Sichuan online reporter Shi Xiaohong
This year’s Lantern Festival is coming soon. On this day, every family will eat Yuanxiao or Tangyuan, which means "reunion and beauty". But what problems should we pay attention to when eating Yuanxiao or Tangyuan? How to eat it correctly? In this regard, we asked Liang Qingyue, a nutritionist from the Seventh People’s Hospital of Chengdu, to answer the questions.
Timely:
When getting up early, the gastrointestinal function is weak, and eating Yuanxiao for breakfast is prone to indigestion, acid reflux and heartburn. Eating Yuanxiao before meals will stimulate insulin secretion, causing blood sugar instability in the body. Eating after meals will lead to excessive total calories. Eating Yuanxiao in the meal can avoid these two situations.
Appropriate amount:
Tangyuan is a high-sugar and high-fat food, and its skin is mostly sticky glutinous rice flour, which is not easy to digest and will increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract, which may cause indigestion such as abdominal distension and abdominal pain, and it is easy to form gastroliths and fecal stones, which may lead to intestinal obstruction. There are many kinds of fillings, such as sesame, peanut, jam, chocolate, etc., but in order to pursue better taste and more delicious, they often contain more sugar and fat. Therefore, children and the elderly with weak gastrointestinal function should pay attention when eating and eat as little as possible. It should be based on moderate consumption. While eating Yuanxiao or Tangyuan, it is not recommended to eat other foods with high sugar content, and at the same time, the intake of other staple foods should be reduced accordingly. Generally speaking, if you eat three, you will have to subtract one or two staple foods (half a bowl of rice) of the day.
Beware of the word "sugar-free" for diabetics;
In recent years, sugar-free food has become popular, and sugar-free dumplings have emerged. Although there is no sucrose, in fact, sugar-free dumplings do not mean low calories, and sugar-free dumplings also contain starch and oil. Sweeteners used to improve the taste, such as saccharin, xylitol, aspartame, etc., are also easy to give people the illusion, which will make people think that although the taste is sweet, it is not sugar, so they can take off their guard and eat with confidence. Although these "sugar-free" Yuanxiao and Tangyuan do not contain sucrose, the starch substances they contain will still be converted into glucose in the human body. At this time, the purpose of controlling blood sugar can not be achieved, and at the same time, the risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease may be increased by affecting the imbalance of intestinal flora and the dysfunction of brain feeding center.
Comparison of calories of several kinds of glutinous rice balls. Photo courtesy of Chengdu No.7 Hospital
People with hyperlipidemia eat less:
In order to make the taste of Yuanxiao and Tangyuan more delicate, in addition to the skin, the producer will also add a lot of oil to the stuffing for modulation, so under normal circumstances, the fat content of Yuanxiao stuffing will be higher. If you suddenly eat a lot, it will easily lead to an increase in blood lipids, which will lead to pancreatitis. Therefore, people with high blood lipids should pay more attention when eating Yuanxiao.
How to buy Lantern Festival?
First of all, look at the label information on the packaging bag. Pay attention to carefully check the food label information on the packaging bag when buying Yuanxiao in the supermarket. Including: food name, ingredient list, net content and specifications, name, address and contact information of producers and/or distributors, production date and shelf life, storage conditions, food production license number, product standard code and other items that need to be marked. If the food label on the packaging bag is incomplete, you should buy it carefully.
Secondly, it depends on the order of ingredients in the ingredient list. National food safety standards require that any substance used in food processing should be marked, and if there are ingredients with an addition of more than 2%, they should be arranged from high to low when making or processing food. Therefore, when we buy Yuanxiao, we should remember to understand the ingredients list first, and know what ingredients are used in the production process of Yuanxiao, especially for people with allergies, to see if there are any ingredients that cause allergies, and to find out the usage of the ingredients of the products before deciding which products to buy.
The third depends on the storage conditions. At present, most of the products sold in supermarkets are quick-frozen dumplings. Frozen food should be sold under frozen conditions, but don’t buy products with frost or ice ballast. Frost or ice ballast indicates that the storage temperature of the products is unstable, and the products are prone to rancidity and deterioration, which has a great impact on product quality. In addition, good Yuanxiao and Tangyuan are uniform in color, basically round in shape, basically the same in size, with uniform thickness of cortex, no stuffing, no cracks, no visible impurities and no mildew spots.
