As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, many people will eat mooncakes to celebrate. How exactly should you eat them to avoid exceeding your calorie limit? A dietitian has specially compiled the calorie content of 9 types of mooncakes, covering snow skin mooncakes, traditional mooncakes, and more, and reminds that 1 type of mooncake has a particularly alarming calorie count—after eating it, you would need to climb 429 floors of stairs to completely burn off the calorie burden it brings.
Dietitian Li Wan-ping points out on her personal Facebook page that the Mid-Autumn Festival always involves eating mooncakes, whether traditional flavors or innovative ones, and the deliciousness of that mooncake in your hand is always irresistible. She reminds that a mooncake's weight is usually proportional to its calories, and further lists the calories, sugar, oil, and corresponding amount of stair-climbing exercise needed to burn off 9 common mooncakes:
Calories: 800 kcal
Carbohydrates: 93.6 g
Fat: 41.6 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 429 floors
Calories: 370 kcal
Carbohydrates: 52.5 g
Fat: 14.9 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 198 floors
Calories: 249 kcal
Calories: 234 kcal
Carbohydrates: 21.8 g
Fat: 12 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 124 floors
Calories: 221 kcal
Carbohydrates: 29.3 g
Fat: 10.7 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 120 floors
Calories: 216 kcal
Carbohydrates: 29 g
Fat: 8 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 116 floors
Calories: 212.6 kcal
Carbohydrates: 29.2 g
Fat: 8.5 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 114 floors
Calories: 205 kcal
Carbohydrates: 26.7 g
Fat: 9.8 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 110 floors
Calories: 162 kcal
Carbohydrates: 23.3 g
Fat: 6.8 g
Stairs needed to burn off: 86 floors
Li Wan-ping states that in principle, diabetes patients are not advised to eat mooncakes, because their carbohydrates, fat, and calories are all on the high side. If they really want to taste some, they can adopt a staple food substitution method to maintain stable blood sugar, that is, 1 serving of staple food is 15 g of carbohydrates, roughly equal to 1/4 bowl of white rice. Taking the double yolk white lotus seed paste mooncake as an example, its carbohydrate content is roughly equal to 1.5 bowls of white rice; while the carbohydrate content of red bean paste egg yolk pastry or taro pastry is close to half a bowl of rice.
In addition, Li also suggests that when enjoying mooncakes, besides pairing them with tea, there are the following 3 tricks to reduce the body's burden:
Oolong tea, Tieguanyin, or Baozhong tea are all suitable. When the weather is hot, you can prepare cold brew tea in advance and refrigerate it before drinking.
Pair with fiber-rich fruits such as pomelo, guava, or dragon fruit to help promote digestion.
If calculated by climbing stairs to burn calories, egg yolk pastry, snow skin mooncake, five kernel mooncake, and lava custard mooncake require 30 minutes of stair climbing to burn off 1 piece, while double yolk white lotus seed paste mooncake and mung bean pastry require about 1 hour of continuous stair climbing to burn off 1 mooncake's calories.
