Healthy Chinese Food
No one had ever really looked at just how good (or bad) Chinese food is.
So the National Health Institute decided to find out.
They bought dinner-size take-out portions of 15 popular dishes from 20 mid-priced Chinese restaurants in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco.
Then they shipped them to an independent lab to be analyzed for calories, fat, saturated fat, and sodium.
Cholesterol was estimated by weighing the ingredients in each dish. Soup and egg roll aside, what they found would make your chopsticks splinter.
Fat ranged from a respectable 19 grams (Szechuan Shrimp or Stir-Fried vegetables) to an outrageous 76 grams (Kung Pao Chicken).
That's more than you should eat in an entire day, and more than 40 percent of calories. (Most experts recommend a 30-percent limit - I say 20.)
Other than Sweet and Sour Pork, the lowest-sodium dinner (Stir-Fried Vegetables) had over 2,100 mg, about your quota for a day.
The highest-sodium plate (House Lo Mein) clocked in at an incredible 3,460 mg.
On the plus side, the saturated fat was lower than you'll find in most American food.
Only once (Moo Shu Pork) did it hit the ten percent of calories that most experts recommend.
About half the dishes were even below their seven-percent limit.
But many contained at least a day's worth of cholesterol.
Good old Moo Shu Pork had a two-day supply.
With numbers like those, it's a good thing it's easy to turn almost any dish into a healthy one.
It's simple, convenient, and cheap. It's spelled R-I-C-E, and it's the first of. . .
"Three Steps to Healthy Chinese"
Eat just one cup of entree along with one cup of steamed rice and Chinese Food suddenly becomes good for you.
To get that proportion, you'll need at least two orders of rice for every entree.
Step 1. One Cup Entree, One Cup Rice. The more rice you pile on, the more portions you create, and the less fat and sodium each one has.
That's more like the healthy Chinese diet you think you're getting down at your local Hard Wok Cafe.
For example, one of the nastiest dishes is Kung Pao Chicken. A dinner portion without the rice averaged 1,275 calories, 75 grams of fat (13 of them saturated), and more than 2,600 mg of sodium.
That's about a day's worth of fat and sodium crammed into one entree.
But if you add one cup of rice to every cup of Kung Pao and then divide it into two-cup portions (split it with friends, take it to work ... you get the idea), each will have about 653 calories, 23 grams of fat (four of them saturated), and 791 mg of sodium. That's still not great, but it's much better.
Step 2. Say "Steamed Veggies." What makes real Chinese food healthy is not just the rice, but the vegetables.
American Chinese focuses on the chicken and meat.
So order a portion of steamed veggies and add it to your entree.
You'll have more than enough sauce to make it flavorful.
And if you're only ordering one dish, at least make it a vegetable-rich one like Chicken Chow Mein or Shrimp with Garlic Sauce.
Step 3. Do the "Forklift." It's how the Chinese eat.
Use your fork (or chopsticks) to lift the food out of the sauce and on to your big (if you followed Step 1) bowl of rice.
Leave behind the sauce, excess egg and nuts, and anything else you'd rather not eat.
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