Discover the Truth: Is Chinese Food a Healthy Nutritional Choice?

When craving takeout, Chinese cuisine often emerges as a popular choice. The good news is that healthier options abound, allowing you to indulge without compromising your nutritional goals. Often, the issue isn't the food, but the ratio of carbs to protein and veggies. Consuming excessive carbohydrates, especially refined ones like processed noodles, compared to protein and vegetables, can lead to blood sugar and energy crashes. This article explores healthy Chinese food dishes, offering tips for navigating menus for nutritious choices.

Understanding the Traditional Chinese Diet (TCD)

The Chinese diet is gradually Westernized, marked by reduced consumption of vegetables and whole grains, and increased intake of refined grains, red meat, and unhealthy fats, contributing to rising noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in China. Promoting the TCD could be an important public health measure. However, diverse eating habits and cultural traditions across Chinese regions, coupled with changes in food habits and culture over time, lead to various definitions of the TCD, challenging the establishment of associations between TCD and health outcomes. A systematic review aimed to assess how the TCD is defined in existing literature and evaluate its association with health outcomes, revealing that rice and leafy vegetables are consistently reported as food groups that characterize the TCD. The most frequently cited food items are white rice, spinach, bok choy, and cabbage. Fish, seafood, pork, and pork products are consistently reported in studies referring to the TCD consumed in southern China, whereas wheat and wheat products are commonly reported in studies focusing on northern China.

Key Components of a Healthy Chinese Meal

A typical Chinese meal consists of rice, soup, and three to four side dishes made with seasonal vegetables, fresh seafood, or bite-sized portions of meat or poultry. Chinese cooking emphasizes fresh ingredients and flavorful herbs and spices, benefiting digestive health. Ginger, a common ingredient, alleviates nausea and indigestion. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that a well-balanced diet is essential for maintaining optimal digestion and overall health.

Best and Worst Chinese Food Choices

When it comes to healthy choices, the appetizer selection at many Chinese restaurants is mostly a flop because it's packed with fried items. One bright spot: Spring rolls. They're a healthier alternative to egg rolls because they're usually made with a light rice paper wrapper and more veggies. Share the order of spring rolls with your dining companions so you have more room for the healthier entrees, or save half and pack them up with the rest of your leftovers.

Best Choices

Soups: Wonton, egg drop, or hot and sour soup are typically low in calories and filling.
Stir-fries: Pair lean protein with fiber-rich vegetables, but request half the sauce or have it served on the side.
Kung Pao Chicken: A spicy entree with chili peppers, diced chicken, and veggies.
Buddha’s Delight: An assortment of vegetables and protein-rich tofu stir-fried in a light sauce.
Chop Suey: A classic dish with cabbage, water chestnuts, and bean sprouts served with lean meat and brown rice.
Vegetable Dumplings: Opt for steamed dumplings with chili sauce instead of soy sauce to cut back on sodium.
Cucumber Salad: Sliced cucumbers tossed in a dressing made with vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and chili flakes offer a flavorful way of promoting hydration, digestive health and immune function.
Moo Goo Gai Pan: This Cantonese dish has it all. While its name translates to mushrooms and sliced chicken, you'll also score a variety of other beyond-the-basics veggies, like water chestnuts, snow peas and bamboo shoots. The sauce is also "lighter than many others in Chinese cuisine because it's made from chicken broth, a little soy sauce, garlic and ginger.
Steamed Fish and Vegetables: Choosing a steamed dish is more traditional than choosing General Tso's Chicken. Takeout menus tend to offer a mild-tasting variety of protein-rich white fish, such as sole, and it's paired with mixed vegetables. The veggies add fiber, a key nutrient for digestion and heart health. If you can add Chinese eggplant as a veggie, go for it. It has fewer seeds than Western varieties and it supplies fiber and anthocyanins (powerful antioxidants).
Szechuan Tofu: Crispy tofu cubes deliver plant-based protein while the sauce is made from anti-inflammatory ingredients such as garlic, ginger and chili peppers. At many restaurants, you can even specify the level of spice you'd prefer (if you can handle the heat, kick it up to get even more of the anti-inflammatory capsein from the chilis).
Shrimp with Broccoli in Garlic Sauce: Low in calories but high in lean protein, shrimp supplies a boatload of immune-supporting selenium. Meanwhile, broccoli contributes fiber and contains compounds that may help fight inflammation and even some cancers.
Chicken with Bok Choy: Thin, tender pieces of protein-rich lean chicken breast are paired with sauteed bok choy, a green leafy veggie also known as Chinese cabbage that delivers vitamins C and A.

Worst Choices

Egg Rolls: Wrapped in dough and deep-fried, they are high in calories and fat.
Crab Rangoon: Mostly cream cheese, wrapped in dough and deep-fried.
General Tso’s Chicken: Breaded, fried chicken smothered in sugary sauce.
Barbecue Spare Ribs: High in fat, sodium, and sugar.
Fried Rice: High in calories, fat, and sodium with little fiber.
Sweet and Sour Pork: Deep-fried pork with a high sugar content.
Orange Beef: Fatty beef, fried in oil, and doused with sugary sauce.
Lo Mein: Noodles made from white flour, cooked with oil and soy sauce, resulting in high carbohydrate, fat, and sodium content.

Making Healthier Choices

Vegetables: Opt for sides or entrees that are vegetable-dense, such as steamed or lightly stir-fried vegetables, soups, lettuce wraps, or salads. You can also ask the restaurant to add extra vegetables to your entrée. Vegetables are high in fiber and nutrients, which can help you feel satisfied and meet your nutritional needs.
Lean Proteins: Select menu items that provide lean proteins, such as chicken, tofu, egg, and shrimp. Lean proteins are lower in fat and calories and can help you feel full. Be mindful of the cooking methods because deep-frying or stir-frying adds a significant amount of fat.
Whole Grains: Include whole grains when possible, such as brown rice. If you prefer white rice, choosing steamed over fried rice is another swap that reduces calories and fat.
Menu Modifications: Reduce the salt, sugar, and fat content of the meal by making modifications like choosing steamed, baked, or boiled cooking methods instead of deep-fried or stir-fried. Ask for the sauce on the side and avoid adding extra soy sauce once your meal is served. Avoid sugary sauces, such as orange sauce or sweet and sour sauce.
Healthy Chinese food sauces: Lighter sauces like garlic sauce, ginger scallion sauce or white sauce tend to be lower in added sugars and fat compared to sticky sauces like sweet and sour or General Tso’s. Black bean sauce and oyster sauce are other options.
Healthy Chinese food sides: Steamed or stir-fried vegetables like bok choy, broccoli or snow peas are often available. Cucumber salad is another great option.

The Importance of Balance: Yin and Yang

Chinese culture believes there is a positive energy and a negative energy in the universe. “Yin” represents negative energy and “yang” represents positive energy. They have to be equally balanced to create a harmonious and healthy state, otherwise, conflict and disease will be created. There are elements that belong to both “yin” and ” yang,” meaning some elements of yin fall within yang and some elements of yang fall within yin. This importance of balancing forces has been a part of Chinese thought for thousands of years.

Read also: Exploring Chinese Dishes

Foods belonging to the yin (also known as “cold” food) are bitter melon, winter melon, Chinese green, mustard green, water crest, Napa cabbage, bean sprout, soybean, mung bean, tulip, water chestnut, cilantro, oranges, watermelon, bananas, coconut, cucumber, beer, pop, ice cream, ice chips, grass jelly, clams, and oysters. Foods that belong to the yang (also known as “hot” food) are chili pepper, garlic, onion, curry, cabbage, eggplant, toro, pineapple, mango, cherry, peanuts, beef, turkey, shrimp, crab, French fries, fried chicken, and pizza.

Chinese Food and Sodium

Sauces used in Chinese dishes tend to be high in sodium, but this isn't unique to Chinese food - most restaurant meals, regardless of cuisine, are sodium-heavy. The key is to be mindful of your sodium intake across the day, so if you’re eating a meal out, try balancing it with lower-sodium choices at your other meals and snacks. Adding a little lemon juice or vinegar allows you to use less soy sauce without sacrificing flavor. Chili peppers, another classic ingredient in Chinese cooking, may also offer health benefits. Capsaicin, the chemical responsible for the spicy-hot flavor in chili peppers, may alter how the brain processes salty flavors, leading to lower sodium intake.

MSG: Understanding the Controversy

MSG or monosodium glutamate is added to some Chinese foods to enhance the flavor, but it's got a bad rap. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about MSG. While some people believe they’re sensitive to it, scientific research hasn’t found consistent evidence linking MSG to serious health issues in the general population. It’s actually a compound that occurs naturally in foods like tomatoes, mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese, and it’s generally recognized as safe by the FDA. Unless you think you are particularly sensitive to MSG, there's no reason to go out of your way to avoid it.

Read also: Guide to Healthy Chinese Food

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