Healthy Moon Festival

15^th of the Eighth month in Chinese calender marks the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon claims to be fullest and brightest. As a tradition, family members will get together to admire the bright full moon, enjoy pomeloes and mooncakes with tea, and beautiful lit lanterns. So let's go shop smart and head start for a healthy moon festival.

Mooncakes: Over the years, mooncakes are being promoted to appeal to health conscious customers with health claims such as 'low sugar', 'low fat', 'healthy'. However, Consumer Council had advised that 「healthy」 to eat may not be quite the case to some people. One with least fat may contains highest amount of carbohydrate, so diabetic patients should take this into account and make necessary dietary adjustment.

The snowy mooncake tends to have the least amount of fat while Chiu Chau mooncake has highest due to its puff pastry and nutty filling inside. Per 100 gram, snowy mooncake contains 358 calories compare to 424 calories in traditional single egg mooncake. The golden egg yolk placed at the center came from salted duck egg and contains 330 mg cholesterol; thus patients with high cholesterol level should limit in consumption of egg yolk. Having these figures as guide, shop for a healthier one and look for its freshness. One should look wholesome, fresh and shouldn't have the smell of aged oil. And consume before the expiration date. Regardless of the types of mooncake, limit the portion size to ¼ of the traditional mooncake or ½ of mini-mooncake.

Tea: Serve along with Chinese tea to aid digestion. Chinese Tea contains no calories and teas such as Oolong and green tea have antioxidant effect, thus providing double health benefits. Avoid loading additional calories from soft drinks.

Fruit: Pomeloe, being one of the popular fruit during festival, is rich in vitamin C, folic acid, potassium with little calories. Star fruit, persimmon, red taro and water caltrops (ling kok) are also popular fruits for the festival. They are equally high in nutrients.

So, shop smart, fill up the shopping basket with your favorite mooncake, Chinese tea and fruits.