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I lived in mainland China for over 4 years. I lost weight switching from a typical American diet to Chinese one. I don't claim to know the cause, but the standa
by slacka 8y ago
I lived in mainland China for over 4 years. I lost weight switching from a typical American diet to Chinese one. I don't claim to know the cause, but the standard drink with meals was unsweetened tea, not soda. Yes, the meals were carb heavy, but these carbs were primarily vegetables. Rice was always served at the end, only to fill up, if you were still hungry.
From the hundreds of local restaurants to Foxconn's cafeteria, I am sure of a few things. Compared to Americans, they eat a higher percent of vegetables and fat and less meat. For example ordering a pork dish, might actually be chunks of pork fat that Americans would never eat.
As far as sweet foods, I only observed that when I was in Shanghai. Most Chinese do not like main courses to be sweetened.
- sn41 8y agoIs the food oily? I am more or less a vegetarian, and have always wondered why Chinese food is seemingly able to hold down obesity as compared to Indian food (I'm Indian) - well, modern Indian food at least. I am not sure whether the traditional Indian food of 70-80 years ago was as oily, fatty and unhealthy as today's fare.
- GordonS 8y agoSomething I've observed in India is that (probably due to industry meddling), there have been campaigns to get people to switch from ghee to vegetable and palm oils, saying that ghee is unhealthy. At the same time, obesity and diabetes rates have rocketed. Of course, this is the only cause, but we had similar campaigns in the west against butter and lard, steering people towards vegetable oil.
- temporoei 8y agoOne thing I noticed when I was in India, is that local curry has a lot of butter in it. Much more than I ever expected. It tasted delicious, but has its health costs.
- slacka 8y agoYes, every vegetable dish was drenched in an oily sauce. That one of my first observations and it held true in many different provinces.
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y agoI lived in Singapore for two months, eating mostly Malay, Hokkien, Chinese and Thai food. I ate lots and lots of noodles, because I love them, and quite a lot of rice. I really didn't control myself when eating as I do at home in Europe. And the result was that I lost a lot of weight. Since then, I observed that I don't really get fat on pasta or rice. Eating lots of meat seems to be much worse for my body, and also sweets and sugar, but not carbs from pasta or rice. People tell me that one shouldn't eat pasta for dinner, that now carbs are bad, fat is the way to go, etc... and I shrug. It doesn't work that way for me.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoAny Chengdu xiaochi in Beijing is pretty unhealthy. Kung pao chicken has a ton of sugar in it beside the vinegar. Those aren’t for tourists, also. And let’s not even start with hotpot.