Recently, a reporter from Beijing Science and Technology News came to Tiantongyuan, a Carrefour supermarket, in order to verify the online rumor that "fruit moon cakes with wax gourd stuffing". Near the Mid-Autumn Festival, all kinds of moon cakes have been placed in a conspicuous position, but not many people have chosen them. The reporter found that compared with bulk mooncakes, the mooncakes sold in gift boxes are obviously much more.
In the bulk moon cake area, the reporter found a kind of moon cake with a "hundred fruits" taste. Looking carefully at the ingredients of this ginkgo moon cake, the words "diced wax gourd" appeared in the first line, followed by preserved fruit, raisins and green silk, and the content of preserved fruit was specially marked above 20%.
▲ In the first line of the ingredients of Baiguo moon cake, the word "melon diced" suddenly appeared.
In the boxed mooncake area, the reporter found two mooncake gift boxes with the same packaging taste but different prices. Both gift boxes contain fruit mooncakes-pineapple mooncakes. However, after careful observation, the reporter found that although the taste is the same, the ingredients are quite different. 1the raw material of pineapple moon cake in 60 yuan gift box is 25% pineapple pulp+wax gourd; In the gift box with the price of 1 10 yuan, the pineapple moon cake turned into wax gourd+pineapple paste, and wax gourd ranked first on a treasure website. The reporter even directly found the merchants selling fruit fillings. Although the varieties include cantaloupe, sweet orange and strawberry, they are ruthlessly occupied by the word "wax gourd" on the ingredient list, and there is no shadow of cantaloupe, orange and other fruits. seemingly
For women who lose weight and love beauty, wax gourd is actually no stranger. Unlike other fruits and vegetables, wax gourd contains no fat and is extremely low in sodium, which may help to lose weight. As for why wax gourd has become the number one spare tire in the stuffing industry, it is more due to its unique physical properties.
Wax gourd fiber content is very high, reaching about 0.7%, and its own fiber is relatively thick, which is very suitable for making substrate. Fruits, such as strawberries and cantaloupes, have less fiber, so it is difficult to simply set them as fillings, while ordinary fruits have more water and are difficult to preserve for a long time. Adding wax gourd sauce can prolong the shelf life.
"In food processing, especially in the production of moon cakes, wax gourd has always been the main force, which was many years ago. For example, traditional assorted moon cakes, winter melon is one of the important fillings. " Professor Wang from the Food College of Beijing Technology and Business University told the reporter that it is nothing new to make mooncake stuffing with wax gourd.
However, the most important reason why manufacturers choose wax gourd as stuffing is probably the cost. A mooncake salesman told reporters that the cost of making mooncake stuffing with fruit is too high, which is unacceptable not only to manufacturers, but also to consumers. On a treasure, a catty (about 20-30 pieces) of "fruit moon cake" made of wax gourd sauce only needs 20 yuan, but the "fruit moon cake" made of 6 pieces of dried fruit costs 100 yuan, and the cheapest one is around 50 yuan.
Although many people feel fresh about "winter melon as a spare tire", in fact, there has long been their own national standard for moon cake stuffing, and fruit flavor does not mean fruit stuffing.
The national standard "Food Stuffing" (GB/T 2 1270-2007) clearly points out that the content of fruit and other products in moon cake stuffing should not be less than 25%, and those that exceed 25% can be called fruit moon cakes, and those below this standard can only be called "fruity" moon cakes.
In addition, the standard also makes specific requirements for the filling content of other flavors of moon cakes, such as a certain amount of five-kernel moon cakes; Lotus paste moon cakes should have a certain amount of lotus paste; The content of nuts in nut moon cakes should be no less than 20%; The content of chestnut in chestnut moon cakes should be no less than 60%.
Then, will eating fruit moon cakes with "wax gourd stuffing" be harmful to human body? Wang told reporters that winter melon itself is colorless and tasteless, and there is no fat, so eating it is not harmful to the human body, and the moon cake itself is also a traditional holiday food, so most people don't eat too much, so there is no need to worry about health and safety.
As for the green and red silk in assorted moon cakes (100 fruits), although there have been news that the pigment exceeds the standard before, in the past two years, the green and red silk is made of orange peel, and many manufacturers have also improved their technology, strictly controlled the pigment and passed the QS certification, so it is relatively safe.
"Compared with mooncake fillings, I think the problem of over-packaging mooncake gift boxes is more noteworthy and will cause environmental pollution." Wang reminded.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is less than a month away. Although the problem of fruit mooncake stuffing is more due to cost, people should pay more attention to the packaged ingredients when buying mooncakes. You shouldn't be insatiable, not to mention. It is better to "avoid" the moon cakes that are not clearly marked with ingredients.
This article comes from: Technology Life Weekly.