A total of 140 food products have in the past two years been awarded the Eatender label for senior-friendly products, the Food Industry Research and Development Institute said yesterday.
The label is awarded to products that are easy to chew, even for people who have lost their teeth, institute director-general Liao Chii-cherng (廖啟成) said, adding that the applications of 35 food products are under review.
These products, if awarded the label, could generate revenue of more than NT$300 million (US$10.53 million), Liao said, adding that food products with the label can be exported to Hong Kong and Japan.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
This would not only spur the development of more senior-friendly products, but also help the nation’s agricultural industry find new markets, Liao said.
This year, the institute has selected 150 senior-friendly food products for a competition held by the Council of Agriculture, which assesses the nutrition value, texture and packaging of senior-friendly foods made from local produce, the institute said.
Winners of the competition were announced at the Taipei International Food Show, which ended yesterday.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季), who presented the awards, said that as Taiwan is set to become an ultra-aging society, it is increasingly important to focus on the taste and dietary needs of older people.
“We host the competition to promote the nation’s agricultural products, which can be used to prepare healthy food for older people,” he said.
The winners were steamed beans from UTC Food Corp, chicken breast cooked with sesame oil from Taiwan Farm Industry Co, rice cakes with frozen milkfish from Ban Ten Co and chicken breast from Orientalbest Foods Co.
“Overcooking chicken breast affects how older people chew and swallow. Our chicken breast is prepared with sesame oil and tastes fresh,” Taiwan Farm Industry Co chairman Chang Hua-hsin (張華欣) said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not