A villager cooks festive sweet dumplings known as "tangyuan" in Zhuji, east China's Zhejiang Province, Jan. 31, 2024. (Photo by Guo Bin/Xinhua)

In Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, the bustling Chinese Lantern Festival market features a new taste in 2025: low-sugar, low-calorie tangyuan, or glutinous rice dumplings.

The festival, which falls on the fifteenth day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, marks the end of Chinese New Year celebrations and symbolizes the coming of spring. This year, the Lantern Festival falls on Feb. 12.

On Tuesday, the day before the festival, in the Shengjing Supermarket in Shenyang's Hunnan District, the section containing tangyuan was packed with shoppers. This year, alongside the traditional tangyuan, there are also low-sugar, low-calorie versions of these dumplings, which are proving popular and selling quickly in this supermarket.

According to sales staff, these healthy tangyuan, with fillings such as sugar-free black sesame and wraps made from whole grains, are outselling their high-sugar counterparts.

"After indulging in rich foods during the Spring Festival, I wanted something lighter for the Lantern Festival," said Wang Xiao, a local resident shopping for tangyuan. "These sugar-free ones taste great and let me enjoy the festival without worrying about the calories."

This trend is not limited to physical stores. Online platforms are also seeing a surge in sales of low-calorie tangyuan.

Time-honored brands like Shen Dacheng from Shanghai have introduced sugar-free versions of classic fillings such as black sesame, shepherd's purse and tangerine peel red bean paste. Many brands have also experimented with healthier wraps made from buckwheat and konjac, further reducing calorie content.

Industry insiders believe that the success of these low-calorie tangyuan lies in both product innovation and a deep understanding of consumer needs. Today's consumers are paying more attention to the health benefits of what they eat. This shift not only reflects a growing interest in health, but also injects new vitality into the traditional food industry.

Beyond health benefits, many brands have also innovated in terms of taste and appearance, giving tangyuan both a traditional and a new cultural touch. Sanquan Food has launched tangyuan with fillings like yam and Poria mushroom, which are often used in traditional Chinese medicine. Meanwhile, brands are competing to create visually appealing shapes like auspicious persimmons and golden ingots, which have also become hot topics on social media platforms.

"Tangyuan's evolution to low-sugar and low-calorie versions aligns with the rise of "China chic," said Ping Jian, a professor from the Liaoning Provincial Party School. "In the future, with the deepening of consumption upgrades, such products are likely to stand out in more niche markets."