North Korea has launched a zero-calorie ice cream to its market. The trend of diet-friendly foods in the food industry seems to be catching on in North Korea as the dieting population increases.
On the 28th, North Korean propaganda media Naenara promoted in a video titled “Products From the Popular Taesongsan Ice Cream Factory” that “The factory is producing products based on pure natural ingredients and sugar-free, zero-calorie items.”
The video highlighted products such as beverages from the Taesongsan Ice Cream Factory and explained that “demand is increasing regardless of the season.” It also featured employees working at the Taesongsan Department Store, stating that “customers are looking for Taesongsan products.”
This is not the first time North Korea has produced zero-calorie food. At the end of last year, Chosun Shinbo, the newspaper of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, announced the launch of Sugar Cut Taedonggang Beer No. 8 with lower sugar content. It was reported that “the release of No. 8 beer shows the changing trends and aspirations in the dietary habits of North Korean residents.”
At the 22nd Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair held in May 2019, a North Korean version of Coke Zero, barley water, was introduced. The barley water, which has a “rich and refreshing taste,” was reported as a “healthy drink made by processing functional substances carefully extracted from natural plants and organic crops with advanced technology.”
However, dieting in North Korea seems to be limited only to the affluent with leisure in their lives. The ordinary working class, who work day and night for economic development, are not in an environment easy to gain weight in the first place.
According to “The Comparison of the Nutritional Status of Infants in South and North Korea” published in the Journal of the Korean Nutrition Society (JNH), when analyzing the North Korean Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) statistics in 2017, the underweight rate of North Korean infants (9.3%) was 11.6 times higher than South Korean infants (0.8%), with chronic malnutrition 10.6 times higher, and acute malnutrition 3.6 times higher.