Mooncake Mania

With the Mid-Autumn Festival a month away, television is rife with advertisements for mooncakes.

Two companies dominate the marketing frenzy: Maxim's and Wing Wah.

Wing Wah's style leans toward the warm and fuzzy, while Maxim's prefers to harp on product quality.

Neither mentions the ease with which mooncakes help one pack on pounds.

Depending on the filling, a single cake can vary between 250 to 800 calories. Most contain the basic ingredients for rapid weight gain: starchy carbohydrates, sugar and fat. Sugar constitutes between 40% to 60% of a cake's weight.

The worst bulge-inducing mooncakes include those containing roast pork, fatty meats and oily fillings. Some bakeries offer low-fat versions, but most people will declare they don't taste as good as those made with traditional recipes.

Most people cut mooncakes into quarters to share, but some eat the whole thing. My arteries clog at the thought, but it's not much different than scarfing that 590-calorie Big Mac.

Once the Mid-Autumn Festival concludes, expect advertising to be dominated by weight-loss clinics.

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