There are some rules for eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon, and a wide variety of mooncakes have already appeared in the streets and alleys, including traditional ones with lotus seed paste, five-nut fillings, and red bean paste fillings; there are also innovative ones with snow skin, fruit, bird's nest, and matcha flavors... All kinds of mooncakes dazzle us and we don't know how to choose. Long Rirong, deputy director of the Food and Drug Institute of China Food News, reminded that no matter what flavor of mooncakes, it is not advisable to eat too much, let alone eat randomly, especially for middle-aged and elderly friends and children.

Long Rirong said: "All delicious traditional snacks are mostly high in oil, sugar and salt. No matter how the ingredients are added or how the merchants beautify the nutrition, mooncakes are high in calories, sugar, fat and are not easy to digest. They are easily affected by moisture and spoilage in the season. Middle-aged and elderly people, as well as children and young children must eat them scientifically! Taking my favorite egg yolk and lotus seed paste mooncake as an example, every 100g has about 400 kcal of energy, 20g of fat, 7g of protein, 50g of carbohydrates, that is, sugar, and nearly 200mg of sodium. In other words, half of the mooncake you eat is sugar and 20% is fat..." Therefore, you must eat mooncakes in moderation and pay attention to how you eat them.

Several ways of eating are not recommended

One taboo: eating mooncakes as meals. Avoid eating mooncakes during meals or at night. If you really want to "enjoy the festival", try to eat them during breakfast. When we just wake up in the morning, there are the least nutrients in our gastrointestinal tract, and mooncakes can provide sufficient energy and fat, and increase blood sugar to support our work in the morning. The fat in mooncakes is not low, which can prolong the emptying time of the stomach and enhance the feeling of fullness. Especially because the bile in the gallbladder is highly concentrated due to not eating all night, eating some fatty foods at this time can also help the discharge of bile.

Second taboo: eating fruit-flavored mooncakes as fruit. Fruit-flavored mooncakes cannot replace fruit, because the fiber content in fruit-flavored mooncakes is too little, and eating too much will increase the burden on the stomach.

The third taboo: eating more than one mooncake a day. Mooncakes are high in sugar, fat, and energy, and eating too much will increase blood viscosity. Although mooncakes vary in size and calorie content, it is best not to eat more than one mooncake a day.

Avoid eating mooncakes with soda or juice. When eating sweet mooncakes, do not eat soda or juice with high sugar content, because both are high-calorie foods, especially for patients with cardiovascular diseases. Long Rirong suggested that you can eat mooncakes with homemade soy milk, which contains almost no carbohydrates. After adding a certain amount of mooncake filling, the ratio of the three major energy-producing substances, protein, fat, and carbohydrates, can be perfect, which is very suitable as a snack during busy hours.

How to Eat Mooncakes Scientifically

So, how to eat moon cakes scientifically? The following methods can be used for reference:

First, buy and eat fresh mooncakes: fresh mooncakes are round and full, look good, have a strong aroma, and taste delicious. Mooncakes are afraid of high temperatures and moisture. If they are kept for a long time, they will lose their fragrance and the filling will deteriorate. However, don't put them in the refrigerator, otherwise the mooncake skin will become hard and the taste will deteriorate.

Second, it is better to eat the mooncakes in the order of fresh, salty, sweet and spicy. If there are multiple flavors, they should be eaten in the order of fresh, salty, sweet and spicy, which is conducive to tasting the flavor of the mooncakes. If you eat the mooncakes in the order of sweet and salty, the saltiness will be "dragged away" by the sweetness, which is similar to the principle of not eating dessert first at the dinner table.

Third, it is advisable to make a cup of hot tea: hot tea can quench thirst, remove odor, relieve greasiness, and aid digestion. Pu'er tea, green tea, jasmine tea, and chrysanthemum tea are all good choices. If you don't drink tea, boiled water is also fine, but it must be warm. Drinking cold drinks may cause diarrhea.

Fourth, it is advisable to eat some green vegetables to supplement B vitamins: If you really love to eat moon cakes, it is best to eat some green vegetables at the same time. Green vegetables contain some B vitamins. B vitamins are indispensable substances in the process of converting sugar, fat and protein into energy. People who often eat sweets will consume a lot of vitamin B1, and vitamin B1 is related to the health of many nerves including the optic nerve. If you don’t want to feel irritable and have oily skin after eating moon cakes, then supplement some preventively.