2017 Healthy Mooncake Guide

Mooncakes are traditionally consumed as part of the Mid-Autumn festivities. They are often offered to friends and family members that gather as part of the festival. These cakes offer a thin but savory skin that is filled with different types of ingredients, often pastes. The flavors inside can be sweet or savory, but they are always delicious.

What Do We Eat During the Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival essentially honors the moon. For this reason, many of the foods we enjoy during this time period are associated with the moon. The mooncake is one food named after the giant orb, giving us all the more reason to enjoy eating it during Mid-Autumn.

Fruit is another important staple of the Mid-Autumn festivities. Fruit is considered to be good luck. Taro is also connected to good luck.

Pumpkin is another popular food, especially as it is meant to bring good health. Plus, pumpkins are associated with harvest and the middle of autumn.

Finally, hairy crab is another delicacy often available in the fall months. This makes it a popular choice for seafood lovers this season.

Pairing Food & Drink with Mooncakes

There are many ways to pair mooncakes to create the best possible taste profile. First, you must consider whether the type of cake you are eating is mostly savory or sweet. You will want to pair food and drink for the best combination of tastes.

Tea is the most obvious pairing for mooncakes. There is a tea for every kind of mooncake, but pairing them is dependant on personal preferences. For example, a full-bodied tea is perfect with a lotus seed paste mooncake. Egg custard mooncakes go much better with a soft-bodied tea.

Mooncakes are increasingly filled with fruits. This means that they can be a bit on the sweeter side even with being healthy. You can pair a slice of fruit-filled mooncake with other desserts, including fresh fruit that is customary with Mid-Autumn Festival gifts.

Wine also pairs well with mooncakes. Sweet wines pair well with savory cakes, for example. Champagne pairs best with mooncakes full of chocolate.

Healthy Mooncake Choices

Unfortunately, mooncakes are not always the healthiest food choice. They tend to include lots of sugar and may raise blood pressure. Mooncake ingredients include vegetable oil, bean paste, egg yolk, butter, and sugar. Egg yolks are especially high in fat. This means that even eating an entire mini mooncake each day can have detriments to your health.

Fortunately, changing the contents of the mooncake can also change how healthy the treat may be. Ditching refined sugar for other sweeteners can lower calories and even make the cakes diabetic-friendly.

Fruits are becoming a more common filler for the cakes, and organic mooncakes are also on the rise. They are made of nuts and fruits mainly, offering variety when you are looking for a healthier snack.

Mooncake Gift Ideas

Mooncakes are commonly given as presents, and healthy options are becoming more common. With so many different mooncakes, selecting a gift can be difficult. We have made it easier by offering some of our top recommendations.

Our Exclusive Fruit Gift Box with Peninsula Mooncake offers a Mid-Autumn surprise thanks to the assortment of seasonal fruit and set of Peninsula mooncakes. Fruits include nashi pears, grapes, honeydew, watermelon, dragon fruit, and more. The Peninsula cake itself offers a mini egg custard that is simply delicious.

We highly recommend the Gold Blossom Fruit Hamper with Wine or Champagne. This gift offers fruit to go with a bottle of French wine or champagne.

No matter which gift you select for Mid-Autumn, you have so many options to choose from. It is still quite possible to enjoy a delicious piece of a mooncake from time to time. Moderation is the key to living a healthy lifestyle in almost every way.