Wei Liu: Mooncake from China Contains Over 100 Times of Sugar than That in America Food

                           Wei Liu, U. S. citizen, U. S. veteran, California, October 2025

        In the 2020s, mooncakes from China can be found in major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. Many people enjoy ingredients like egg and meat inside these mooncakes, but such ingredients make them an obvious health risk.

        Mooncakes are stored on shelves at room temperature rather than in refrigerators. In China, it typically takes about ten days for mooncakes to reach stores, while shipping to the United States can take a month or longer. How can eggs or meat inside a mooncake remain unspoiled at room temperature for that long? A typical mooncake from China looks like the one shown in Figure 1 below (Wikimedia Commons, 2025).       

        Food preservatives commonly used in mooncakes include sorbic acid, dehydroacetic acid, and tea polyphenols (Peverille, 2014). Sorbic acid, C₆H₈O₂ has the chemical structure shown in Figure 2 below (drawing by the author).

        Double bonds in an unsaturated acid make the compound more reactive than a saturated acid containing only single bonds. Inside the human stomach, sorbic acid, C₆H₈O₂ can partially dissociate into a weak acid, as shown in the equation below:

            C₆H₈O₂ = C₆H₇O₂^- + H⁺

        Excess acid in the human stomach can cause nausea and vomiting.
Dehydroacetic acid, C₈H₈O₄ has the chemical structure shown in Figure 3 below (drawing by the author).

        Inside the human body, dehydroacetic acid, C₈H₈O₄ can convert into a weak acid, as shown in the equation below:

        C₈H₈O₄ = C₈H₇O₄^- + H⁺

        Once again, too much acid in the stomach can cause nausea and vomiting. Dehydroacetic acid, C₈H₈O₄ is an industrial chemical and bactericide, and swallowing it sounds quite unpleasant to me.

      In addition, manufacturers in China often add extra oil and sugar to mooncakes to prevent spoilage, since sugar absorbs water, and microorganisms need water to grow. The sugar content in mooncakes commonly reaches around 30% by weight.

        In America, it is common to use about 5 grams of sugar in 5,000 grams of food. If the sugar content in mooncakes is 30%. Find how many times higher that is than in American food.

        Solution: Percentage of sugar in American food = sugar / food = 5 / 5000 = 0.001 = 0.1%
                        Percentage of sugar in mooncake from China = 30%
                        Comparison ratio = 30% / 0.1% = 300

        Although the exact numbers may vary in practice, it is safe to say that the percentage of sugar in mooncakes from China is over 100 times greater than that in typical American food.

        Excess sugar leads to high calorie intake, diabetes, and weight gain. Combined with preservatives such as sorbic acid and dehydroacetic acid, both industrial chemicals and bactericides, mooncakes can have harmful effects on the human body. Therefore, I conclude that mooncakes should be avoided.

                                                                     References       

Eat This Much. (2025). Urban Asian Produce Mooncake.

        https://www.eatthismuch.com/calories/mooncake-1956066

Peverille. (2014). What on earth are moon cakes?

        https://chinafoodingredients.com/2014/02/25/what-on-earth-are-moon-cakes/

Wikimedia Commons. (2025). Mooncake.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=mooncake&title=Special%3AMediaSearch&type=image

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