China News Service, Lishui, September 26 (Hu Fengsheng) During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the staff of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Jinyun County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province are finely grinding poria, yam and other medicinal materials and kneading them into the mooncake skin, adding a gentle herbal fragrance to the reunion taste.
Jinyun County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital combines the local profound cultural heritage of Huangdi to launch two new medicated food products: the spleen-invigorating egg yolk mooncake and the health-preserving premium mooncake. The former adds poria and yam to strengthen the spleen and stomach, remove dampness and calm the nerves; the latter combines polygonatum, wolfberry, tangerine peel, walnuts and other ingredients to nourish the liver and blood, nourish the kidneys and replenish essence. According to the hospital, the medicinal materials used in the two mooncakes are generally mild and are not burdensome for daily consumption, making them more suitable for sharing with the whole family during the Mid-Autumn Festival. "Mooncakes are a token of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and health preservation is the background of Jinyun." Zhao Xiaoyu, deputy director of the hospital, said that he hopes to integrate Huangdi's health culture into seasonal food, so that traditional mooncakes not only retain the flavor of reunion, but also add health blessings.
The staff of Jinyun County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital is finely grinding poria, yam and other medicinal materials and kneading them into the mooncake skin. Photo courtesy of Jinyun County Media Center
Jinyun’s attempt is not an isolated case. This year, Zhejiang’s mooncake market is quietly changing: low-sugar, low-fat, and health-preserving mooncakes with the same origins of medicine and food have taken the “C position”, and traditional and established brands are also boldly crossing borders with the Mid-Autumn Festival IP. In Yiwu, Zhejiang, Yimin Mooncake, a time-honored brand in Zhejiang, inherits the century-old Soviet-style shortening mooncake intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, closely follows the public's healthy dietary needs, and launches innovative models such as xylitol mooncakes, beef mooncakes, and matcha mooncakes. It can produce more than 15,000 tubes per day, making it a popular product before the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Pan'an, Jinhua, local companies rely on the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine resources to integrate authentic medicinal materials such as Polygonatum and Dendrobium with traditional cakes, and launch a variety of new products such as Astragalus, Highland Barley and Red Bean Rice Mooncakes, Polygonatum Five Kernels Rice Mooncakes, Ganoderma Lucidum, Black Sesame and Nut Rice Mooncakes. They are purely handmade and have a refreshing and non-greasy taste, which is different from traditional mooncakes that are heavy in oil and sugar.
In Taizhou, the dessert shop under the Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has developed nearly 20 "medicinal and food-based" mooncakes, including Polygonatum dangshen Wuhei, low-sugar oolong American ginseng, Qiuli hawthorn Codonopsis pilosula, etc., using xylitol and erythritol instead of sucrose to reduce calories and glycemic index.
Changes on the consumer side are equally significant. In many supermarkets in Hangzhou, mooncake packaging has lost its complicated design this year, simple style and new Chinese style have become the mainstream, and gift boxes priced between 100 yuan and 200 yuan have become the mainstream of consumption. Citizens are paying more and more attention to the sugar content when shopping, and many people take the initiative to look at the ingredient list. "Eating and giving mooncakes during festivals is a ritual, but traditional mooncakes are high in oil and sugar. This year, I want to buy low-sugar and healthy ones." said a citizen who was choosing mooncakes. E-commerce platform data shows that the search volume for "low-sugar mooncakes" soared 320% year-on-year, and 73% of consumers flipped through the ingredient list when purchasing, giving priority to mooncakes with low sugar and zero additives.
From hospital kitchens to time-honored workshops, from authentic medicinal materials to traditional craftsmanship, the Zhejiang mooncake industry is looking for a new balance between healthy consumption and traditional culture. When the aroma of herbs blends into the flavor of reunion, the "new twist" on traditional seasonal delicacies reflects not only a change in the recipe of a mooncake, but also the active transformation of classic industries towards healthy consumption trends.
