Lower calories! 2 Light Rice Dumplings for a Refreshing Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon. The rice dumplings that Chinese people often eat, whether they are meat dumplings or red bean paste dumplings, have a single calorie content of more than 500 calories. Eating one will approach or even exceed the total calorie content of a meal. If you don’t know how to control your diet, be careful about losing fat! If you want to enjoy the deliciousness of rice dumplings without putting any burden on your body, nutritionists suggest that you can try making your own light rice dumplings. With the right dietary concepts, you can also have a "refreshing" Dragon Boat Festival.

Traditional Zongzi is high in calories and eating too much can make you fat and hurt your heart

According to Lai Jiayu, a nutritionist at Daqian General Hospital, northern zongzi, southern zongzi or Hakka kueh zongzi, because they contain egg yolks, mushrooms, dried shrimps, pork belly, shallots and other ingredients, one zongzi has nearly 700 calories, which is almost equivalent to a bento. Sweet rice dumplings, such as red bean paste rice dumplings, can easily contain 500 to 600 calories if too much sugar and oil are added. Even the ice dumplings launched for cooling off, although smaller in size and fat content than regular dumplings, still have about 300 calories, equivalent to a bowl of rice (280 calories).

Eating too much of this type of rice dumplings may cause obesity and increased cholesterol, increasing the risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. It is especially a burden for patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, and hyperlipidemia.

Celebrate Dragon Boat Festival without worrying about getting fat! Follow the nutritionist.

If you want to eat deliciously and healthily, nutritionist Lai Jiayu provides "7 steps to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival with light meals in summer" as a reference, and encourages people to make their own light rice dumplings and sweet potato ice dumplings to replace traditional high-calorie rice dumplings, so that they can celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in a "refreshing" way.

[Seven Steps to Spend the Dragon Boat Festival with Light Meals in Summer]

1. Eat less high-calorie ingredients: Choose low-calorie ingredients, such as mushrooms, carrots, bamboo shoots, konjac, fish, chicken or lean meat, etc., to replace high-calorie pork belly, peanuts, and salted egg yolks.

2. Replace high-fiber staple foods: Replace glutinous rice with whole grain rice, pumpkin, sweet potato and other staple foods to increase the taste and dietary fiber intake, and also avoid indigestion.

3. Reducing the amount of sauce by half will make it more refreshing: Sauces such as tomato sauce or sweet and spicy sauce that are often used when eating rice dumplings contain high sodium, high sugar and high oil, which are not conducive to the control of cardiovascular and kidney diseases, and should be reduced as much as possible.

4. Treat it as a main meal rather than a snack: The calories in zongzi are enough to be considered a main meal, and it needs to be replaced with staple foods, meat and fats in the diet when eaten. It is recommended not to eat more than 2 zongzi at a time, especially for patients with chronic diseases. It can be eaten in separate meals or shared with others.

5. Remember to read the labels when buying from outside: give priority to dumplings with lower calories or smaller portions.

6. Fresh fruits and vegetables are essential: the proportion of vegetables in rice dumplings is low, so they should be eaten with vegetables. Eating enough fruits after the meal can not only achieve a balanced diet, but also help to relieve greasiness, supplement vitamins and dietary fiber, stimulate gastrointestinal motility and promote digestion.

7. There is no such thing as too much exercise after a meal: You can do moderate exercise half an hour after a meal to help gastrointestinal digestion, burn calories and reduce fat accumulation.

【Summer light rice dumplings】

• Ingredients for rice dumplings: 30 grams of diced pumpkin, 30 grams of multi-grain rice, and 20 grams of long glutinous rice.

• Filling ingredients: 35g chicken thighs, 1 dried mushroom, diced konjac, diced carrots, diced king oyster mushrooms, a little shallot and dried shrimp.

• Seasoning: black pepper, soy sauce, vegetable oil.

• practice:

  1. First wash the multi-grain rice and long glutinous rice, soak them in water for 3 to 4 hours, steam them and set aside.

  2. Use oil to sauté shallots, dried shrimps and dried mushrooms, then add in all the filling ingredients and stir-fry until half cooked.

  3. Take two pieces of zong leaves and overlap them. Add the steamed whole grain rice and long glutinous rice, diced pumpkin and the stir-fried stuffing and wrap them in the zong leaves.

  4. Put it in a steamer and steam for 1 to 2 hours before eating.

【Sweet potato icy rice dumpling】

• Ingredients: 100g crystal powder, 300cc water, 2g sugar substitute, 100cc maple syrup, 40g peeled sweet potato, 20g soybean.

• practice:

  1. Crystal icy rice dumpling filling: Steam soybeans, blend them in a juicer, add to steamed sweet potatoes, stir into sweet potato puree, and set aside.

  2. Mix 100g crystal powder and 100cc cold water evenly and set aside.

  3. Take 200cc of water, heat it to boil, add 100cc of maple syrup and 2g of sugar substitute, mix well, pour into the ingredients in step 2 and stir evenly to form a crystal paste.

  4. Place the prepared crystal paste in the rice cooker, steam until the switch pops up, let cool and set aside.

  5. Put a proper amount of crystal snow skin into the rice dumpling leaf cup, then add the sweet potato filling, and add a proper amount of crystal snow skin on top. Fold the rice dumpling leaf to cover it, tie it tightly with the rice dumpling rope, and refrigerate it until it is set before taking it out and eating.