Banh chung is a comprehensive dish.

The ancients knew how to balance the nutritional ingredients in a banh chung.

In just about a month, Vietnam will officially enter the Lunar New Year 2023. This is also the time when nutrition issues receive great attention from the community.

Banh chung, of course, cannot be left out of the spotlight. The traditional Vietnamese dish during the Lunar New Year brings many concerns about food hygiene and safety as well as nutritional balance.

Comprehensive nutrition

However, according to the Food Safety Department (VFA), Ministry of Health, in terms of nutrition, banh chung is a comprehensive dish. Accordingly, since ancient times, our people have known how to combine foods together scientifically to create this cake rich in national tradition.

Specifically, banh chung contains all the necessary proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins and minerals in appropriate proportions.

Banh chung is a comprehensive nutritional food that ensures both quality and quantity.

An average banh chung consists of sticky rice (500 g), mung beans (100 g), fatty pork (100 g) and about 5 g of fresh onions.

From here, the nutritional composition of a banh chung will be: Protid 79.55 g, lipid 47.2 g, glucid 427.84 g, mineral salt 7.13 g (calcium 0.233 g, phosphorus 1.025 g, iron 0.016 g...), vitamin A 0.081 mg, vitamin B1 1.68 mg, vitamin B2 0.43 mg, vitamin PP 13.21 mg...

A banh chung also provides the body with about 2,620 calories. Thus, just one banh chung/day is enough for an average worker and is balanced in both quantity and quality.

Consider hygiene issues

In terms of hygiene, VFA assessed that banh chung meets good hygiene standards. The reason is that the cake is wrapped in clean dong leaves and boiled for many hours.

However, the agency also emphasized that these are the advantages of wrapping banh chung and eating it right away during Tet. In fact, many families wrap banh chung and save it until mid-January (Lunar calendar).

If you are unlucky enough to experience humid weather, the banh chung will become spoiled, sour, moldy... Eating these banh chung can also be very dangerous.

Moldy and spoiled Chung cakes left for a long time after Tet can cause many health risks.

In addition, due to its high humidity and rich nutrients, banh chung is a suitable environment for mold to grow. This is also the reason why banh chung is prone to mold if left for a long time.

From the outer layer of leaves, mold grows inside, spreads and spoils the cake. Mold also changes the color and flavor of the cake, reducing or completely losing its nutritional value.

Under the action of amylase in some molds, starch is converted into glucose. Some other enzymes convert glucose into ethyl alcohol, causing the cake to crumble where the mold grows, thereby bringing a spicy, pungent alcohol smell.

Some other mold strains contain yeasts that can ferment glucose and maltose, forming gluconic acid, fumaric acid... making the cake sour.

More worryingly, some types of mold also secrete toxins that are poisonous to humans. The most typical of these are fungi belonging to the Aspergillus and Penicillium families.

Thus, from a delicious, nutritious dish, banh chung can become a food that is harmful to health, leading to the risk of stomachache, diarrhea, and even dangerous poisoning.

From here, VFA advises people to be wary of moldy banh chung products. In case the cakes are heavily moldy, sour, crumbly, bitter… we need to resolutely throw them away.

Meanwhile, with new cakes, only slightly moldy on the outside, people must also cut off the outside, take only the intact part of the cake, and steam or fry it carefully before eating.

According to Zing