 10.3 million people. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that diabetes sufferers in the country will jump dramatically to 21.3 million people by 2030 if not handled properly.
As many as 90 percent of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. This type of diabetes generally occurs in adults, but began to also be found in children and adolescents. This is due to an unbalanced diet and lack of physical activity which makes children overweight or obese. An unbalanced diet is too much sugar intake and insufficient intake of healthy and fiber-rich nutrients.
Where is the source of this sugar intake? The results of research by Atmarita and colleagues published in the ‘Asia Pacific Journal Clinical Nutrition’ show table sugar as the largest source of sugar intake (58 percent), followed by cereal products (8.5 percent), and dairy products (8.3 percent) and tea beverage products (5.1 percent).
What is sugar used for? For a mixture of drinks (mostly) and food formulated at home or in a stall. In other words, it can be concluded that sweet drinks are the biggest source of sugar intake. This is in line with findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that sugary drinks contribute 45.7 percent of sugar to the body.
2020 makes us aware of the importance of healthy living. We all want the Covid-19 pandemic to end soon and welcome the new year 2021 with more hopes for common progress. Let us have a resolution: Change Healthier by reducing sugar intake by 2021. Sugar here is an added sweetener (added sugar), it can be in the form of sugar or syrup or condensed milk.
How to? No need to go to extremes by just drinking water. Keep as usual to consume tea, coffee, and fruit or vegetable juices according to each taste, because these drinks are high in polyphenols and phytonutrients that are good for the body.
The only behavior that needs to be changed is the habit of adding sugar, syrup or other sweeteners. Replace the habit with drinking plain tea. Get used to drinking coffee, fruit or vegetable juices without a mixture of sugar or other sweeteners. Apart from being healthy, this practice also trains our sense of taste to be more sensitive with the various natural flavors of the drink, which have been masked by the strong sweetness of sugar. Avoid extreme changes, for example, not eating all sugary foods including fruit. Keep eating fruit regularly with reasonable portions.
What about those of you who have a habit of consuming packaged drinks or Ready-To-Drink (RTD)? According to Nielsen data in 2018, RTD tea is the second best-selling product after drinking water (gallons and bottled water). Unfortunately, more than 99 percent of the RTD teas circulating in the Indonesian market are sweet teas. Most of these products use sugar as a sweetener, although some use artificial sweeteners.
The good news is, now in Indonesia there is an RTD unsweetened tea from ITO EN (Instagram @itoenindonesia, website: https://itoen-ultrajaya.co.id/id/). As a tea expert company with the famous flagship brand “OI OCHA”, ITO EN in the 1980s provided a new option for Japanese consumers who at that time only available sweet soft drinks, to be able to switch to RTD unsweetened tea. Since then, fresh tea products
ITO EN is consumed by millions of Japanese people, even by residents in many countries until now. OI OCHA has become the best-selling fresh green tea healthy drink brand in the world, and has made ITO EN one of the companies with the largest tea market share in Japan.
ITO EN OI OCHA fresh green tea drink has also become a trending beverage after being available in many canteens for employees of Silicon Valley companies in the United States such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo. According to ITO EN USA, Google employees alone consume about 60,000 bottles per month!
In addition to maintaining the health of their employees, the companies in Silicon Valley may also hope that morale and productivity will remain high after drinking green tea, which contains EGCG and L-theanine catechins which are thought to be able to increase brain concentration and also control the drastic increase in blood sugar after lunch. -– causes drowsiness after lunch.
Hopefully this trend will also spread to Indonesia, and hopefully the presence of ITO EN’s healthy fresh tea products in the Indonesian market will help you reach your resolution for a Healthier Change in 2021.
PHOTO: Flagship brand ITO EN ‘OI OCHA in 300mL & 500mL packs. Proudly made in Indonesia, using 100 percent green tea leaves from Japan andUHT & aseptic filling technology, under the supervision of ITO EN Japan, and certified Halal MUI.
Reference sources:
- http://p2ptm.kemkes.go.id/post/lindungi-keluarga-dari-diabetes
- http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/27/1/47.pdf
- https://health.detik.com/hidup-sehat-detikhealth/d-1496381/dari-mana-sumber-konsumsi-gula-terbanyak
- https://www.wartaekonomi.co.id/read193618/berebut-manisnya-industri-minuman-teh-dalam-kemasan
- https://worldteanews.com/market-trends-data-and-insights/ito-ens-oi-ocha-achieves-guinness-world-record
- https://www.euromonitor.com/rtd-tea-in-japan/report
- https://www.gltjp.com/en/article/item/11173/
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190912100945.htm
- https://www.aicr.org/resources/blog/can-green-tea-help-lower-blood-sugar-new-study
