Watching lanterns and eating tangyuan are essential parts of the Lantern Festival for us. Do you know how to choose tangyuan? Do you know what to pay attention to when eating them? While enjoying the most delicious tangyuan, don't forget about health preservation. Let's have a healthy and sweet Lantern Festival together!
Proper Selection and Cooking of Tangyuan
Proper Selection of Tangyuan
When buying tangyuan, go to regular food establishments. Purchase them from stores with freezers, and try to avoid loose, unpackaged tangyuan. Be sure to check the packaging, manufacturer, date, and labels. Inspect the packaging for any damage or leakage, and for any counterfeit packaging of well-known brands. Check if the name, address, postal code, phone number, etc., of the food production company on the packaging and label are complete and detailed. Check if the food is labeled with a production date and shelf life. Check if it has qualification approval numbers such as a health approval number, production approval number, or food label approval number. Check if it has product standards and a "QS" mark. Additionally, high-quality tangyuan packages should contain a tray to prevent the tangyuan from being crushed and deformed during transportation.
Next, examine the appearance of the tangyuan. First, look at the color and shape. Good tangyuan are pure white without any specks and have a round shape. Inferior tangyuan have a dull and uneven color and an irregular shape. Second, check for cracks. If the freezing technology is not up to standard, the tangyuan are prone to cracking. Such tangyuan lose a lot of moisture and nutrients, and the texture will be coarse and astringent. Third, gently touch the tangyuan with your finger. If they feel soft, it means they have been thawed. Their texture and nutritional value will be significantly reduced. Fourth, do a cooking test. Good tangyuan do not cloud the soup or stick together when cooked; they float up quickly. Inferior tangyuan are more likely to cloud the soup, stick to the pot, or even break. Fifth, taste them. Good tangyuan are soft to the bite. When bitten open, the filling is thick, fragrant, and soft, with fine particles that melt in the mouth while retaining a slight chewiness. The tangyuan skin has a delicate, sticky, and chewy texture with a springy feel. Inferior tangyuan feel rough and lack elasticity when eaten, have no distinct fragrance, and their flavor is often overly sweet or greasy.
If you are making tangyuan yourself, you need to pay attention to the selection of ingredients and the safety issues during the preparation process.
Proper Cooking of Tangyuan
When cooking tangyuan, pay attention to these key points:
1. Cook in boiling water. Bring the water to a boil, then add the tangyuan to the pot. Gently stir them with a ladle to get them spinning, so they don't stick to the pot walls.
2. Cook on low heat. Once the tangyuan float to the surface, quickly reduce the heat to low. Otherwise, the tangyuan will keep rolling, resulting in a cooked exterior and a hard interior.
3. Add cold water. During the cooking process, add a small amount of cold water each time the water comes to a boil, to keep the tangyuan in a simmering state. After the water has boiled two or three times, cook for a little longer, and they are ready to eat. This method produces tangyuan that are soft, not hard, and sweet and delicious.
4. Cook promptly. The glutinous rice flour in raw tangyuan contains a lot of moisture and will spoil if left for too long; it is also prone to bursting when frozen. It's best to make and eat tangyuan immediately, and don't store them for more than 3 days. Store-bought frozen tangyuan should also be eaten promptly and are best not stored for more than a week. Additionally, whether boiled or fried, tangyuan must be thoroughly cooked. When frying tangyuan, it's best to poke a few small holes in them to prevent them from bursting and causing burns.
Fried Tangyuan are High in Calories
In addition to boiling, some people also like to fry leftover tangyuan. Although fried tangyuan are golden in color and crispy and delicious, the high frying temperature destroys many of the nutrients in the tangyuan, reducing their warming effect. Frying also increases the oil content of the already high-fat tangyuan, increases the calorie count, and makes it easier to lead to obesity. Furthermore, frying can produce some carcinogenic substances harmful to human health. Therefore, from a nutritional perspective, fried tangyuan are the least advisable option. Never sacrifice health for taste. Especially for patients with gallbladder or pancreatic diseases, eating fried tangyuan could easily cause a relapse of their condition.
Therefore, to reduce calorie intake, you should avoid frying tangyuan. At the same time, consume more high-fiber foods and do more exercise than usual. After eating, you can engage in activities like brisk walking for an hour to burn calories.
Proper Consumption of Tangyuan
1. One sesame tangyuan = one liang (50g) of rice
Although people eat tangyuan every year, few understand their nutritional content. So, what exactly is in this small tangyuan?
Nutrition experts say that both the skin and filling of tangyuan are very high in calories, and the energy they provide is comparable to staple foods. Therefore, you should be moderate when eating them. Traditional tangyuan are made from glutinous rice and various fillings. Glutinous rice itself is a grain with a high starch content. The fillings contain even more calories. For example, the common sesame filling has a large amount of oil, and some vegetable oil is often added during the making process to improve the texture. Therefore, the calories and fat content of tangyuan are at least as much as, if not more than, an equivalent amount of staple food. A single ordinary sesame tangyuan can provide the body with the equivalent calories of one liang (50g) of rice. Two or three tangyuan can meet the recommended adult portion size for a staple meal in the dietary guidelines.
The reason glutinous rice is chewier than other grains is its high amylopectin content, which is harder to digest. People with poor gastrointestinal function may experience acid reflux or bloating after eating it, which is commonly described as "feeling overly full." Therefore, when eating tangyuan, it's important to control the portion and appropriately reduce the intake of staple foods and fats in your meal.
2. Don't Eat Too Many Tangyuan
Besides not being suitable for breakfast, it's also best not to treat tangyuan as a main meal. It's okay to have some as a mid-morning or afternoon snack around 9 or 10 AM after breakfast, but one or two liang (about 50-100g) is enough at a time. When eating tangyuan, you should not eat other high-sugar foods at the same time. You should also reduce your intake of other staple foods. Generally, for every three tangyuan you eat, you should reduce your staple food intake by half a liang (25g). If you have a late-night snack close to your bedtime, it's best not to eat tangyuan, as they are difficult to digest, empty slowly from the stomach, and can加重 the burden on the gastrointestinal tract. It's best to be active for at least two hours after eating tangyuan before going to bed.
3. Breakfast is Not Suitable for Tangyuan
Tangyuan are high-calorie, high-sugar foods that also contain fat but lack nutrients. Besides calories and sugar, they don't have much else. Such foods are not suitable for breakfast. Besides lacking nutrition, this is because gastrointestinal function is weakest in the morning. The outer skin of tangyuan is mostly glutinous rice, which is sticky and hard to digest. Therefore, eating tangyuan for breakfast can easily lead to indigestion, causing acid reflux and heartburn, which can affect your work and life for the rest of the day.
Don't Forget the Soup When Eating Tangyuan
After boiling, many nutrients in the tangyuan, such as trace elements and vitamins, dissolve into the soup. Therefore, you shouldn't forget to drink the soup when eating tangyuan. Drinking the soup can aid digestion and absorption, which is the folk saying, "the original soup digests the original food." However, be careful not to add sugar to the soup. If you are eating savory tangyuan, you can add some small dried shrimps and vegetables to the soup to supplement nutrition, but it's best not to add more oil or seasoning.
Eating Tangyuan with Celery, Hawthorn, and Other Foods for Better Digestion
Tangyuan are essentially refined grains, and due to the glutinous rice and fillings, many people find them hard to digest. Therefore, it's important to pay attention to what you pair them with.
First, don't pair them with greasy foods: Greasy foods will only add a greater burden to your stomach along with the tangyuan. Therefore, when eating tangyuan, not only should you reduce your staple food intake, but you should also adjust the structure of your meal.
Second, you can pair them with some high-fiber, digestion-promoting foods, such as celery, hawthorn, and raw radish: Dietary fiber promotes gastrointestinal motility, reducing the possibility of stomach discomfort from eating tangyuan and also aiding in the digestion and absorption of fats.
Finally, don't discard the tangyuan soup: This is not just a tradition, but more importantly, the soup also contains nutrients that the body needs. Glutinous rice contains many water-soluble vitamins, such as B1 and B2. These vitamins can promote the synthesis of acetylcholine in the body, which helps maintain normal gastrointestinal function. The nutritional structure of modern urban life has led to an increase in vitamin B deficiency. About half of the vitamin B in glutinous rice remains in the soup after cooking, so drinking the tangyuan soup is also a good habit for promoting digestion.
Prevent Burns When Eating Tangyuan
When eating tangyuan, be careful not to eat them when they are too hot or to take large bites, as this can easily scald the oral and esophageal mucosa. Medical research has confirmed that food burns can likely lead to related diseases such as esophageal and stomach cancer.
When eating tangyuan, you can break them into smaller pieces and chew them slowly to aid digestion. Parents should not feed tangyuan to children when they are crying or running around. In case of an accident, you can hold the child's abdomen with both hands and push upwards and inwards rhythmically until the object is expelled. If the situation is serious, seek medical attention immediately. Because hot tangyuan are soft and slippery and have a great texture, many people like to eat them right out of the pot, which can easily cause burns. The filling is hotter than the skin, so if you bite into a whole tangyuan, the filling can scald the oral mucosa or even the esophagus. Some people swallow the tangyuan quickly as soon as they get burned, which is an even more harmful habit.