How to choose mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival? Five things to know about eating mooncakes

Key Points

★ When choosing mooncakes, check the nutritional label and try to buy ones with less than 400kcal per piece and lower carbohydrate and sodium content.

★ “Purely handmade” mooncakes have not undergone formal hygiene inspections and pose health risks.

★ Even if it is sugar-free mooncake, the main ingredient is starch, so diabetic patients cannot eat it freely.

★ When purchasing mooncakes from regular channels, there is no need to worry about preservatives.

★ Mooncakes are suitable for breakfast, and you can eat 1/2 or 1/3 of it at each meal.

In the cool and refreshing days of autumn, we welcome the Mid-Autumn Festival again. The 15th day of the eighth lunar month is not only a good day for family reunion, but also a long-awaited festival for mooncake lovers. In fact, no matter whether you like it or not, every household will prepare some mooncakes around the Mid-Autumn Festival to entertain relatives and friends, or to enjoy them together as a family. However, choosing mooncakes is not easy. The increasing variety of mooncakes on the market makes people "dizzy", especially for people who are losing weight and diabetics, who are always hesitant between "eating" and "not eating".

How to eat mooncakes healthily? Remember these 5 things, and you can buy and eat them with confidence!

01

How to choose healthy mooncakes?

Learn to recognize calories, sugar and sodium content

Mooncakes are delicious, but not everyone can eat them. Why? Many people have a doubt in their minds: "Mooncakes are too high in calories and will make you fat." In fact, this worry is justified.

When buying mooncakes, people are most concerned about three things: Is it high in calories? Is it high in sugar? Is it salty? It is actually very simple to find the answers to these three questions. Just look at the nutrition label when buying mooncakes.

Most mooncakes have a calorie content of around 400 kcal, and some are even higher. So if you have a calorie intake requirement, it is recommended that you buy mooncakes with a calorie content of less than 400 kcal. It should be noted that the calorie unit on the nutritional information table is generally KJ (kilojoules), and this data divided by 4.184 is what we often call kcal (kilocalories).

For mooncakes, it is not easy to judge the specific sugar content, because most mooncakes will not write the specific sugar content directly in the nutrition facts table. However, we can roughly judge by the carbohydrate content: Generally speaking, the higher the carbohydrate content per 100 grams of mooncake, the higher the sugar content may be. Of course, there are also some low-sugar mooncakes. In order to let everyone see its "low sugar" advantage, the sugar content will be directly marked under "carbohydrates" in the nutrition facts table. For example, the one in the picture below is marked as containing 4.9 grams of sugar per 100 grams of mooncake.

▲Picture: E-commerce platform

As for whether it tastes salty or not, that depends on the sodium content in the nutritional table. The higher the value, the higher the salt content of the mooncake, and the saltier it will taste.

To sum it up in one sentence, when buying mooncakes, try to choose those that are relatively low in calories, sugar, and sodium.

In addition to the three points that most people are concerned about, when buying mooncakes, it is best to choose ones with simple ingredients and no trans fatty acids. Excessive intake of trans fatty acids will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. If the ingredients list contains words such as margarine, margarine, non-dairy creamer, shortening, cocoa butter substitute, creamer, and margarine, it means that trans fatty acids are contained.

02

Are “purely handmade mooncakes” healthier?

No guarantee, high risk

In recent years, "purely handmade mooncakes" have become popular. Many consumers feel that the ingredients of mooncakes that are not mass-produced on an assembly line are more refined, and the careful addition of the words "purely handmade" gives people an impression of being both healthy and caring, and inexplicably has a "high-end" taste, so it is a good choice to buy them as gifts.

But we have overlooked a very important point: this kind of "purely handmade" mooncake has not undergone formal hygiene inspections, and its shelf life is generally short, posing certain health risks, so it is not recommended to buy.

But if you make handmade mooncakes at home with your family, it is still okay. Not only can you match your favorite fillings, but it can also increase family fun and promote emotional harmony. You just need to pay attention to operational hygiene and eat them in time after making them to avoid spoilage.

03

Can we eat sugar-free mooncakes safely?

Beware of being deceived by "pretense"

In the sugar-free food section, we will see some mooncakes with "no sucrose" written on the packaging, and many people will buy them home to give to relatives and friends, especially diabetics. However, you really need to be cautious when buying this kind of mooncakes, because even though it says "no sucrose" on the packaging, if you look closely at the ingredient list, it may contain maltose, white sugar, etc., which is not really sugar-free!

Moreover, foods containing maltose raise blood sugar faster than foods containing sucrose, which is more detrimental to blood sugar control. Eating them will make things worse. So, what kind of mooncakes can be considered truly "sugar-free"?

Our country has clear regulations on sugar-free foods. According to the national standard "General Rules for Nutrition Labeling of Pre-packaged Foods", sugar-free means that the amount of added sugar such as sucrose and maltose is ≤ 0.5 g/100 g. If a food claims to be "sugar-free", it must meet the standard of no more than 0.5 g (referring to carbohydrates) per 100 g or 100 ml of solid or liquid food.

Therefore, if you want to determine whether it is a sugar-free food, you also have to look at the sugar content under carbohydrates on the nutrition label.

Besides, even if the mooncakes are sugar-free, it is not recommended for diabetics to eat too much. After all, the main ingredient of mooncakes is starch, which is digested and broken down into glucose quickly. Eating too much will increase blood sugar, which is not conducive to the control of postprandial blood sugar.

There are also some mooncakes that do not contain sugar, but have added sugar alcohols such as maltitol, xylitol, etc. If the amount of sugar alcohol added is high, diarrhea will occur after eating. Because sugar alcohols are not absorbed by the small intestine, they will increase the osmotic pressure in the intestine in the large intestine, causing water around the intestine to enter the intestine, resulting in diarrhea. In addition, some people may have food intolerance to sugar alcohols, and they will also have diarrhea after eating them. For example, some time ago, Zhihu sent mooncakes to big Vs, and big Vs reported that they turned into jet warriors and had diarrhea after trying them. Zhihu then issued an apology letter to give everyone an explanation.

The picture comes from the Internet

Therefore, some countries such as the United States require that the words "excessive intake may cause laxative effects" be indicated on the labels of sugar alcohol foods to remind people, for example: 20 grams of mannitol and maltitol, 50 grams of sorbitol, and 25 grams of lactitol. [1]

04

Are mooncakes with preservatives harmful to health?

Be careful if you don’t have one!

Generally speaking, mooncakes, due to their low moisture content and high sugar and oil content, can inhibit the growth of microorganisms to a certain extent, and can be preserved for a long time even without the addition of preservatives.

Last year, there was a trending search #Mooncakes can be stored for 10 years without growing mold#: Mr. Zhou, a citizen, found a mooncake from 10 years ago in his old house. It was not bad at all. He was reluctant to throw it away, so he put it in a pot and boiled it, and ate two bites. However, even if the mooncakes have been stored for such a long time and look unchanged on the surface, it is not recommended to eat them for safety reasons!

The picture comes from the Internet

Of course, some mooncakes nowadays also contain preservatives, such as the one in the picture below, which contains "potassium sorbate". So, will eating mooncakes with preservatives be harmful to the body?

▲Picture: E-commerce platform

Our country has clear regulations on the use of food additives. Manufacturers need to comply with the "GB 2760-2014 Food Additives Usage Standard" to use them. You can't just add as much as you want. Common preservatives include potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, calcium propionate, etc. The purpose of adding preservatives is to play a role in preserving and preserving food, which can inhibit the growth and reproduction of microorganisms and extend the shelf life of food. Without preservatives, people can only buy food nearby, and there will be a lot of on-site food preparation and sale and pickled food. Not only is the variety of food limited, but you may also eat moldy and spoiled food, which is harmful to your health.

The usage of various food additives needs to undergo strict safety risk assessment. Each one will undergo a full toxicological evaluation to prove that it is harmless to the human body within the prescribed range of use, and a corresponding safe usage dose must be given. The dose ultimately allowed to be added to food is more conservative than the dose in the experimental data.

For example, potassium sorbate, which is used in the mooncake in the picture above, is a common preservative. Toxicological evaluation of it in animal experiments shows that the LD50 of potassium sorbate is 1300 mg/kg, which is a low-toxic substance. The uncertainty coefficient between humans and animals is 100 times. my country stipulates that the amount of potassium sorbate used in different foods is only 0.075~2.0g/kg. [2]

Therefore, as long as you purchase mooncakes from regular channels, you don’t have to worry about the issue of preservatives!

05

How to eat mooncakes more healthily?

Generally speaking, if you want to eat mooncakes that are high in oil, sugar and calories healthily, you can do the following three things:

① Control the amount you eat: Take the mooncake I bought this year for example, the calories are 1757KJ/100g, which is 420kcal. Note that this is the calories per 100g, and you also need to look at the specifications on the packaging bag. Generally, the specifications of a mooncake are 100g, but there are also 60g ones.

▲Picture: E-commerce platform

One piece of this mooncake is 100 grams, and eating the whole thing will consume 420kcal. A small bowl of 100 grams of rice has about 116kcal, so the calories of this mooncake are equivalent to 3 small bowls of rice. Therefore, if you need to control your weight, it is recommended to eat 1/3~1/2 of it as a staple food in one meal.

② It is best to eat it at breakfast: High-calorie meals can obviously produce a stronger sense of fullness than low-calorie meals. Having this kind of food at breakfast can also reduce the desire for sweets throughout the day. And studies have shown that eating more in the morning and less at night is more conducive to controlling blood sugar stability than eating several meals a day. [3] Therefore, for high-calorie foods such as mooncakes, it is more appropriate to eat them in the morning.

Another reason why it is recommended to eat it in the morning is that there is enough time to consume the calories of mooncakes! If you eat it in the evening, people tend to be lazy after dinner, which can easily lead to calorie accumulation and increase the risk of obesity.

③ Pair with fruits and vegetables and protein: Eating mooncakes with rich fresh vegetables and high-quality protein foods is more conducive to controlling blood sugar after meals. For example, pair it with 1 fist of green leafy vegetables/1 tomato/1 cucumber + an egg, a glass of milk, and 1 fist of shredded tofu.

Summary: Don’t miss the family reunion, mooncake tasting, delicious food and beautiful scenery. Mid-Autumn Festival only comes once a year. If you want to be a little more "indulgent" and enjoy the delicious mooncakes, you can do so. You just need to increase your exercise, burn more calories, and balance eating and moving. Don’t be too psychologically stressed! I wish you all a happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

References:

[1] Lu Zhengqing. Development and application of sugar alcohol nutritional synthetic sweeteners[J]. Food Industry Science and Technology, 2004(10):115-117.

[2] Zeng Ting, Xie Yixin, Ma Li. Toxicological evaluation of potassium sorbate[J]. Hainan Medical Journal, 2012, 23(19):19-21.

[3]Jakubowicz D, Landau Z, Tsameret S, et al. Reduction in glycated hemoglobin and daily insulin dose alongside circadian clock upregulation in patients with type 2 diabetes consuming a three-meal diet: a randomized clinical trial. Diabetes Care 2019; 42:2171–2180

Author | Xue Qingxin, member of Chinese Nutrition Society, registered dietitian, registered nutrition technician, health manager, public nutritionist

Review | Han Hongwei, Director and Researcher of Risk Communication Department, National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center

This article was first published on Science Refutes Rumors