Just curious....if you didn't have access to Asian food, what would you both eat? "American" food? Italian? French? Just wondering if you both prefer lower salt and fat food in general. I love Asian food while I'm in Asia - for a while. After about 2 weeks, I need a fix of American or European food. And similarly, when I'm stateside I need my Asian or Mexican or French fix.
Indian tends to be our "go to" cuisine in a lot of countries. But I think our ideal diet is a mix of lots of things, from Indian to Italian to Mexican to Middle Eastern.
We eat a lot of vegetarian meals that I make at home: tofu, beans, pasta. I used to make a killer pizza but I no longer have access to my yeast and pizza pans. And yeah, it's pretty low fat.
When I moved to Thailand in 1996, people were talking about the changing diet and how diabetes and heart disease were on the rise. I love the food and ate it three times a day until I hit a wall and needed a hamburger. I have a maid who would sometimes cook for me and she used skim milk to cut the coconut milk in dishes. Food was still very taste but less fat. But oh, those deep fried battered small bananas.
I'm in Osaka now also, and I found myself wondering if the reason Japanese live so long is because of all the walking and stairs, not the food.
But I find myself eating very well in Japan. Seems like quality ingredients and less processed. And you can live very well just eating western food in Japan.
In China, when I wanted to eat something healthy, I'd go to McDonald's. That's how salty their regular food was. Wake up in the middle of the night parched. But it tasted soooo good.
So glad you shared this, as history shows it didn't used to be this way. While taking nutrition courses at Cornell, we had to read The China Study. As much as I didn't want to, I'm forever grateful that I did.
Great piece! This reminded me of how shocked I was when I first started living in Singapore about the dichotomy between what i thought was Asian food and what actually was! At the time, I also found there were not nearly enough vegetables provided when eating out and the portions were also relatively small at the Singaporean hawker centers, resulting in me having to go for seconds nearly every meal. Having said that, I'm still grateful to this day for how that experienced greatly increased my tolerance for spicy food.
Yeah, the lack of vegetables can be a bit frustrating here in Japan. Which is why we make a point at least once a week to do a stir fry of just veggies. But I'm still working on my spice tolerance!
I’m now wondering whether this could apply elsewhere, like India, for example. Have you traveled in India (I have not)? If so, how did you like the region’s food?
I also thought of my mom’s long-ago trip to China (where she ran into Jessie Ventura while checking out a part of The Great Wall 😳) where she talked about how she experienced being served warm milk and warm fruit juice throughout her stay. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. 😃
Could not agree more with this! We also love Asian food and cook it ourselves every week. Also we love Australian Asian restaurants - particularly Vietnamese, but when we were in Vietnam it was very different. The amount of msg in all dishes was incredible and we had bad reactions to so much of it. Probably the best Asian food we experienced was in Thailand, but after 3 months we were more than happy to have some change. The joys of travel!
Hard agree about Thailand having the best Asian food -- well, at least for us! But also, after three months, was happy to go somewhere else to eat something else.
LOL! As an Asian, I feel the need to say that we don't eat all the things you mentioned everyday. Same as Indians who don't eat that heavy curry that is widespread in international Indian restaurants. But yes, I've noticed Westerners are squeemish about their meat like they don't know what the animall it comes from looks lik😄 so bones, feet, wings, etc are present.
Hi Yazi, Thanks for taking the time to read the article. Just to clarify, I do note that Asians don't eat the same way as we describe here. I also noted that we end up eating this way since we don't have a kitchen. As for being squeamish, yeah, I don't love chicken heads in my food but having shopped in a lot of wet markets, I can promise you I know exactly where our meat comes from! LOL LOL My objection to the bones in the chicken is solely that it's a drag trying to eat around the bone with chopsticks.
I think you are experiencing this because you are primarily exposed to restaurant food. Home cooked Asian food, at least at homes I’ve eaten in in China and Japan, is healthy and vegetable-based. If the food were as unhealthy as your descriptions imply, I would assume there would be signs in the populations, such as obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc. But it seems that Asians can’t yet compete with Americans for lifestyle diseases. Perhaps that day is coming.
Sadly, Malaysia, Thailand, and other Asian countries are seeing rapid rises in obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Japan instituted some governmental charges to combat this and it worked to an extent. But even here, it's something ofa struggle, especially because so many younger people are getting meals at convenience stores.
I think as nations prosper, special "holiday" food becomes the norm available in restaurants/food stalls, and that just isn't healthy! I think that is leading to obesity and widespread diabetes and heart disease throughout the world. Sure, Asian food was "healthy and the people stay thin"-- when they mainly ate a few tiny bowls of rice with dried fish and vegetables, and maybe tofu and some clear broth! That certainly isn't the case nowadays. Bubble Tea, croissants, french fries, KFC (and Korean Fried Chicken), Tempura, coconut curries, butter chicken, spicy sweet mayo sauce on sushi-- they are delicious, rich, and often sweetened. Thai food uses even more sugar than before, Chinese food becomes lard-ier, because they CAN. It certainly doesn't mean you have to eat it either. It's certainly a balance.
We live in Bangkok, and getting older means we need to eat less, and better-- that means brown rice and whole grains and plenty of vegetables, tofu, chicken breast, fruits, and salad...maybe 85% of the time. Our "Longevity Check Up" we had at a local hospital reminded us that yep, we need to eat more veggies and skip anything buttery, oily, and fried, and sweet. UGH.
As for the rest, I also don't like durian, stinky tofu, century eggs, and I am Chinese-American!
Some things you just have to grow up with-- chicken and fish chopped up with bones are a pain (and sometimes dangerous), but just the way we ate-- with chopsticks, and spitting out the bones. The gelatine-like textures of tendon, or chewy tripe (quite good, btw), or smooth cooked pork blood (doesn't taste like anything besides broth, at least in Thai soups) are something you learn to actually crave after awhile, ha-ha.
Just like there is a huge variety of the types of "American" food, good and bad, there's the same in China and Asia. It's just a matter of preference. I hate cilantro, mustard greens, liver, raw fish-- my husband hates brussels sprouts and cream cheese-- in his sushi, ha-ha!
Just curious....if you didn't have access to Asian food, what would you both eat? "American" food? Italian? French? Just wondering if you both prefer lower salt and fat food in general. I love Asian food while I'm in Asia - for a while. After about 2 weeks, I need a fix of American or European food. And similarly, when I'm stateside I need my Asian or Mexican or French fix.
Indian tends to be our "go to" cuisine in a lot of countries. But I think our ideal diet is a mix of lots of things, from Indian to Italian to Mexican to Middle Eastern.
We eat a lot of vegetarian meals that I make at home: tofu, beans, pasta. I used to make a killer pizza but I no longer have access to my yeast and pizza pans. And yeah, it's pretty low fat.
Love this article
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
When I moved to Thailand in 1996, people were talking about the changing diet and how diabetes and heart disease were on the rise. I love the food and ate it three times a day until I hit a wall and needed a hamburger. I have a maid who would sometimes cook for me and she used skim milk to cut the coconut milk in dishes. Food was still very taste but less fat. But oh, those deep fried battered small bananas.
Oh yeah, there's a lot that's delicious -- until it kills you at least!
I'm in Osaka now also, and I found myself wondering if the reason Japanese live so long is because of all the walking and stairs, not the food.
But I find myself eating very well in Japan. Seems like quality ingredients and less processed. And you can live very well just eating western food in Japan.
In China, when I wanted to eat something healthy, I'd go to McDonald's. That's how salty their regular food was. Wake up in the middle of the night parched. But it tasted soooo good.
And all the bike riding. We've had some good Italian here, but our go to healthier cuisine is a local Nepalese restaurant.
So glad you shared this, as history shows it didn't used to be this way. While taking nutrition courses at Cornell, we had to read The China Study. As much as I didn't want to, I'm forever grateful that I did.
I can imagine food was very different years ago. Certainly less sugar! I wonder how much pork they used to eat in China and Thailand?
Great piece! This reminded me of how shocked I was when I first started living in Singapore about the dichotomy between what i thought was Asian food and what actually was! At the time, I also found there were not nearly enough vegetables provided when eating out and the portions were also relatively small at the Singaporean hawker centers, resulting in me having to go for seconds nearly every meal. Having said that, I'm still grateful to this day for how that experienced greatly increased my tolerance for spicy food.
Yeah, the lack of vegetables can be a bit frustrating here in Japan. Which is why we make a point at least once a week to do a stir fry of just veggies. But I'm still working on my spice tolerance!
So interesting!
I’m now wondering whether this could apply elsewhere, like India, for example. Have you traveled in India (I have not)? If so, how did you like the region’s food?
I also thought of my mom’s long-ago trip to China (where she ran into Jessie Ventura while checking out a part of The Great Wall 😳) where she talked about how she experienced being served warm milk and warm fruit juice throughout her stay. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. 😃
Great post!!
Haven't been to India yet, so can't say. But I will admit in some small towns Italy, pizza and pasta got old. But never gelato! NEVER!
(Totally agree!)
Could not agree more with this! We also love Asian food and cook it ourselves every week. Also we love Australian Asian restaurants - particularly Vietnamese, but when we were in Vietnam it was very different. The amount of msg in all dishes was incredible and we had bad reactions to so much of it. Probably the best Asian food we experienced was in Thailand, but after 3 months we were more than happy to have some change. The joys of travel!
Hard agree about Thailand having the best Asian food -- well, at least for us! But also, after three months, was happy to go somewhere else to eat something else.
LOL! As an Asian, I feel the need to say that we don't eat all the things you mentioned everyday. Same as Indians who don't eat that heavy curry that is widespread in international Indian restaurants. But yes, I've noticed Westerners are squeemish about their meat like they don't know what the animall it comes from looks lik😄 so bones, feet, wings, etc are present.
Hi Yazi, Thanks for taking the time to read the article. Just to clarify, I do note that Asians don't eat the same way as we describe here. I also noted that we end up eating this way since we don't have a kitchen. As for being squeamish, yeah, I don't love chicken heads in my food but having shopped in a lot of wet markets, I can promise you I know exactly where our meat comes from! LOL LOL My objection to the bones in the chicken is solely that it's a drag trying to eat around the bone with chopsticks.
LOL! Cultural differences. I think you should try fish intestine soup someday😄 It's nourishing in winter.
Hey, I'll try almost anything once. Have had durian, stinky food, century eggs, and fried insects. Mmmm, crunchy!
I needed to read this. I’m heading to Malaysia next month and am a little obsessed over eating healthy. Sounds like I may be hungry when I get home.
I think you are experiencing this because you are primarily exposed to restaurant food. Home cooked Asian food, at least at homes I’ve eaten in in China and Japan, is healthy and vegetable-based. If the food were as unhealthy as your descriptions imply, I would assume there would be signs in the populations, such as obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc. But it seems that Asians can’t yet compete with Americans for lifestyle diseases. Perhaps that day is coming.
Sadly, Malaysia, Thailand, and other Asian countries are seeing rapid rises in obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Japan instituted some governmental charges to combat this and it worked to an extent. But even here, it's something ofa struggle, especially because so many younger people are getting meals at convenience stores.
I think as nations prosper, special "holiday" food becomes the norm available in restaurants/food stalls, and that just isn't healthy! I think that is leading to obesity and widespread diabetes and heart disease throughout the world. Sure, Asian food was "healthy and the people stay thin"-- when they mainly ate a few tiny bowls of rice with dried fish and vegetables, and maybe tofu and some clear broth! That certainly isn't the case nowadays. Bubble Tea, croissants, french fries, KFC (and Korean Fried Chicken), Tempura, coconut curries, butter chicken, spicy sweet mayo sauce on sushi-- they are delicious, rich, and often sweetened. Thai food uses even more sugar than before, Chinese food becomes lard-ier, because they CAN. It certainly doesn't mean you have to eat it either. It's certainly a balance.
We live in Bangkok, and getting older means we need to eat less, and better-- that means brown rice and whole grains and plenty of vegetables, tofu, chicken breast, fruits, and salad...maybe 85% of the time. Our "Longevity Check Up" we had at a local hospital reminded us that yep, we need to eat more veggies and skip anything buttery, oily, and fried, and sweet. UGH.
As for the rest, I also don't like durian, stinky tofu, century eggs, and I am Chinese-American!
Some things you just have to grow up with-- chicken and fish chopped up with bones are a pain (and sometimes dangerous), but just the way we ate-- with chopsticks, and spitting out the bones. The gelatine-like textures of tendon, or chewy tripe (quite good, btw), or smooth cooked pork blood (doesn't taste like anything besides broth, at least in Thai soups) are something you learn to actually crave after awhile, ha-ha.
Just like there is a huge variety of the types of "American" food, good and bad, there's the same in China and Asia. It's just a matter of preference. I hate cilantro, mustard greens, liver, raw fish-- my husband hates brussels sprouts and cream cheese-- in his sushi, ha-ha!