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- In terms of calories alone, chocolate is on a par with tangyuan.
- Eat only occasionally, without paying special attention to the health effects.
Today's Valentine's Day, tomorrow's Lantern Festival, the festival content of these two days is a bit dense~ ~
With what I know about the "traditional" food of these two festivals, your "calories" of these two days may explode...
One chocolate = how many dumplings ?
The specific calories of different brands of chocolate may vary, but the difference between the same type of product is not particularly large.
Mainly because if you want to be delicious, there must be a lot of fat and sugar, so the general high sales of chocolate, about 40% fat, about 50% carb, about 8% protein, the total calories are about 580 kal/100g.
Therefore, the common small portion (a small piece, a small piece) is about 14g, and the calorie is about 80kcal.
Tangyuan is also similar, but because of the difference in size, it may be a large difference in the weight of a single piece, like the bag of black sesame Ningbo tangyuan in my refrigerator for a total of 160 grams, there are 8 tangyuan, and one is about 20 grams.
Taking the existing chocolate and tangyuan data at hand as an example, in the unit of "pieces", the nutritional composition table of chocolate and tangyuan converted is the following table. Calories: 1 chocolate ball = 1.25 dumplings
Nutrition of chocolate and tangyuan
If you only eat more chocolate and tangyuan on Valentine's Day and Lantern Festival, basically you don't have to pay special attention to what serious consequences will be brought to your health, diabetes, digestive diseases and patients with digestive diseases pay attention to themselves.
But the scientific knowledge about chocolate and tangyuan, if you master, is also meaningful for your usual food choices.
There are many sugars and fats, and the calories are naturally high
- Chocolate -
To put it simply, the vast majority of chocolate on the market is just candy used to please the taste buds, and the sugar content is very high, and a large amount of sugar is easy to make people gain weight, increasing the risk of cardiovascular system disease and type 2 diabetes.
An important factor in measuring the quality of chocolate is cocoa butter. Cocoa butter can give chocolate a silky, mellow taste, but is high in saturated fat.
In 2018, the World Health Organization also published draft guidelines on fat intake, which recommend that adults and children should not have more than 10% saturated fat energy supply and trans fat should not exceed 1%.
- Tangyuan -
In this regard, Tangyuan is not to be let go.
In order to be delicious, the commercially available tangyuan uses lard, tree nuts (peanuts and sesame seeds), and the flavor is often accompanied by a lot of sugar and fat.
There are more sugars and fats, and the corresponding calories are also very high
According to the reference data of the dietary guidelines for Chinese residents, 66 kg men walking slowly for half an hour consumes 82.5 kacl, bicycles 132 kacl, fast running 264 kacl, if it is 56 kg women, 70 kacl, 112 kacl, 224 kacl, respectively.
A chocolate or rice ball can be consumed after half an hour. If you eat several at once, calculate how long it will take to exercise to consume them...
carbohydrates
The carb in the chocolate mainly comes from the added sugar, there is no problem of digestive difficulties, and the carbohydrates in the tangyuan are more exquisite.
The glutinous rice flour used in tangyuan is mainly amylopectin, which is a type of starch that is easily digested and absorbed by the human body after cooking.
Since it is easy to absorb, why is it said that eating tangyuan is not digested?
Because in the process of making, the final tangyuan structure is relatively dense, the weight is also relatively heavy, and the bowl of tangyuan you eat is much heavier than a bowl of steamed rice.
The more you eat, the harder it is to digest.
Therefore, the tangyuan is not too good at once, and it must be eaten hot, because these starches are easy to absorb after heating and gelatinizing, if the temperature is reduced, the starch will age, and it is easy to choke at this time.
Is chocolate healthier?
Some people think that chocolate is healthier than other candies because it contains antioxidant substances.
Indeed, chocolate-making cocoa is a natural plant that contains antioxidants, and dark chocolate contains more antioxidants such as flavanols.
So there is a lot of evidence that it is beneficial to the cardiovascular system, and even compared with some health foods, dark chocolate health evidence is more.
But the premise of these is that the sugar content in chocolate is very small, and the amount of cocoa is extremely high.
I generally recommend choosing a cocoa content of more than 70%.
The reason why I don't recommend buying more than 90% is mainly because it is too bitter, but if you can accept it, it is of course better.
White chocolate is mainly cocoa butter and milk, and does not contain cocoa powder, so there is no antioxidant ingredient, which can be completely excluded from a health point of view.
Dai cocoa butter is not so scary
Many people will repeatedly emphasize that you should never buy chocolate with cocoa butter, because cocoa butter is produced by hydrogenation of vegetable oils, and trans fatty acids may be produced in the process.
Is daicoa butter really that terrible? Not really.
Look at the ingredient list for trans fatty acids
Popularize the mainland regulations, if it is chocolate made of cocoa butter, it needs to be strictly marked on the name of the package, and the nutritional composition table will also list the content of a trans fatty acid separately.
Therefore, you can directly understand the content of trans fatty acids by looking at the nutrition facts list.
If the process is well controlled, the trans fatty acid content in cocoa butter can be reduced from 10% to less than 1%, so it is likely that the column of trans fatty acids in the table of chocolate nutrients that is likely to be bought is zero (0.3g/100g or less can be marked as zero).
Even if you eat 100 grams of chocolate, the intake of trans fatty acids is less than 0.3 grams, and the limit of 1% energy supply is about equivalent to 2g of trans fatty acids, so the impact is not large, it is better to pay attention to eating less fried foods.
This process will make these original hydrogenated vegetable oils all become saturated fats, so it is necessary to eat less or eat less, just to say that I think everyone does not need to see the cocoa butter to avoid like a snake scorpion.
Health reminders about chocolate and tangyuan
chocolate
- Caffeine -
Every 100 grams of chocolate contains caffeine similar to a cola. If you eat chocolate before bedtime, especially dark chocolate, you have to consider whether it will affect your sleep.
- Bleeding -
Some people may be more sensitive to chocolate, and after eating chocolate, it is easy to bleed from the wound, which requires caution. I once ate a lot of chocolate the day before the tooth extraction, and as a result, I shed blood for more than an hour after the tooth extraction...
- Storage -
Don't put the chocolate you buy back in the refrigerator, because there will be white frost, you just need to put the chocolate in a cool place and seal it.
- Oral Hygiene -
Remember to rinse your mouth after eating chocolate, otherwise it is easy to induce caries. (The same goes for tangyuan.) ）
Are there really bugs in the chocolate?
There really is...
Cocoa beans need to be fermented in the open air, so in the production environment of Africa and Southeast Asia, it is inevitable that debris such as insect hair will be mixed, so chocolate products are also allowed to contain a certain number of insect debris (I didn't expect it)
Tangyuan
- Sugar-free tangyuan doesn't mean much -
Because the starch response to the body's blood sugar is relatively high, it is better to replace the added sucrose with xylitol and other components, but this replacement will hardly have a particularly large impact on the physiological point of view.
Eating once or twice a year, the problem of choosing ordinary added sugar is not big, the key is the total amount.
- Mold infections -
Glutinous rice can be infected with mold, and if you find that the surface of the boiled rice balls has turned red (unless you are cooking hawthorn filling), it is likely that it has been infected with mold, and it is best not to eat it again.
I wish you all Valentine's Day and Lantern Festival, free and happy, healthy and happy