Tomorrow is the Lantern Festival, and eating tangyuan or yuanxiao is an indispensable activity in the North and South respectively. These sweet dumplings are delicious and tempting, making you want to have a few more... Stop, stop, before you think about having more, let's talk about the composition of tangyuan and yuanxiao.
Although these are two different things, their ingredients are roughly similar: glutinous rice, sesame oil, lard, and sugar. Some have special fillings with ingredients like meat or red dates. However, the most important components are the first four, all of which are high in calories. Especially the famous Ningbo tangyuan, which uses unrefried leaf lard from the pig's abdomen for its filling. It has an excellent texture, smooth, glutinous, soft, and hot, with a greasy feel lower than that of pure oil. But from a health perspective, it is absolutely junk food.
High in calories, high in fat, low in fiber, and low in protein—that's a description of foods like tangyuan and yuanxiao.
As a traditional food, it might be difficult for the entire nation to avoid it, but eating too much is also absolutely not advisable. The calories in three tangyuan or yuanxiao are equivalent to more than a small bowl of rice, and they contain a large amount of saturated fat and simple sugars. On one hand, they can rapidly raise blood sugar; on the other, saturated fats are easily absorbed into the mesentery and become fat stored in the abdomen. Additionally, they are not easy to digest. Therefore, people with diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and digestive system diseases should try to avoid them as much as possible. Even healthy people should consume them in moderation.
Some manufacturers advertise their products as "sugar-free." In fact, even being sugar-free doesn't change the high-calorie nature of tangyuan, because glutinous rice flour itself is starch, and a highly gelatinized one at that. It just needs to be slowly broken down and absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, making it harder to absorb than sucrose or white sugar, but its glycemic index is almost the same—it just takes effect more slowly. Therefore, even if it's sugar-free, its nature remains unchanged.
In reality, we don't have many opportunities to eat tangyuan or yuanxiao throughout the year, as the Lantern Festival only comes once. So, if you are in good health, it's fine to indulge a little. However, from a health perspective, we still recommend moderation or eating less.