Are dietary supplements food?

According to my country's current food supervision system, dietary supplements do belong to the category of food, but they are special foods that are different from ordinary foods. They are not exactly the same thing as the rice, noodles, fruits, vegetables, and pre-packaged snacks that we eat every day.

I have been doing food compliance for almost 8 years, and this is the question I get the most inquiries about. Many brands and consumers are easily confused about classification. A while ago, a customer who sells deep-sea fish oil asked me if his product could be registered as a normal food. I called him back directly - your product is clearly marked to assist in lowering blood lipids, so it must go through the registration process of a health food, that is, a dietary supplement. Although they all belong to the food category, the regulatory requirements are not even close, and the blue hat logo is not something that can be printed casually.

Of course, there are not completely different opinions on this classification in the industry. Some practitioners in clinical nutrition will feel that some dietary supplements with high content and clear effects are closer to low-risk clinical nutritional preparations. Classifying them as food sometimes makes consumers relax their vigilance and mistakenly think that they can eat without limit.； There are also many ordinary consumers who have reported that sometimes when they go to pharmacies to buy vitamin tablets, there are some with blue hats, some with OTC labels, and effervescent tablets with ordinary food sizes. They look similar, and it is impossible to tell what they are.

If we look at the world, there are subtle differences in regulatory logic in different regions. For example, the US FDA clearly classifies dietary supplements as food, but the requirements for efficacy claims are much looser than for ordinary foods. As long as they do not claim to be able to treat diseases, they are fine.； The European Union has stricter regulations. Even for food dietary supplements, every externally labeled efficacy claim must be endorsed by solid scientific research evidence before it can pass the review.

To put it bluntly, it’s actually easy to understand. The food category is like a big class, and the ordinary food category is for day students. Just follow the most basic school rules.； Dietary supplements are for residential students, so they have to comply with more regulations, and they must have clear "specialties", that is, approved health functions. However, whether they are day students or residential students, they are essentially students in this class, and they are completely different from students in the "pharmaceutical class" next door. Don’t think that just using the word “supplement” means you can eat it blindly. Even if it is food, excessive intake will still put an extra burden on the liver and kidneys. If there is a clear disease problem, you still have to find a doctor to prescribe symptomatic drugs, and don’t use dietary supplements to make up for it.