Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content.
As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
“The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai said in a recent statement.
Photo: Taipei Times file
While it is good that many people are increasingly aware of how to eat well and look at the nutrition information labels on food, they should still be careful around the holidays, she said.
Many kinds of mooncakes are available in stores around the Mid-Autumn Festival, including Cantonese-style, Suzhou-style and Taiwanese-style mooncakes.
Cantonese-style mooncakes have more layers than other kinds and contain more oil, making them unhealthier, Lai said.
Bakers also tend to use a large amount of sugar to make the filling sweeter, meaning people are likely to consume a lot of calories without noticing, she said.
A traditional Cantonese-style white lotus seed paste mooncake made with two yolks contains about 810 calories, she said, adding that a person would need to jog around a 400m track 33 times to burn them off.
“A better way to eat a mooncake is to cut it into pieces and share it with your friends,” she said. “Remember, reducing the amount you eat is critical to your health.”
On the day a person eats a mooncake, they should reduce the amount of rice they consume by half, Lai said.
She recommended “snow skin” or “ice skin” mooncakes as healthier options.
These mooncakes are made with glutinous rice skin and are stored at low temperatures.
They contain relatively few calories, Lai said.
Everyone should monitor their sugar levels when they eat mooncakes to avoid a spike in blood sugar and stay alert to possible poor digestion or gastroenteritis, she added.
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