Who wants Chinese takeaways tonight?
After all, it’s healthier than other takeaways because its Chinese food and Chinese people are healthier and slimmer than the rest of the world.
Boing! Wrong!
Contrary to popular belief, the Asian diet us naïve westerners consider a healthier fast food option doesn’t even remotely resemble any of the food the long living people of rural China eat.
In fact, Chinese food may be one of the worst fast food options in terms of health and weight loss. And it’s the most popular fast-food choice in America.
We somehow think that the Asian diet is the same wherever it is served. But as Safefood puts it:
“Traditional Asian diets are low in fat and high in fruit, vegetables and fibre. However, these traditional meals have been adapted to suit Western palates and, in doing so, different ingredients in different quantities are added, possibly increasing their fat and salt content.”
One adjustment to this statement. But before we go there, have you ever noticed that the more Chinese fast-food you eat, the more you want? I suppose the same can be said of any fast-food, but for me personally, every time I ate Chinese takeaways, I could never figure out why it never satisfied and left me feeling hungrier than when I began.
Well, I finally figured it out. It’s because the Chinese food we eat in America consists of an increased amount of sugar, fat and salt while the taste is enhanced by MSG. It is this which spins your taste buds out of control.
The healthy Asian diet version
In the most comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted, it was found that the typical Asian diet contained 30% more calories than the typical American diet.
What’s noteworthy about that, is that while China has no obesity problem, America does.
The reason why China’s people get away with eating more calories is the type of food they eat, and the amount of exercise the rural population gets in their everyday lives.
The traditional Asian diet is completely unlike the Chinese takeaways we drool over.
Chinese Holistic Health Exercises reports that unlike Choo Chong’s takeaways around the corner, the real Asian diet is bland, and consists of:
- Veggies
- Fruits
- Rice
- Noodles (not the mass produced variety we know)
- A limited amount of meat
No copious amounts of oil is used for frying. No sugar. No dairy. Just a little garlic, ginger and chili.
Hm. Wonder who’s up for Chinese food now?
What gets added to Choo Chong’s Takeaways to make it all more palatable for our spoilt westernized taste buds is at the root cause of the problem.
Bad stuff that gets added to Chinese takeaways
BHA
BHA’s one use is as a food preservative to reduce how fast fats become rancid. Studies indicate that it may damage the body’s circulatory system.
BHA has been cancer-forming in rats, hamsters and mice.
MSG
MSG is used to boost the meaty, savory flavor of food and is common in the use of Korean, Japanese and Chinese food takeaways.
MSG is cheap and loved by the food industry who uses it to mask poor quality food and is the culprit for overeating.
The trick of MSG is that when it lands on your tongue, you are tricked into thinking that the food tastes better than it does. Clever.
Not only does it deceive your taste buds, it also whips your cells into a frenzy because it’s an excitotoxin.
Cancer-forming oils
All cheap oils you buy in supermarkets are extremely bad for your health, because of the high temperatures they’ve endured which change their
chemical structure. Even quality oils – with the exception of coconut oil and palm fruit oil – become carcinogenic when heated above a certain temperature.
No takeaway establishment is going to care enough about your health to use the right kind of oil to prepare your fast-food order. Except it they tout themselves as a health spot.
High fructose corn syrup
Most sauces used in Chinese food contain high fructose corn syrup. Both sugar and high fructose corn syrup can result in the top killer diseases as well as increased appetite and weight gain.
In summary
The Chinese food we know does not mirror the healthy traditional Asian diet which keeps its people healthy and strong, even up to old age. Now that you know the truth, choose an apple instead of Choo Chong’s Takeaways down the road.
Or opt for the chopsticks.