As recent survey by the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) found that about 30 percent of respondents gain weight during the Lunar New Year holidays, so the administration suggests that people limit total fat intake to no more than 10 percent of their daily caloric intake.
HPA Community Health Division chief Li-Ju Lin (林莉茹) said that according to a survey conducted between 2012 and last year, the percentages of people who gained weight during the Lunar New Year holidays were 45.3 percent in 2012, 30.9 percent in 2014 and 32.4 percent last year, and that the average weight gained was 1.7 percent of total weight last year.
Lin said traditional Lunar New Year’s dishes often include Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (佛跳牆), braised pork hock, rice pudding, eight treasures porridge (babao zhou, 八寶粥) and many other foods that are high-fat, high-sugar, battered or deep fried, or covered with starch-thickened sauces.
A person can easily consume up to 3,200 calories and 66g of saturated fat from a meal of traditional dishes, she said, adding that someone who weighs 60kg needs only about 700 calories per meal.
“If you eat a meal of traditional dishes every day during the nine days of the Lunar New Year holidays, you can gain [about 2.9kg] that would require a walk [at an average pace of 6kph] from Taipei to Pingtung — about 400km — to shed, or a climb up the Taipei 101 about 87.3 times to burn off the calories,” Lin said.
“Red meat contains relatively higher levels of saturated fat,” she said, adding that 66g of saturated fat intake from one meal is about 8.5 times the recommended intake for an adult who weighs 60kg.
The agency suggested that people preparing food choose ingredients and cooking methods carefully, keeping “low fat, low salt and low sugar” in mind, and when eating out, remember to choose poultry, lean meat or fish over red meat, and avoid deep-fried food or food with lots of sauce.
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