Newsflash: Greasy Chinese food is not exactly healthy
March 21st, 2007 by Michael KwanIn related news, the sky is blue when it’s sunny, but grey when it’s raining. We all know that when you partake in Westernized Chinese food like sweet and sour pork, spring rolls, fried rice, chow mein, and egg foo yong, you’re not exactly eating the healthiest food in the world. It’s loaded with sodium, monosodium glutamate (MSG), vegetable oil, and all sorts of other nasty stuff before it gets plunked into the deep fryer and drenched in a sauce that has far too many preservatives and artificial flavourings in it.
But that didn’t stop a nice, respectable news source like the CBC from breaking out a newsflash, reporting that “The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found.” Right, like getting the super sized meal at McDonald’s is any better.
They even tossed in some numbers to scare us:
The battered, fried chicken dish with vegetables has 1,300 calories, 3,200 milligrams of sodium and 11 grams of saturated fat.
That’s before the rice (200 calories a cup). And after the egg rolls (200 calories and 400 milligrams of sodium).
Yes, fast food isn’t good for you. It never has been and it never will be. Even those salads at Wendy’s and McDonald’s aren’t exactly healthy. Neither is eating a footlong at Subway for lunch, especially when you accompany it with double cheese, a bag of chips, and a large soda.
Want to eat healthy? Cook your own food. At least you know what goes in it.
Filed under Food and drink.
Westernized Chinese food is definitely the worst. I used to cook in my family’s restaurant so I know what goes in it
If I get the urge to have it ever, I immediately get the MSG headache, but after I feel like I can solve algebra equations. Those sweet and sour chicken balls make you smaht!
Whenever I eat Chinese, I want to take a crap, a nap and am hungry 2 hours later.
General chicken is where it’s at. As the local restaurant says, “It’s in the smile and secret sauce.” No idea what they mean, but they have had it on the commercials for years…
PS: There is something really wrong with your header graphic in IE. It’s totally shifted left.
It displays fine in FF. This was me trying to act on your recommendation of getting the header graphic to span the top instead of having the spaces on either side. Any suggestions what I could try?
Edit: I fiddled around and I think it shows up fine now in both IE and FF.
Good stuff! Now make me subscribe to your comments!
I have also heared that Chinese food id not really healthy, actually In our place Chinese food contains lotta Aginomoto and China-grass which causes many diseases
This is so funny! Stuff like this make me wonder at the concept of group mind. I just wrote a post on how to Americanize any foreign dish!
I also saw the Yahoo article on how unhealthy restaurant Chinese food is.
I am not sure why this is a newsflash, though. It’s not difficult to determine that deep fried is bad for you no matter what cuisine. Chinese food may have lots of vegetables but vegetables swimming in grease and sodium is pretty obvious even if the oil is peanut and sodium is soy or oyster sauce.
I love sweet and sour pork! Who doesn’t?
[...] of my people, Michael Kwan takes on the subject of Greasy Chinese Food. In particular, he covers the westernized versions of Chinese cuisine that are just as bad, if not [...]
I’m in China right now, and must say that the authentic food you find here is no better, and often worse in terms of greasiness and fat content. If you order a meat dish, the “meat” will be 95% fat, and will certainly be swimming in oil. To make things worse, most of the food here is absolutely disgusting. I’d give anything to eat in an American Chinese place right now. It’s really ridiculous how arrogant the people here are when it comes to the health of their food, always bragging about how nutritious it is, etc.