Choose New Year Cakes Wisely
New year coconut cake is the most unhealthy, followed by cane sugar cake and coconut milk golden cake, as they are made of large amount of sugar, glutinous rice flour and coconut milk.
Since Chinese new year cakes use a lot of starchy ingredients to make, therefore it is suggested to have 1 to 2 pieces each time. You should watch out its intake if you have hypertension, hyperlipidemia or diabetes. Diabetes patient should cut down daily carbohydrate intake if you ate the cake for better blood sugar control.
Be aware that cooking method also increase its calories content. For example, pan fried turnip cake is 130 calories, however steam turnip cake is only 87 calories. Hence, it is better to steam/airfly/oven bake or use microwave to reheat.
Vegetarian new year cake may include omni pork, but we must watch out its sodium level. It is recommended to have 1 to 2 pieces each time.
Those mentioned as low sugar might just reduce its sugar amount, however, new year cakes still need lots of rice flour to make and thus must include certain calories, as well as watch out its intake.
How to eat Poon Choi in a Healthy Way?
- Try to pick those on the top instead of the ingredients soaked with sauce at the bottom, as the sauce tends to be salty and fatty.
- Poon Choi usually has a lot of fatty meat such as pork belly or pork leg, so it is better take off the skin and trim the fat out before you eat.
- Seafood is a healthier options as its fat content is low but good in protein quality, nevertheless still have to be careful for intake amount.
- Avoid ingredients with deep fried or soaked with sauce, e.g. deep fried taro, tofu skins, deep fried tofu and duck leg.
- Highly recommend to eat half bowl of boiled veg before meal time, and during meal time we should not dip sauce and try to have whole grain rice or sweet potato as carbs intake.
Traditional Chinese New Year Snacks
For example:
- 1 piece sesame cookie ball has 52 calories.
- 1 piece crispy pastry dumpling has 130 calories.
- 1 piece sesame ball has 120 calories.
Don’t mistaken them as low in calories because their sizes are small. On the contrary, they are actually high in calories as they are produced with deep fried.
For better options, choose dried fruit, unsalted nuts or seeds, seaweed, chestnuts, konnayaku, rice cake, whole wheat cookies or dark chocolate.
Reference:
1. Centre for Food Safety. < https://www.cfs.gov.hk>