The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released a report titled “Wok Carefully” which pointed out that many Chinese Dishes are fatty and high in sodium. In the report it also gave some suggestions on how to eat Chinese Food healthily. Here, I try to explain further how to eat Chinese Foods healthily based upon their suggestions.

1. Dishes that feature vegetables are recommended. CSPI also recommended avoiding noodles and meat. However, avoid them at all is fairly impossible. Some of the plate like General Tso’s Chicken which heavily in meat usually come with broccoli. You may ask if they can substitute some of the meat with broccoli. If you order noodles, you may better not to order another meat because a plate of noodle should serve enough calories.
2. Order foods which are stir-fried or braised instead of deep-fried. As I mentioned in my other article “Why Chinese Dishes are unhealthy?”, sometime vegetable are lightly fried before boiling in chicken broth then stirring with sauce. I would also recommend asking the chef not to deep fried and boil it in water instead. The broth is somehow fatty to me.
3. Hold the sauce or have it on the side, so you can design how much sauce you need. However, plate like General Tso’s Chicken would taste different if you ask for the sauce on the side. Eat with fork or chopsticks, so the excess sauce would be leave out. Also, I would say not to mix the sauce with your rice, which I think many customers, including me, like to have extra sauce pouring over the rice.
4. Try to limit the use of sauce in package including duck sauce, soy sauce, muster, etc to avoid extra sodium in-take. In Chinese culture, beside some of the foods are designed to use dipping sauce on the side, not to add extra sauce is treated as giving respect to the chef because adding extra sauce change the original recipes which may imply that you are not satisfied with the chef’s recipes. In Japanese culture too, when you eat sushi, you may not add extra Wasabi if the Chef already included Wasabi in the Sushi. However, adding additional sauce to match your preference would not see as disrespect, and many Chinese people as well do not follow that nowadays.
5. CSPI also suggested asking for brown rice instead of white rice. However, as my knowledge many Chinese Restaurants do not offer any Brown Rice. I did a survey with some of the leading Chinese wholesale in Georgia including A A Trading Inc., Ming’s Food Inc., and Grocery Plus, Inc. Some of them claim not selling any Brown Rice, and even those which are selling Brown Rice to Chinese restaurants explained that the rice is not mainly using as retail purpose but to eat by the people working in the Restaurants. The reason given by them was that the order of Brown Rice does not get enough momentum from the customers. Although White Rice does not have some of the nutrition from Brown White, the calories is indifferent between them. On the other hand, fried rice may not be a alternative for you, if you are on diet.

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