Food In China

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Following on from my earlier post about Dr Mike Eades' observations on the Chinese diet during his trip to Hong Kong, here is another couple of posts from Mike and his wife Mary Dan:

Quote

We’ve never traveled in the East before and it has been something we were looking forward to doing, particularly as it involves food and nutrition. One big surprise has been the food. I came expecting rice and noodles and vegetables and not much in the way of protein and boy was I wrong.

I would have to say that rice or noodles have been a side dish, not a main dish, at most of our meals here. And there has been plenty of fish, poultry, beef, and pork…often all four at one meal.

For instance, the day we were in Jiang Men, we were treated to lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant. I was concerned that it would be all rice and dumplings with little tidbits of meat here and there.

The meal began with steamed stuff clams and fish cakes. Followed by a couple of dumplings: Pork Dumplings, Shrimp Dumplings and the food just kept on coming.

Most of the food appeared in plates to be shared, placed on the giant lazy Susan always found in the center of a Chinese dining table. But everybody got his or her own ‘main dish’ which at this lunch was steak.

You’ll notice that there are a few fries artfully arranged (practically into a Chinese character) on the plate. That’s how many came with the steak. There were eight or nine (both lucky numbers in China–eight for wealth and nine for long life) fries about an inch and a half long on the plate. That’s it. Contrast that with the mountain of fries you’d get with a ’steak frite’ in the West.

Then a shared chicken dish that was just yummy…and one of scallops and broccoli……and a shared plate of corn and a purple sweet potato that is a locally grown specialty. I don’t eat much corn (though I love it) so I passed on the corn on the cob, but I tried a little of the purple sweet potato. Its consistency and taste is pretty much just like an orange one, but purple through and through, like a beet.

And finally some little sweets, which I admit to having a taste of, just to try. They were actually quite hard to get into. The outer sticky rice ‘bread’ is soft and cold and really stretchy, a lot like the Ethiopian bread, called Injera, if you’ve ever had that. It was a struggle to get the thing open, but we weren’t alone; the locals struggled a bit, too. Inside was lightly sweet cream and bits of different kinds of fresh fruit, including watermelon.

Quite a feast…and for lunch, no less! Wait until Mike blogs about dinner that night. Sakes alive, what a meal!

Dim Sum…and then some! Mary Dan Eades, M.D.

Quote

The meal we had was spectacular. And pretty low-carb. I kept a photo log of it, which I will lay out below. (We had another good meal earlier in the day that MD posted about moments ago.)

We started with shark fin soup, which I didn’t take a picture of because…I don’t have a good reason. I just didn’t. I guess I didn’t think about taking photos until after the shark fin soup. From there we moved on to a giant prawn and an abalone. Both were delicious, especially the abalone. I don’t know what kind of sauce it was cooked in, but it was savory and out of this world.

Then came a weird dish that was served with plastic gloves. It was a baby dove with head included. You put the gloves on and tore the little bird to pieces and gnawed the bones. And, yes, we ate the head. We didn’t just throw it back and chomp it; we nibbled off the small amount of meat on it . I watched the Chinese so I could follow suit, and that’s what they all did. After picking the bones clean, we all removed our gloves and awaited the next course.

What came then was some sort of seafood salad. And remember, all this food was interspersed by dozens of toasts*.

After the seafood salad came the main course, which was a piece of succulent steak that was extremely tender. It was served with a little pile of fried garlic chips and a stalk of broccoli.

Following the steak, we had a dish of some kind of green vegetable. I never could figure out what exactly it was, but it was very tasty. I asked the woman sitting next to me what it was, but she didn’t know the English word for it. All she could tell me was that it was grown in the area where we were.

Then came a tiny bowl of fried rice. You can see the size of the bowl by comparing it to the spoon next to it and the little glass the bai jiu is served in.

Then we had some sweets, which I admit to eating. Everyone of them. By that time, after all the wine and bai jiu, I would have eaten anything.

And finally we were served a small plate of fruit for the end of the meal.

Earlier in the day that this feast took place, we toured the factory. There were probably at least 400 people working there of all ages. I didn’t see a single obese person - all were thin. You may think that they weren’t obese because they were working hard. You would be wrong. Almost all of them had fairly sedentary jobs. They were sitting doing very little strenuous labor. Mainly just screwing one component on to another as they came down a line.

Chinese feast | The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.

You can read the full posts at the links given beneath each quote (with pics). *He is referring to drinks not grilled bread!

[Dzoldzaya]

If people are still interested in nutrition in China, I can provide lots of info; I've been travelling there for almost four months this year, half of it on a cycling trip.

Breakfast:

Zhou/ porridge- Available in a lot of places, very cheap, sometimes fairly healthy- i.e. beans, various rice varieties, not much added. Sometimes loaded with sugar.

Mantou/ steamed bread- Very cheap, a slightly odd taste. I'm assuming this is riduculously high GI, if you're concerned about that kind of thing, otherwise, it's just flour and water. You can get them with sweet or salty fillings- called Baozi.

Noodles- Again, usually very cheap. Usually souped, you can get them fried. Sometimes there are a few veggies added to the mix, usually some kind of meat juice/ oil and a few bits of pig fat that you can pick out if you're concerned about eating chunks of fat. The muslim communities usually have beef noodles, which are tastier and much saltier than anywhere else.

Eggs- Hard-boiled eggs! Very cheap, if you're looking for protein, these are the best source. I'd recommend avoiding the salted ones, they taste like crap.

Other meals:

Kuaican/fast food- Very cheap, again. You'll get this, with varying degrees of quality, all across China. It's fairly tasty and you can get a good variety of veg. The meat is usually bad cuts of pork, I'd recommend egg/ tofu dishes.
It comes with white rice and a very basic soup.

Fried rice/ noodles- Popular, but I wouldn't advise it. It makes me feel pretty bad.

Jiaozi- Sometimes a breakfast thing, these are steamed, fried or boiled dumplings. The steamed ones are the tastiest but I think they're all pretty unhealthy, pig fat and starch- I try to avoid them.

Cai/ dishes- A 'standard' Chinese meal has a selection of dishes in the middle of the table, and a bowl of rice/ soup each. The dishes vary immensely and, although there's nowhere near as much deep-fried stuff as in Chinese restaurants in the UK, these experiences will be the most interesting and unhealthy you will have. I struggle to control my appetite so I always overate on these occasions- not bad if you're just taking a quick trip but bad for a big travelling spree. When I was there I would order a veg-soup, not cooked for too long, no salt, no oil, with every cai-meal. Don't be afraid to try out the weird specialities though, a few unhealthy meals aren't going to kill you.

Whole foods- Wash everything fruit-wise, I never eat raw vegetables after they made me ill, even after washing them. Peanuts are good, you can get other nuts in certain places, raw grains are available in supermarkets but difficult if you haven't got cooking equipment. I'm sorry to say that, except for these ideas, whole-foods are not that much of an option.

Supermarkets- Everything is loaded with salt, sugar, MSG and oil, I think this is unhealthy, people may disagree, but I tended to avoid most supermarket, packaged stuff. Raisins and Gojis are OK, other dried fruit is all flavoured and tastes like crap, I think most western palates will agree.

Milk- except in farming communities and very big supermarkets in big cities, it's all UHT, semi-skimmed is rare, skimmed is rarer, some of it is sugared, I can't speak for the quality, I drank a couple of cartons most days. Yogurt is similar but almost always sweetened.

Drinks- Alcohol is viciously strong or western. The minority cultures around Yunnan seemed to love it, especially the Tibetans. Tea is great, and often free, every hotel or cheap place to stay offers boiled water, don't drink from the taps!

Overall, China is a really culinarily interesting place to travel, every location has different styles of food, but, as with most countries, if you don't know the language, eating healthily can be a real struggle.

[hailtotheking]

Quote

If people are still interested in nutrition in China, I can provide lots of info; I've been travelling there for almost four months this year, half of it on a cycling trip.

Breakfast:

Zhou/ porridge- Available in a lot of places, very cheap, sometimes fairly healthy- i.e. beans, various rice varieties, not much added. Sometimes loaded with sugar.

Mantou/ steamed bread- Very cheap, a slightly odd taste. I'm assuming this is riduculously high GI, if you're concerned about that kind of thing, otherwise, it's just flour and water. You can get them with sweet or salty fillings- called Baozi.

Noodles- Again, usually very cheap. Usually souped, you can get them fried. Sometimes there are a few veggies added to the mix, usually some kind of meat juice/ oil and a few bits of pig fat that you can pick out if you're concerned about eating chunks of fat. The muslim communities usually have beef noodles, which are tastier and much saltier than anywhere else.

Eggs- Hard-boiled eggs! Very cheap, if you're looking for protein, these are the best source. I'd recommend avoiding the salted ones, they taste like crap.

Other meals:

Kuaican/fast food- Very cheap, again. You'll get this, with varying degrees of quality, all across China. It's fairly tasty and you can get a good variety of veg. The meat is usually bad cuts of pork, I'd recommend egg/ tofu dishes.
It comes with white rice and a very basic soup.

Fried rice/ noodles- Popular, but I wouldn't advise it. It makes me feel pretty bad.

Jiaozi- Sometimes a breakfast thing, these are steamed, fried or boiled dumplings. The steamed ones are the tastiest but I think they're all pretty unhealthy, pig fat and starch- I try to avoid them.

Cai/ dishes- A 'standard' Chinese meal has a selection of dishes in the middle of the table, and a bowl of rice/ soup each. The dishes vary immensely and, although there's nowhere near as much deep-fried stuff as in Chinese restaurants in the UK, these experiences will be the most interesting and unhealthy you will have. I struggle to control my appetite so I always overate on these occasions- not bad if you're just taking a quick trip but bad for a big travelling spree. When I was there I would order a veg-soup, not cooked for too long, no salt, no oil, with every cai-meal. Don't be afraid to try out the weird specialities though, a few unhealthy meals aren't going to kill you.

Whole foods- Wash everything fruit-wise, I never eat raw vegetables after they made me ill, even after washing them. Peanuts are good, you can get other nuts in certain places, raw grains are available in supermarkets but difficult if you haven't got cooking equipment. I'm sorry to say that, except for these ideas, whole-foods are not that much of an option.

Supermarkets- Everything is loaded with salt, sugar, MSG and oil, I think this is unhealthy, people may disagree, but I tended to avoid most supermarket, packaged stuff. Raisins and Gojis are OK, other dried fruit is all flavoured and tastes like crap, I think most western palates will agree.

Milk- except in farming communities and very big supermarkets in big cities, it's all UHT, semi-skimmed is rare, skimmed is rarer, some of it is sugared, I can't speak for the quality, I drank a couple of cartons most days. Yogurt is similar but almost always sweetened.

Drinks- Alcohol is viciously strong or western. The minority cultures around Yunnan seemed to love it, especially the Tibetans. Tea is great, and often free, every hotel or cheap place to stay offers boiled water, don't drink from the taps!

Overall, China is a really culinarily interesting place to travel, every location has different styles of food, but, as with most countries, if you don't know the language, eating healthily can be a real struggle.

Cheers for the info. Judging by this, I dont think i'd thrive well in China - serious lack of quality meat!

[Ryder]

Quote

I have got some pics online of some foodie stuff in China...

Some dude stripping the claws off the chickens feet ready for eating (I didn;t eat any of these)...

100_0694.JPG (image)

Quote

lol he's got a cigarette butt next to his feet

high-5 for hygiene

LMFAO

Sorry I have to ask... was that broom placed there to enhance the comical value of this picture?

Rik

[ryandj2]

Quote

LMFAO

Sorry I have to ask... was that broom placed there to enhance the comical value of this picture?

Rik

Haha no its all real!