Discussion keeps the worldturning.
This is RoundTable. You probably seen ittoo.
Potato chips supposedly developed by some institutes or academies of aquaculture sciences and you may have wondered like Idid, are these really healthier and tastier than the regular chips under other domestico-internationalbrands?
Well Sean Hyde's consumerized watchdog has got to the bottom of this question by investigating more than a dozen products listed on shopping platforms and the findings are not going to make you happy if you already spent money for suchproducts.
Hello, I'm Lymeing and this is RoundTable.
Today with my colleague Neuhon Ling and our guest SteveHadley, we will find out whether we should place our trust on products allegedly developed by institutions of aquaculture sciences and what can be done to build thattrust.
This is probably Chinaexclusive.
I'm not aware of any brands outside of this country that claims to have been developed by institutions of higher learning that focus on the study of aquacultureproducts.
Oh comeon, tell me you can resist tothis.
She drawn oatmeal developed by Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences or Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences potato chips or Yentai Academy of Agricultural 25 SweetPotatoes.
I mean I even wonder about the first 24 and honey from Yangzhou University and Chocolate from the Chinese Academy of Tropical AgriculturalSciences.
I'm going to buy them instantly after theshow.
I mean it didn't use to know so much about all theseproducts.
I've only had my fair share of the sweetpotatoes.
They are very verysweet.
I thought this is a show about clarifying our certain scams that people have full victimtoo.
Yeah but I am one of the people falling victimtoo.
I'm from Canada and I only buy snacks that are developed by Chinese agriculturaluniversity.
The people love theconcept.
I know you're joking but the fact that these started to be one of the advertising campaign or one of the advertising strategies because a lot of people would buy this kind of advertisement and they believe in it and actually if we take things back several years during the 2020 double 11 period if you do not know what thatis.
This is basically a shopping festival here inChina.
LikeFriday. Yeah it's a little bit likethat.
And it's also an online shopping festival but due to the popularity of the oatmeal we talked about the platform selling it has to temporarily close the sales point with a sales period lasting more than 20 days because it's just too much traffic and they cannot handleit.
That shows how popular this way of advertising has been here inChina.
And there's a reason for this particular brand of oatmeal to be popular because for a long time this relatively obscure brand of oatmeal has remained a prescription drug for people with high cholesterollevels.
I can understand because nowadays Chinese consumers started to show the trend that they want their snacks to be tasty to give them the pleasure they need after a long workingday.
In the meantime they also want their snacks and drinks to be veryhealthy.
They take a look at the level of sugar in thedrinks, take a look the level of salt in the chips and providing them with a choice of these kind of for example oatmeal that would help them lower their cholesterol level would definitely be a huge invitingfactor.
Also on social media there's been a lot of stories circulating about how certain institutions of higher learning have done theirresearch, have fulfilled their roles in developing the latest type of agriculturalproducts.
Watermelons that are sweeter and angiosear from NingXiaohui, autonomous region and then may be cotton fromXinjiang.
There are very good examples of scientists really doing theirjobs.
Oh I've also seen short videos and they are really good atadvertising.
They would say things like we do not have the huge amount of money to be invested inmarketing.
We cannot afford to hire a celebrity to advertise ourproduct.
We do not even have the money to invest in thepackaging.
All we had is this really good recipe is really strong research team and our product is just something that you should try despite the very uglypackaging.
I mean you got to buy it when you watch a video likethat.
So the main issue here with some of these products is it's not necessarily with the product claims about what they can do for your health more so than the collaboration of who they made the product with is that the mainissue?
Well the main issue is apparently according to the latest investigation some brands are claiming that their collaboration with certain institutions of higher learning would lead to healthier and tastier products but in fact they are not necessarilytrue.
That's true actually there are the kind of snacks that are actually developed and researched by these top level academic institutions but there are some that are only sharing certain kind of collaboration cooperation with theseinstitutes.
For example there has been a potato chips that has claimed themselves of being the product of a certain university and as it turns out the university only helped the chip product to redesign the packaging so that the packaging can be transparent and the transparency of the packaging would not affect the endurance of the snack itself so it has not a lot to do with the product itself and the worst case scenario would be basically fake advertisement for the kind of snacks that has nothing to do with any of the universities claiming to be the product of the researchteam.
Certain nutritional factors listed on the package of certain products are not exactly true but the investigation into the 90 Nong Da vegetable row showed that well thanks to the cooperation with Northeast Agriculture University's College of Food Science they now have a certain level of healthy ingredients in their vegetable rows but the investigation shows that the protein content is25% lower and fat38% higher than claimed on the packaging so this is a typical example of falseadvertising.
Yeah, I mean this is just straight upfalse.
There are many cases where a product can bemisleading.
I remember watching adocumentary.
I won't say the name of the fashion brand but it was about a fashionbrand, a very popular one that was selling t-shirts and the tag of thet-shirt.
Like right around your neck where it says like the size and the materials and things like that on the tag it said made from recycledmaterials.
Now to the average consumer like you andI, well let me ask you or what do you think when you see that on a label what do you automaticallyassume?
I assume this beingproved.
I mean I assume that the market wash stock must have gone through it and approvedit.
Yeah, I would assume the t-shirt is made of some used clothes or the kind of material that would end up being garbage if it weren't for the effort of thecompany.
So you're assuming that the t-shirt is made from recycledmaterials?
Yes,yes,yes.Incorrect.
That information was located on thetag.
The tag was made from recycledmaterials.
So that's a case of misleading theconsumer,right?
That's an easy mistake tomake.
But in this case these are claims of companies saying we did work directly with thecompanies, these universities or we worked directly with these companies to make these products when it simply wasn't true or the protein content or the protein amount in this product is this many grams when in fact it's nottrue.
So it's not exactly it's not exactly the same thing isit?
It's notmisleading. It's basically falseinformation.
It'sfalse,yes.Yeah,right.
But I was wondering inKorea, do we see similar situation of people having a almost enthusiastic trust to over the research institution when it comes to snacks or food ordrinks?
Not somuch. I don't think researchinstitutions.
You don't hear or see in the media about research institutions being connected with a particularproduct.
Ofcourse, everybody knows about Korea andramen,right?
It's very famous all around theworld.
And there's a ramen research institute inKorea, which isfantastic.
I would love to workthere.
And they just search about flavors and things likethat.
People know itexists, but you don't see it talked about when it in connection with any particular type of product or you don't necessarily see university names connected with any particular type ofproduct.
They've done cross promotionsbefore, where they took a brand offlour, Ibelieve, and then combined that for some reason with a beercompany.
So the flour company and the beer company were in a collaboration with eachother, and they used the flour company label on the beercans.
But there was no false information or anything likethat.
But to answer yourquestion,yeah, it was trendy at thetime.
But we cansee, can'twe?
Why companies false or not want to go for this kind ofadvertising, because it really does have an influence onpeople?
Absolutely. Here inChina, this is a typical example of enterprises taking advantage of people's mentality or people's pursuit for a healthierlifestyle.
Assuch, we see practices in thisregard.
But then this presents a unique challenge to the watchdogs or the industry regulatedindustries.
And it says that if it's something printed on thepackage, ofcourse, I would imagine mature regulations and laws and also supervision would have gone through that and ruled out some of the misrepresentations and misleadinginformation.
Butagain, the social media plays a part inthis.
Ofcourse, certain carefulenterprises, they probably don't put misleading information on theirpackaging,which, like I saidearlier, is closelysupervised.
But when they go online to shoppingplatforms, when they want to introduce theirproducts, maybe on the interface in the links or maybe during a live stream e-commercesession, NANCA could present it and they exaggerate the effect of the collaboration with certain institutions of higherlearning.
This really aggravatesor, infact, increases the challenge ofsupervision.
What do you think that online platforms should be held responsible for anything listed on theirplatforms?
Yes. Andno. Andyes, I think an example of yes would be backin, I think it was2010, there was a yogurt producer that got in trouble and had to pay $45 million in a class action lawsuit because they weremarketed, the yogurts were marketed as beingclinically, quoteunquote, clinically and scientifically proven to boost your immunesystem.
And as a result of thoseclaims, they sold their product at30% higher than otheryogurts.
But there was a complaint and there was the fine and they were told to remove the words clinically and scientifically proven because they weren't actually clinically and scientificallyproven.
Andyes,however, there was another casefrom, I won't say this brand nameeither, but it's the most popular perhaps energy drink in theworld.
There's a color in the name and then cousin of thecowl, if I can say it likethat.
Wellanyway, their sloganwas, gives youwings.
Well they had a class action lawsuit and they had to pay out $13million.
This happenedmany, many years ago in2014, but one customer said that he had been a customer of thiscompany, this Austrian drinks company for manyyears.
And even though he had been consistently drinking the beverage for 10years, he had never grownwings.
That's got to be the example of let's bereasonable.
But thatcompany, they agreed to pay out a maximum of $13 million, $10 to every customer in America who had bought the drink since2002.
Wow.Unbelievable,right?
Yeah, those are some very interestingexamples.
And I think the reason we're talking about this here is that there are definitely a lot ofclause, a lot of regulations regarding falseinformation, falseadvertising, fakeinformation, when you are doing advertising as well as regulations on the obligation of platforms when you actually allow these short videos or live streams to be aired on yourplatform, you definitely have to check and verify the registered information and qualifications of theoperators.
All those are already in place andthere.
And the reason we're talking about this is because this is relatively a newphenomenon.
When people say or when people see that one of the products they are about to purchase has something to do with high educational or researchinstitutions.
They have this very strong belief of the product and even though the information is seemingly not that different from saying this would help you feel happier or this would help you feelhealthier, it actually has a stronger effect on people's decision makingprogress.
And that is why we think this might be a topic worth discussing and maybe after I don't know months or even years there will be specific regulation targeting this kind of advertisingtactic.
Given the reality as itis, I mean I don't think it's reasonable for us to ask these institutions of higher learning to keep an eye out on shopping platforms for any misrepresentation of theirnames, youknow, because they don't necessarily have the nail-how or the capacity to do that or the staff member to dothat.
I mean I think it still falls on the job description of market regulators and also perhaps the shoppingplatforms.
It doesn't seem like it should be thatdifficult,right?
Whenever, because for a product to be put into the market or put onto themarket, it needs to beapproved,correct?
So who doesn't get approvedby?
Well in America it would be the Food and DrugAdministration.
In Korea it would be another kind of governmentwatchdog.
Those government organizations are put in place to make sure that everything is on the up and up to make sure that the products claims are doing what they say theydo.
It doesn't seem like it should be thathard, butthere's,there's, I mean I just gave you two examplesthere, but I could give you 100 more examples that are all over the internet of products with falseclaims.
So perhaps it's not as easy as we think itis.
Perhaps we could arrange certainkeywords.
Like when people say this is the best potato chips you canget, I mean the best would trick us some kind of alarm when it's in the approvalprocedure.
Likewise, I think perhaps when people use keywords like Nong Dao or Nong KheYuan, then this will become a keyword that trickers a higher level of response on the part of the regulators orwatchdogs.
Yes, and for the consumers listeningactually, if you've encountered situations likethis, you can retain evidence when encountering suchincidents, seek compensation from the merchants orplatforms.
It's a good thing that you can get your money back with some morecompensation, Iguess.
You'll listen to Round Table coming upnext.
Have you ever slept in to yournoon, but only to wake up feeling still if not morefatigued?
Well, it's possible that you've not chosen the right way to relax andrecuperate.
Today, on RoundTable, we take a look at some counter-incuitive ways that may help you better recover from work and new yearcelebrations.
Looking forpassion? How about fierydebate?
Wanna hear about current events in China from differentperspectives?
Then tune in to RoundTable, where East meets West and understand it is thegoal.
Welcome back and we've probably all been throughthis.
Imean, the weekend is theholiday.
You decide to sleep and you wake up to have the bronze if not thelunch.
But all the while you feel you haven't recovered from the party or the hard work at theoffice, and it turns out that this may be the result of you choosing the wrongway, but not the most useful way or the most helpful way torelax.
Limeing. Every time I textLimeing,Honglin, this is the answer I get when Iask, heyLimeing, what are you doingnow?
It's either I'm atwork, I'm on my way towork, or I was just atwork.
So I thinkLimeing, you need to listen very carefully to this segment comingup.
Absolutely. Why do you think we have this topic on theshow?
You chose ityourself. I would begin with a recollection of the days where I just startedworking.
So I had plenty of sleep when I was in postgraduatestudies.
So when I first started my job at thisinstitution, I find it easy to fall asleep or get very sleepy even before noon hitsme.
Youknow, so maybe this is an issue of poor time management or the issue of yield adaptation to the workschedule.
So what I did was I tried to sleep in earlier and then try to stay focused and a lot of coffee reallyhelped.
It really took me a long time to adjust to the workschedule.
Well, I'm quite thecontrary.
Actually recalling my first several first days or even first half year ofworking.
I realized that I was veryhappy.
I worked for the newsteam, which means that most of my work would conclude during the workinghours.
Imean, the news would not wait forme.
I would not be on call when I'm actually offwork.
And I had a lot of time playing with myfriends, watchTV, maybecooking.
So for the first year of my workingexperience, resting was not an issue forme.
I'm so envyyou.Steve, what are the signs that told you that perhaps you had the little too much on your plate when you just startedoff?
Well, first ofall, it's mymood, Ithink.
Youknow, I can always feelit.
I don't know if this is true for you guys ornot, but I can kind of feel it in my bones and in my soul when it's time for avacation.
Do you know what Imean? It's not necessarily that I feel any more tired than I do on one particular day than theother, but I can just sense it in mybeing.
When I first started in thisindustry, youknow, versusnow,well, I don't really have too many complaints about the schedule because and I guess I'll use that as a segue into what I wanted to say about relaxing with a busy workschedule.
Because throughout myday, I'm hosting two radio shows per daynow, but my schedule allows me to take a break inbetween.
And I was reading about rest and relaxation on the internet just a couple of daysago.
And they were talking about how we often think of rest in the macrosense.
Youknow, when the weekendcomes, you'll stay in bed until noon or you'll binge watch a showfor, youknow, all six seasons and like 48 hours orsomething, or you need aweek, a week's vacation to recharge yourbatteries.
But unfortunately forus, when we have busy work schedules and we go to work everyday, the advice was we have to think about taking a break more on a micro level than on a macrolevel.
And that led to advice in the story thatsaid, if you sit at a desk allday, every five minutes out of everyhour, stand up and go for a walk to get the blood circulated in yourbody.
Another tip was play five minutes or 10 minutes of your smartphonegame.
If that's one of the things that you happen to enjoy during a mini break that you'rehaving, doingthat, according tothem, not according tome, allowedfor, I think that was from psychologytoday.com, if you want to check where that storywas.
And according tothem, doing those little micro breaks throughout the day on a daily basis can help us feel more rested and more relaxed while we're still doing our regular workschedules.
You remindme, one of the solutions I try to rely on was to bring my Kindle towork.
And then on these micro breaks that Steve you mentionedearlier, I tried to read my favorite novel and it turns out it didn'twork.
So my next solution was to drink plenty ofwater.
And then when the naturecalls, I would go to the bathroom and then longwalk, I would take a detour to thebathroom.
So the walk reallyhelped.
I think I've read the same research because I think the key here is when you're taking the microbreaks, you should actually use the breaks to break what you're currentlydoing.
If you're having a sip of water while you're reading anarticle, the action of drinking would not stop you from reading thearticle, which means that micro break is not breakinganything.
Your mind is stillengaged.
Exactly. And also you should do things that would not consume you with the same energy or strength that you need while you'reworking.
Hence, Lyme is example because when you are reading thenovel, you're stillreading, it's still thinking actively engaging with a content and that is the same strength you would need while you'reworking, which is why it does nothelp.
Lyme Mangs example was how can I take the longest possible trip to the bathroom that I possiblycan?
What is the longest route from A to B that I can make and then returnagain?
Yes, he's a little bit extreme aswell.
I'mjoking, I'm teasing youLyme, but I think you're absolutelyright.
People always say doctors always say justrelax, don't bestressed, lessstress, get a good night'ssleep.
But even those simple concepts for people can be stressful inthemselves.
Thinkingabout, I'm not getting enoughrest, I think I might be toostressed, but everybody tells me don't bestressed.
Okay, holdon, let metry.
Nobody knows what thatmeans.
That's mypoint. I think if we can come up with practicalsolutions, things that we canapply, practical applications to our ownlives, and every life isdifferent, every person isdifferent, but just stuff that actuallyworks.
I think it's important to know that when you move on from one part of your life to anotherstage, like from college to theworkplace, then there's suddenly an adjustmentperiod, then you have to change your lifestyleaccordingly, and you might allow you a short period of time to know yourbody, how it reacts under certaincircumstances, how it reacts tostress, how it reacts to maybe an extra bun atlunch.
So you have to know yourbody.
Andalso, there's another study that I have just read on the Academy of ManagementJournal, it says that the level of autonomy you have in choosing your activities during rest actually would decide whether or not you're having a relatively more efficientrest.
That is tosay, maybe during lunchbreaks, if you're only allowed to have lunch and you're only allowedto, let's say take half anhour, havinglunch, walk a little bit and comeback, it would not be so efficient when it comes to helping you restbetter.
And if you have a relatively larger autonomy in choosing the activities during yourbreaks, it actually helps you to restbetter.
I worked in a Korean company oncefirst.
Just a fewmonths, I was writing an English study textbook forthem, and Korean offices are reallyquiet.
People don't talk verymuch.
I appreciatethat. Noteverywhere, but in this particularplace, we hadmaybe, I don'tknow, 100 employees on onefloor, veryquiet.
And the guy who was working directly behindme, oneafternoon, I turned around in my chair and I said something to himlike,hey, I need your help with thisthing.
And he didn'tmove. And then I looked at him again and I could only see hisback, but he was facing his computerscreen.
He had his hand on hismouse.
And I said it to the him again and he didn'trespond.
And I stood up and I walked around to the front of his desk so I could see hisface.
He was fast asleep in perfect workingcondition.
Upright, hand onmouse.
To any management member looking athim, he was working very hard at thattime.
He was taking amicrodnap.
So I waslike, you are the smartest person I have ever met in my entirelife.
And I support what you're doing rightnow.
Sneaking a little nap at work if you haveto, maybe five minutes here andthere.
Whynot? A power nap would definitelyhelp.
In themeantime, I have also seen this interesting studying saying that there are different categories of recoveryexperiences.
And they call it the drama framework that'sD-R-A-M-M-A.
D stands for detachmentrecovery.
R relax aautonomy. We talked aboutit.
Mmastery, meaning that mastering the things outside ofwork, learning something new and alsomeaning, meaning the kind of experiences that help gain important or valuable things in life and also affiliation activities that provide social support and inter-personalrelationships.
So I guess these are different ways to recover from a very busyday.
So whether or not you are hard at work or whether you've spent too much time celebrating and parting with yourfriends, Imean, it's always important to know your body and also to know the best way to relax under variouscircumstances.
And I think after the spring festivalholiday, we are all in for a long period ofwork.
And it's important to exercise self-care and then do it whatever you can and just stay fit for whatever challenges or lies ahead ofyou.
That's all the time we have for Round Tabletoday.
Thank you forlistening.
