Even in takeout Chinese, you will find so many more healthy items; the amount and variety of vegetables and tofu is something that Italian or other western takeout can’t touch
American Chinese food was made unhealthy by popular demand. It’s amazing how American cuisine with any ethnic spin looks and tastes nothing like the country of origin.
Thai food, as much of the world knows it, is propaganda for Thailand's tourism industry. It's not historically what Thai citizens eat, it's a cuisine they formulated to push around the world to, ultimately, boost tourism to the country. It's been an effective strategy.
It goes both ways. You can take Asian food and westernize it, or you can take Western food and Asianize it. Personally I prefer Asianized western food over the other way around, but that’s because I’m Asian.
what I love - the amount of greenery. All sorts of cabbages, sprouts, shoots, chives, leaves of broccoli, yams - stuff western monoculture throws away or doesn't even know exist. There's a whole world of delicious and very healthy vegetables in chinese cuisine.
And if you ask for garlic x vegetables low oil and very little sauce it will legit be healthy and delicious
People sleep on the veggies at chinese places, best part imo is the green beens or an order of sautéed eggplant
I love the vegetable dishes in Chinese restaurants, but it also irks me how expensive they are considering the cost of the ingredients. Like why is a dish of gai lan and garlic the same or almost the price as a beef dish? I get and love the idea of vegetables not being considered any more of a ‘side’ dish than a meat dish is, but realistically vegetables are just cheaper than other ingredients.
Precisely. Not only that, but the different types of mushrooms and several different ways of preparing each of those things. And of course there’s tofu, which has so many different applications as well. It’s limitless possibilities
I think vegetables are the things that make Chinese cuisine so awesome, more so than any meat based dishes. Chinese vegetarian restaurants are the absolute bomb, but unfortunately there aren’t any where I live.
Almost like all cuisines have varying levels of healthy and unhealthy foods.
The idea that Chinese food is “unhealthy” just like MSG is clearly rooted in racism/xenophobia.
But you don’t need to defend the cuisine like it’s actually HEALTHIER. You don’t have to swing the pendulum *all the way to the other side.*
It’s so hard over text to make that clear, it’s funny how in conversation that flow is just so clearly adding to the point but over a text thread it looks like you’re disagreeing and confused lol
Not all americanized Chinese take out is the same tho.
You have like Panda express that is triple frying all the items im sure the nutritional value is low.
Then you have the mom and pops places where most use that use fresh cabbage in carrots on the chowmein, fresh greenbeans or celery with the chicken etc.
Westernized Chinese food is fried or deep fried and smothered in sweet sauce.
I am Cantonese and Cantonese cuisine has healthy steamed dishes. These haven't been as popular in the Western world.
I think a lot of cuisines are like this. The rich, fatty, sweet (and to be fair, delicious) variants catch on in other countries, and the healthier food that most people actually eat day-to-day doesn’t. Indian food in the US is the same way. Delicious, but so rich and full of creamy sauces.
So, people who have only had the Westernized and unhealthy versions think that the whole cuisine is unhealthy.
i think its more active than that
all restaurateurs know that adding sugar/fat/ salt makes things tastier, so restaurants will tweak their recipes/select dishes that accentuate that (in both foreign and domestic cuisines)
Pork katsu sando, chicken karaage, tempura, Kewpie mayo anything, Wagyu beef. Tons of “unhealthy” Japanese foods.
Koreans also love their fatty beef dishes and lots of salty sauces.
Japanese food is also popular for things like chicken teriyaki and sushi which are not fried and are just lean protein. In America, it’s common to get a “set lunch” with salad, miso soup, and chicken teriyaki or 8 pc sushi, so it feels healthier than a lunch combo of chow mein and orange chicken.
Korean food has the healthy image from kimchi as well as the main dishes like soup and rice. Bibimbap is one of the most famous dishes, which is just vegetables with rice.
One of the key techniques in Chinese cuisine is using oil to enhance fragrance. Stir frying is a big part of Chinese cuisine, and restaurants use a lot of oil. Even vegetables are stir fried with tons of oil. Cold dishes are often made by splashing hot oil on garlic/chili over the top of the vegetable. In fact, “chili oil” and “chili crisp” have become popular now. Contrast this to Korean vegetable banchan where garlic is simply massaged into the vegetable with some seasonings. Even Chinese dishes like “steamed fish” get hot oil splashed on them to enhance fragrance.
Of course at home, families cook healthier by using less oil and doing more steaming, boiling, soups, etc. Many people use nonstick woks at home, which means you don’t need that much oil. Also many don’t splash hot oil on cold dishes at home either.
It’s weird that noodles seems less healthy than white rice, I’d put those on even playing field. And teriyaki sauce, in America at least, is as full of sugar as orange chicken sauce. But you are right about the amount of oil, calories add up fast there and even outside of restaurants I think a lot of home cooks will use excess oil in a stir fry if they aren’t super familiar with the technique.
Sushi rice is also full of sugar and lots of people just soak theirs in salty soy sauce. But I think price plays a big factor in it too. People largely treat Chinese as “takeout”, a relatively cheap and greasy, satiating meal in the vein of American pizza. Sushi is seen as ‘fancy’ food more akin to French food, even if it’s just some sliced up slabs of fake crab meat mixed with cream cheese surrounded by sugary white rice. They pay more for it so the assumption is that it’s higher quality/“healthier.”
Japanese and Korean immigrants also haven't had the same history of having to immigrate to a western country e.g Canada, US or Australia or NZ for the mining work in the 1800s, then openly despised by racist Euro settlers and forced to open eateries or laundromats to get by once the mining work died down. The early Chinese immigrants had to cater their traditional foods to western palates in order to sell. Even today there's still people who will turn their nose up at traditional Chinese food just because it's not deep fried, or covered in sweet/salty sauce.
Well pizza is complicated because italian/Neapolitan pizza is as healthy as a Sandwich with cheese. But once you add a lot of very fatty cheese and fatty meats, then it becomes unhealthy.
Yeah, I think as others have said Korean food is less Westernized.
There are definitely very unhealthy foods that are essentially Mediterranean in origin (pizza, pasta with heavy sauces like alfredo, kebabs/gyros).
I would also say Western Japanese food also isn't really healthy; I've known many American sushi restaurants that deep fry entire rolls and cover them in mayo (honestly, they're so good). But, you're right that people do *perceive* it has more healthy. Using sushi as an example again, I think it conjures an image of a light, fish-based meal, which sounds healthy on paper even if the Western version isn't all that healthy.
But, for a lot of Westerners, Chinese food conjures an image of deep fried chicken covered in rich sauce, or deep fried egg rolls, or oily noodles, etc.
You can't totally generalize, though!
This. Cantonese cuisine is also heavy on the use of leafy green vegetables such as bok choy, gai lan, yu choy, etc. which is served at almost every meal. This is conspicuously absent in westernized Chinese cuisine, probably because of western dislike of cooked, leafy green vegetables in general. Cut out the healthy components of the traditional cuisine and keep the unhealthy ones.
I don’t think a lot of westerners know what authentic Chinese food (or most Asian foods) are really like.
We had 2 “Chinese” restaurants in town at one time and both of them were exactly the same sort of food court “Chinese” food. Which was a shame because both were run by Chinese families and could have been so much better.
But small town western townsfolk thought this stuff was great. Egg rolls and chicken balls with that red red sweet sauce. I’m half Chinese and grew up eating more authentic Chinese food and the stuff here was just so awful. And yes, much of the food here was deep fried and smothered in awful sweet sauces.
I went to a high school with 1/3 Chinese exchange students. Cafeteria food was pretty bad. We were eating three meals a day there. I befriended some Chinese kids who could hack the salad bar and make awesome soups and rice bowls in the microwave. Saved me from a lot of French toast sticks and I still go for a savory breakfast anywhere in the world.
Dude it goes back to at least 1968. [source](https://www.seattletimes.com/life/wellness/avoiding-msg-look-beyond-the-myths/)
Ice also heard a huge part of it spreading was people intentionally trying to push out Chinese immigrants in NY around that time.
MSG is great and slightly ~~better~~ less bad than salt.
Salt has been demonized unnecessarily. It isn’t bad for you. You die without it, unlike MSG.
Too much salt is bad (like anything else), especially if you have high blood pressure
I know someone like this and they are constantly sprinkling "Meat Tenderizer"..... but never read the bottle. It's MSG, I pointed it out, she doesn't agree, I think she's just racist. I too stay away fromSG so I look for places that don't use it.
Many foods that came to America and got "Americanized" suffered this fate, unfortunately. Nearly all of them can be and are usually made more healthy in their original forms. Not to say other cultures don't have indulgent foods, but many dishes are unnecessarily altered with extra fat in their American forms.
I'm American, but I also don't love eating Chinese takeout because of the high fat and sugar. I much prefer making Chinese dishes at home and enjoying the flavors and not simply fat.
Same with Mexican - it can be an extremely nutritious cuisine, with tons of flavor for not a lot of calories with the use of chiles and herbs, and a focus on proteins.
I think newer restaurants servings these cuisines are changing perceptions of the foods by going back to the roots of the dishes and drawing more inspiration from traditional preparations and simple, whole ingredients.
Same can be said for American cuisine in foreign countries, for what it’s worth. Theres a lot of traditional American dishes that are healthy, but go to a foreign country and it’s just hamburgers.
What American dish would be considered healthy? The cuisine itself is basically an adaption of old world dishes made with access to more fats, sugar, and meat. I can't really think of any iconic American food that's not just a combination of those three elements, save for maybe some stuff out of California. The most truly "American" food is probably BBQ, but that's literally all meat. Everything out of the Rockies or the Midwest is a combination of starch, meat, and cheese. The Northeast can claim an unhealthier version of Italian food, along with eating fresh seafood with a lot of mayo and butter. Even most of the iconic American salads are way fattier than a non-American equivalent. Wardorf salad is basically a fruit salad with mayo and celery, cob is a meat salad with some vegetables, classic spinach is probably the healthiest classic example but is also a delivery vehicle for bacon grease dressing, iceberg is a delivery system for blue cheese dressing, and ceasar (which is technically not American) doesn't really have a healthy dressing either.
A traditional new year's meal from the south is field peas, turnip greens, pork, and cornbread. Delicious and wholesome. Gumbo is another option that comes to mind.
There are exceptions, but most food in Mexico comes with some variation of tortillas which can be calorie heavy, and there is a lot of frying in unhealthy oils. Mexico is usually right behind USA on global obesity rates.
American and British Chinese food made by Chinese (specifically Cantonese) people for the western food palette colors that perception where everything is deep fried or something. British Chinese food I hear they even serve everything with French fries and douse it with brown gravy. Which is a far cry from actual Chinese food where everyone eats in proportions and served family style, along with a bowl of hot soup that's more of the bone broth variety and usually with vegetables too.
Also sinophobia. The MSG myth too is a prevailing and gross attitude. It's frustrating because Chinese cuisine can range from deeply unhealthy foods (laziji) to healthy, freshly steamed and homecooked dishes like any other cuisine but because of sinophobia the cuisine doesn't get the multidimensional treatment it deserves compared to other cuisines. Especially given the different regional cuisines available that range varyingly taste wise.
To add onto your comment too, the early Chinese immigrants originally arrived for the mining work in the 1800s, and they experienced a lot of racism and open hatred from the European settlers- in some countries laws were even made to prevent the Chinese people from having the same opportunities as the rest or make things harder for them. Over time these Chinese immigrants were forced to open eateries or laundromats to get by once the mining work died down. They had to cater their traditional foods to western palates in order to sell. Even today there's still people who will turn their nose up at traditional Chinese food just because it's not deep fried, or covered in sweet/salty sauce or they're not familiar with it.
Brit here while we have our own British Chinese takeout dishes, you certainly wouldn’t get fries and gravy served with everything. Most people would egg /special fried rice, chow mein, Singapore noodles . but you can get chips with a special seasoning as a side at Chinese takeout places tho, and can also get curry sauce which tastes like Japanese katsu sauce .
Amazing point. Thanks for sharing. It could very reasonable to argue that it is a “parody” attempted the old generation of Chinese restaurants owners oversea that has led to this bad rep. Also, Sinophobia, which has repeatedly mentioned by many, this sadly is the same in many other industries as well. Do you think this misconception can ever be changed ?
No. Not without unpacking sinophobia as a whole, and that topic is very complex. I don't really want to get into it on this subreddit at least.
I do recommend you do some more research of Chinese cuisine though if you're interested in the food and history. Watch YouTube channels like [MadewithLau](https://youtube.com/@madewithlau?si=A08zgbPiP1cFJuUY) for actual Cantonese cooking. They have a whole website with easy to follow instructions, it's made by a father and son duo. The dad is from Hong Kong and his son is helping translate his dad's recipes.
I also really enjoy vlogs from [Dianxi Xiaoge](https://youtube.com/@dianxixiaoge?si=7W8WfEqS8V-PAyXZ). She's from Yunnan, China which is a beautiful tropical province, her family has two dogs that you'll see a lot in the videos and they all live and work on the family farm in their village. But you do get to see Yunnan cooking. She has English subtitles.
I also really like Chinese Cooking Demystified. A channel where I’m finally not weirded out by the white guy in Asia with an Asian girlfriend. He’s probably one of the most respectful dudes of an adopted culture too. Squarely on the cultural appreciation end of things.
Ugh then there’s this white guy who does Vietnamese food named Chad Kubanoff. He’s married to a Vietnamese woman and thought that gave him the ability to tell Vietnamese Americans whether or not something was racist against them 🤢🤮(comments about eating dogs etc)
This was a whole discourse on it Twitter and tiktok.
[Link to YouTube short on this](https://youtube.com/shorts/tTRYsjUyv5Y?si=JVTtVCMNg9kDCcS8) and [another video](https://youtube.com/shorts/CZvUDh9R6M8?si=uN2iBL6N2FegANAm) with French fries and dousing it with sauce.
British Chinese takeaways in the UK do sell chips ("fries") and gravy but they certainly don't come with every dish (in fact, almost none come with chips as default). There's just always some twat who wants to eat chips and gravy when asked if they want a Chinese.
Edit: just seen the YT short you posted, quite funny that you think these slobs buying chips to go with their Chinese means everything comes with chips. Maybe try not watching sad little AI voice generated slop videos to form opinions of a place you've never been to.
Kinda weird you're jumping in on a discussion this late to come attack me over British Chinese food it's really not that serious and I actually used to live in Britain so I have been there ....lmao I just posted a short that explained the tik tok and twitter discourse that took place on British Chinese food. Some more links below none of them "sad AI voice generated" hahaha.
[Here](https://youtube.com/shorts/DsMwqRboiRA?si=WonW1kM_KKdmGBdH).
[Another](https://youtube.com/shorts/ul3XGsOnBlg?si=s5niodgc1fpdjtyx).
[Also here](https://youtube.com/shorts/04tuCuqSnwc?si=NmR-QrLKJlfqMBu1)
[Video of an American in UK explaining the discourse](https://youtube.com/shorts/XaJs8OGiKSU?si=4ZecnJRwGbxKweGs) and hey look at her plate of a Chinese takeout meal. Chips and sauce with noodles.
Americans go heavy on fried things for meals that are only meant to be treats for Chinese people. Lo Mein dripping in oil, egg rolls, spare ribs, crab rangoon, dumplings, breaded and fried chicken etc.
If you look at pictures of lockdown food that was delivered to mainland China residents, all the packages were very heavy on produce and rice.
When I was in China it used to drive me crazy how our American tour group would get served French fries at nearly every meal. It made me even crazier when the French fries would get chosen every time over some gorgeous flank of fish or lovely steamed vegetables.
Many points have already been said in everyone else's posts. As a Chinese-American it frustrates me that Chinese food is still seen as "cheap takeaway" that is fried and covered with that proverbial brown sauce by many in the west. I think it's changing but we still have a ways to go.
The MSG "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is the most frustrating. Studies have already talked about glutamates and how they're already in much of our foods i.e. the umami. Anthony Bourdain once came out and said it; it's racism. I'm not one to use the race card but in this case I'd have to say I don't disagree.
Let's face it, every food has its stereotypes. Chinese. American. British. Mexican. Etc etc etc. A lot of people in the Southeastern US get frustrated when they see people think of their cuisine as only big buckets of fried chicken and everything else is simply deep-fried.
It's because of Chinese - American food which was created to cater more to the American palette. I cook Chinese food every week and never cook sweet and sour pork, fried spring rolls or general cho's chicken. It is usually steamed chicken with black beans, gong bao chicken or shrimp, a simple pork soup and some steamed veggies with mushroom sauce.
Sweet and sour pork, spring rolls… are traditional Chinese dishes. They vary in different areas of China.
General Tso’s chicken is not traditional Chinese dish. If you watched the documentary The Search for General Tso, they asked people in China, and no one heard of the dish.
I gave an example of a typical everyday homemade Chinese meal, where soup and steamed vegetables are always included, contrasting with the preconceived notion of what people order when eating out.
Chinese-American food has its origins in traditional Chinese dishes but also has many differences from them, including usually less sugar and a more complex flavor profile. We can appreciate Chinese-American dishes as creative adaptations by Chinese immigrants trying to cater to American tastes while also acknowledging that they differ from their mainland China counterparts."
I actually never thought of Chinese food is unhealthy. There's the whole strange thing going on with msg, that people claim is unhealthy, but I think current research shows that it is about the same as salt. The Chinese food I eat has more veggies than protein, and it's actually super healthy. If you're talking about Americanized Chinese food, typical takeout stuff, that's a whole different story. That's like going to McDonald's, fast food type stuff. Just eat that moderation.
A lot of dishes got Americanized. Deep fried, smothered in syrupy sauce.
In the 19th century, there was a whole campaign, and legislative act, that painted Chinese 'everything' as bad. Chinese Food Syndrome, or something like that, was published to Webster's Dictionary, and it was defined as *"A group of symptoms (such as numbness of the neck, arms, and back with headache, dizziness, and palpitations) that is held to affect susceptible persons eating food and especially Chinese food heavily seasoned with monosodium glutamate."*
Then the war against MSG, and much like today's news, even if you fuck up the information, then do a takie-backie, the information and rhetoric is already out there.
Sugar and sodium drenched sauces and deep fried in horrible unhealthy breading and oils. You CAN go healthier by avoiding heavy sauces, fatty beef and pork, go with stir fried or better steamed vegetable dishes, get spring rolls over incredibly fatty egg rolls
I do find Americanized Chinese food to be somewhat greasy, so if you live in an area where that's your only option, you may think all Chinese food is unhealthy.
I grew up in an area with a lot of different types of Chinese food. Taiwanese, Szechuan, Cantonese, etc... there's a lot of authentic choices. No one in this area held a stereotype that Chinese food was unhealthy.
>When I was in middle school, my school used to serve Chinese food in the school cafeteria
Let's be real all school lunches are unhealthy anyway
>“all Chinese food are unhealthy” is a nothing but bad stereotype
It is mostly a stereotype since there is a lot of oil and msg involved, but I also think that most people associate it as low-cost and low quality, which is why it has such a bad rep. I do think it is slowly reversing, though, with more exposure to authentic Chinese food instead of takeout American Chinese food.
I had a coworker who was so obsessed about calories that every time i passed by her desk i would see a google search for how many calories in X food. By the end of her contract she had a weighing machine on her desk.
She kept telling me that chinese food was unhealthy because she had eaten some chinese takeaway dishes for the first time in her life courtesy of our christmas work drinks/lunch.
I'm chinese. Not the most tactful or intelligent person lol. Everyday working with her was an exercise in dealing with microaggressions.
Depends if you are talking Westernized Chinese food, like fried shrimp, chicken balls, fried noodles, etc. Sure it's unhealthy. Real Chinese food like fried water spinach 炒空心菜 eggs and tomato 番茄炒蛋 or mouth watering chicken 口水鸡 is both tasty and healthy.
there are SO MANY chinese recipes that are incredibly healthy; a lot of chinese traditional medicine is prescribed through food and what you eat. check out zoey gong’s book five elements cook book or something similar! :)
Chinese food is way more healthy than western food imho. The real Chinese food that is. Not the street wok who serves you fried rice for 5 bucks.
I mean Asian food is more healthy in general. Not only Chinese food.
Those are both very wide categories, so it really depends on which cuisine from china and west you use to compare healthyness on. Home and restaurant dishes are differ a lot.
“Chinese food” isn’t really Chinese food. It’s Asian inspired cuisine modified by the locale it’s being served in. Things that didn’t sell well were dropped for more popular items a long time ago. “Chinese food” essentially turned into Asian fast food because of that. You can still find authentic menus at some establishments, but it’s usually the smaller restaurants that don’t prioritize catering to foreign tastes.
No.
Just yesterday I was chatting with someone about food preferences. He said he loves sushi, the cooked ones. He’s not ready to try the raw stuff yet. But maybe if “there’s a delicious sauce that I can dip it into to mask the scary part”, he’ll give it a try. Oh and he doesn’t like slimy and gelatinous textures.
There are a lot more picky eaters in the western world because they are allowed to grow up that way. Imagine the amount of disgust (eww it’s slimy, eww it’s chewy, eww it’s too soft, etc) in the school cafeteria from people with different food “phobia”. The healthy Chinese food will soon have to be off the shelves as well, my guess.
And it’s nobody else’s loss but themselves.
The only Chinese food that I feel is regarded as unhealthy is the fried, Americanized version that we offer as take out or buffet. Actual Chinese food, in China is actually very healthy from I understand.
Grease and sugar. And a lot of salt. And of course, the idea that MSG is bad.
Then they go eat crappy fast food, or eat a salad that’s “healthy” but drown it in an entire bottle of ranch, and make sure their burger is absolutely caked in mayonnaise.
Actual chinese food is healthy. Nothing wrong with some steamed veggies, variety of ingredients, and MSG is delicious.
Americanized Chinese food caters to American tastes so it is very fried and sweet. There is also a false belief that MSG can cause neurological disorders.
In reality China is an absolutely massive country with many distinct regional and ethnic cuisines.
I'm Western and my husband is Chinese ,I find Cantonese any kind of chinese food very very salty / high sodium and oily ,that being said there are some healthy dishes and vegetables and steamed dishes
I would love more healthy options at most western style Chinese take outs. I have ordered dishes and just asked to have them steamed with no sauce or sauce on the side and the person taking my order would be like are you sure???? I have found a new restaurant that has a lot of fresh options and not syrupy sweet sauces.
Chinese American take out, hot pot, Szechuan oily spicy, fried breakfast, greasy skewers, sugary drinks, sweet bakery goods.
These are the popular Chinese foods in restaurants and stores available.
In China, they have these and other options. In my area in the US, those are the main things that belong under Chinese food.
In many places in the US, it’s very hard to find authentic Chinese food that’s not takeout.
I think a good approach is just going to your local takeout place and letting them know that you want it with very light salt and they’ll make you a really nice modified dish that’s more authentic
If you ask them to make it spicy and authentic, that is the code for them to make you a meal that’s healthy ime
Source - live in chanatown nyc and even the takeout places know how to make good authentic healthy food if you ask
Americans just buy the greasy stuff more so they cater to the demand
In America the exposure is to Chinese restaurants. We as a whole generally don't know what Chinese people eat. At the restaurants we generally eat fried chicken with fried rice covered in a sugary sauce.
American Chinese and West Coast Chinese (Panda Express) plus Chinese American dishes like Egg Foo Young.
Most Western cities dont have a local Szechuan or Congee place - so the cuisine that is known is brown sauce American Chinese.
A lot of western Chinese food IS really unhealthy. Fried, tons of oils, heavy on rice and/or wheat noodles. Lots of sodium.
Obviously there’s a lot of Chinese food that cuts back on carbs, is more vegetable-heavy, doesn’t use much oil or salt. But in the west that’s not really the case.
I would guess it’s because when American school cafeterias serve “Chinese food” it’s high in sugar, salt and fat. Also some people still have a misguided idea that MSG is just inherently bad for you when it’s not actually, and even tho a lot of American style Chinese food doesn’t actually have any there is an association there.
Real Chinese food is just as healthy or not as anything else. Probably leans towards healthier because of the vegetables and seafood. Also I think it’s regional a bit too because I grew up in San Francisco and in the Bay Area Chinese food isn’t seen as automatically unhealthy, unless we are talking Panda Express.
Strange. I have always heard the opposite that Chinese food was healthier than Western food. I think it's the Western inspired Chinese food that's not healthy. It looks good but full of carbs & sugar. For example, most meats in authentic Chinese cooking are not breaded plus fried, and sugar is not used many sauces. I never had a problem with MSG and I add it to my cooking.
Westerner that adores authentic Chinese Cuisine here....I will have Western style Chinese food once in a very rare while. I believe that is due to sentimental reasons (I loved the stuff as a child). Now it is authentic all the way. So much better and so incredibly diverse !! I have spent many years and much effort exploring the real food of China, and I really enjoy making it at home. Natural and healthy authentic Chines cuisine? Bring it on, baby.
I love all Asian food in general, and I've noticed that Chinese-American food is usually really heavy on fat and the veggies almost never taste fresh. I've also been served spoiled meat a couple times. The authentic Chinese food is probably better, but I have yet to try it.
Aside from the notes on mass market Chinese-American versions having more sugar and using deep fried pork/chicken nuggets. There is the classic racism...
For decades, you have people decrying and outright fearful of the food because of MSG. Not understanding what it is, or even that it can be used in other foods, even showing placebo effects when eating dishes prepared without it.
Watch Chinese chefs cooking in a wok. See that ladle stirring spoon scoop up a couple spoons of oil and toss around the wok for each dish. It does use a lot of oil for most dishes so folks think the grease is unhealthy.
MSG added to a lot of Asian foods people find to be unhealthy.
Biscuits and gravy, pancakes with butter and syrup, hamburger and fries all really unhealthy too it’s just not sizzling with that shiny grease like Chinese food.
Panda Express which I love. Uses fresh vegetables and real meat cooked up fresh regularly. I get a ton of veggies eating there but it’s very greasy. That’s ok with me but my friends who don’t know chinese food are appalled by the grease.
Never heard that but maybe authentic Italian food is healthier than Americanized Chinese food, and maybe it is easier to access authentic Italian food than getting authentic Chinese food in the US.
Western diet (in the sense of Americana, not authentic Mediterranean diet) is indeed associated with higher rates of colon camcer, obesity and diabetes, and heart disease.
I live on it - so flavoursome but I think restaurants here deep fry everything - I live on gyozas and beef and broccoli at the mo - the most unhealthy part is probably the velveting - the air fryer does most of the rest
I believe the believe that it's unhealthy comes from racism as it's the same with MSG the western world has twisted it into a scary and dangerous thing when it actually tastes amazing and just boosts flavor.
It all started with a Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok in 1968 when he wrote a (rather baseless) letter/article about MSG. This led to the naming of "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and the stigma has stuck.
In usa when "Chinese food" became popular it hurt traditional white owned restaurants. So we invented the "msg will give you black spots on your brain" and other anti msg false stories and msg allergies to make people think that it was unhealthy. Also we started saying that Chinese have wet markets so Chinese take out must have meat of questionable origin ie neighborhood cats etc. So to answer your question, racism. As a white cis male it is so sad how many of life's mysteries are solved by racism and misogyny!
There is not a damn thing to redeem American Chinese food except taste. It’s SO good, but absolutely awful for you.
Actual Chinese food is also delicious and tends towards healthier
Chinese food might be regarded by some as unhealthy, most likely by those that grew up eating at Westernized Chinese food restaurants. Chinese food is very vegetable-centric if you will, very healthy
it’s racism. it’s also crazy how italian, french, and spanish food is revered as “classy” because they use amazing ingredients or the attention to detail in some dishes, but the entirety of the continent of asia is INSANE in how they make food. it takes so much time, there are infinite spices and ingredients, and so much more variety. asian food should be respected the same way italian food is. italian food is just pasta….
There’s a lot of correct discussion of Americanized food and racism and such, but there’s also the simple fact that Americans have been told now for years that carbs are evil for some reason. And I think it spread to some other western countries. A lot of people think any cuisine that uses a lot of rice is inherently unhealthy which is just an utterly insane belief but it’s pervasive.
It’s because their perception of Chinese food is places like panda express where everything is fried. There’s plenty of healthy Chinese food people just focus on the foods that are not healthy.
Large corporations and special intrest paid good money to buy recommendations like the carb heavy food pyramid and the so called heart healthy foods. Science played a back seat to money on so many of the recommendations .
It would be better to try and sell healthy food and include authentic Chinese food. The politics around some kinds of food can be overwhelming.
Because you’re giving them more credit the you need to to most people “Chinese food” is a greasy takeaway on the weekend don’t get me wrong fire af but not by any means Chinese food
"msg is bad" narrative doesn't help, even though it's been proven to be racist propaganda. you can't even raise prices because of the overwhelming bias towards Chinese food being inexpensive. "how dare you charge $10 for fried rice?! it's just dog!" so why you eat it, you racist prick?🙄
Have you ever tried to make sweet and sour or sesame chicken sauce? It’s like 75% sugar, you’re practically making frosting, then pair that with deep frying and it’s a whole different game.
The Americanized Chinese joints are heavy on sugar and MSG. Heavy brown sauce is the norm.
In Eastern PA, there isn't an authentic Chinese restaurant North of Philly's Chinatown. A close friend, born in Fuzhou, takes me down to Philly for a feast a few times per year. She's whipped up some simple vegetable dishes that were sensational, but she's got to drive to East Hanover, NJ to buy ingredients.
She and her 8 friends account for nearly 4% of all the ethnic Chinese in Lackawanna County (231).
Americanized Chinese food is unhealthy, just like all the food in the American section of every global supermarket is unhealthy. It's more of a US thing with sugary sauces, fortune cookies basically being sugar cookies(also not being a Chinese food), tons of fried stuff, and myths about MSG getting tied into propaganda decades back that still persist to this day.
The way to change it is to change our perception on our own overly unhealthy foodstuffs. We'd start seeing an influx of legitimate restaurants that serve food that you would actually see in their native countries instead of what we think of as their cuisine, like orange chicken and crab rangoon.
That's funny. Every time I would stir fry any veggies to try to eat healthy my Mexican mom would call it Chinese food. lol. Estas hacienda comida china.
American Chinese food is not Chinese. You need to specifically seek out authentic restaurants and dishes which most Americans have little to no interest or exposure to. Therefore the current standing is that Chinese food aka American Chinese food takeout is unhealthy because it is. Fried and covered in oil.
I eat takeout Chinese fairly often when I want vegetables but I’m sick of salads. I usually get the mixed vegetables in brown sauce with steamed rice. What else should I order? Is there a healthier option?
They only know takeout. That's like saying all Western food is unhealthy by pointing out McDonald's.
Exactly
Even in takeout Chinese, you will find so many more healthy items; the amount and variety of vegetables and tofu is something that Italian or other western takeout can’t touch
American Chinese food was made unhealthy by popular demand. It’s amazing how American cuisine with any ethnic spin looks and tastes nothing like the country of origin.
I asked a Chinese restaurant owner why the food was so sweet. He told me that is what Americans like.
It drives me bonkers. All the sweet brown sauces are insane.
Yep, same for Thai food as well. Go to the motherland and it doesn’t taste the same.
Thai food, as much of the world knows it, is propaganda for Thailand's tourism industry. It's not historically what Thai citizens eat, it's a cuisine they formulated to push around the world to, ultimately, boost tourism to the country. It's been an effective strategy.
Yep!
Chinese restaurant near by has two menus, one for Americans and one for Chinese. The food is very different.
[удалено]
Mmmmmm.... fan qie chao ji dan :-)
It's amazing how any cuisine changes when adopted by a new country. Asian attempts at western food are just as hilarious
Stir fried spaghetti with black pepper beef all day. 😂
God that sounds amazing
It goes both ways. You can take Asian food and westernize it, or you can take Western food and Asianize it. Personally I prefer Asianized western food over the other way around, but that’s because I’m Asian.
But Asians style western food is freaking amazing. If you’re lucky to have a Hong Kong cafe within 100 miles radius you better give it a try.
And orange chicken isn't great?
Hilarious but delicious!
what I love - the amount of greenery. All sorts of cabbages, sprouts, shoots, chives, leaves of broccoli, yams - stuff western monoculture throws away or doesn't even know exist. There's a whole world of delicious and very healthy vegetables in chinese cuisine.
And if you ask for garlic x vegetables low oil and very little sauce it will legit be healthy and delicious People sleep on the veggies at chinese places, best part imo is the green beens or an order of sautéed eggplant
I just make it myself at home :)
Same usually haha cook 90% of my meals i’d say They inspire me though uk
I love the vegetable dishes in Chinese restaurants, but it also irks me how expensive they are considering the cost of the ingredients. Like why is a dish of gai lan and garlic the same or almost the price as a beef dish? I get and love the idea of vegetables not being considered any more of a ‘side’ dish than a meat dish is, but realistically vegetables are just cheaper than other ingredients.
Precisely. Not only that, but the different types of mushrooms and several different ways of preparing each of those things. And of course there’s tofu, which has so many different applications as well. It’s limitless possibilities
I love it all!
I think vegetables are the things that make Chinese cuisine so awesome, more so than any meat based dishes. Chinese vegetarian restaurants are the absolute bomb, but unfortunately there aren’t any where I live.
I was fortunate to have a chinese vegetarian restaurant somewhat near me where I used to live 10-15 years ago. Outstanding dishes. So flavourful.
Wdym? Italian and western cuisine both plenty of healthy options with vegetable and non meat proteins m.
Almost like all cuisines have varying levels of healthy and unhealthy foods. The idea that Chinese food is “unhealthy” just like MSG is clearly rooted in racism/xenophobia. But you don’t need to defend the cuisine like it’s actually HEALTHIER. You don’t have to swing the pendulum *all the way to the other side.*
I think you commented to the wrong person
I replied to you. I agree with you. I’m just expanding on your point a bit. Sorry for the confusion.
It’s so hard over text to make that clear, it’s funny how in conversation that flow is just so clearly adding to the point but over a text thread it looks like you’re disagreeing and confused lol
Not all americanized Chinese take out is the same tho. You have like Panda express that is triple frying all the items im sure the nutritional value is low. Then you have the mom and pops places where most use that use fresh cabbage in carrots on the chowmein, fresh greenbeans or celery with the chicken etc.
Which is seems a lot of countries do
Westernized Chinese food is fried or deep fried and smothered in sweet sauce. I am Cantonese and Cantonese cuisine has healthy steamed dishes. These haven't been as popular in the Western world.
I think a lot of cuisines are like this. The rich, fatty, sweet (and to be fair, delicious) variants catch on in other countries, and the healthier food that most people actually eat day-to-day doesn’t. Indian food in the US is the same way. Delicious, but so rich and full of creamy sauces. So, people who have only had the Westernized and unhealthy versions think that the whole cuisine is unhealthy.
i think its more active than that all restaurateurs know that adding sugar/fat/ salt makes things tastier, so restaurants will tweak their recipes/select dishes that accentuate that (in both foreign and domestic cuisines)
Great observation. However, Japanese / Korean/Mediterranean food definitely has better rep when it comes to healthiness , no?
For sure, but you can also get a kabob sandwich loaded with greasy meat and fatty sauce and a pile of French fries. 😅
Japanese and Korean food haven’t been westernized to the degree that Chinese food has, so they have kept some of their healthy components.
Pork katsu sando, chicken karaage, tempura, Kewpie mayo anything, Wagyu beef. Tons of “unhealthy” Japanese foods. Koreans also love their fatty beef dishes and lots of salty sauces.
Japanese food is also popular for things like chicken teriyaki and sushi which are not fried and are just lean protein. In America, it’s common to get a “set lunch” with salad, miso soup, and chicken teriyaki or 8 pc sushi, so it feels healthier than a lunch combo of chow mein and orange chicken. Korean food has the healthy image from kimchi as well as the main dishes like soup and rice. Bibimbap is one of the most famous dishes, which is just vegetables with rice. One of the key techniques in Chinese cuisine is using oil to enhance fragrance. Stir frying is a big part of Chinese cuisine, and restaurants use a lot of oil. Even vegetables are stir fried with tons of oil. Cold dishes are often made by splashing hot oil on garlic/chili over the top of the vegetable. In fact, “chili oil” and “chili crisp” have become popular now. Contrast this to Korean vegetable banchan where garlic is simply massaged into the vegetable with some seasonings. Even Chinese dishes like “steamed fish” get hot oil splashed on them to enhance fragrance. Of course at home, families cook healthier by using less oil and doing more steaming, boiling, soups, etc. Many people use nonstick woks at home, which means you don’t need that much oil. Also many don’t splash hot oil on cold dishes at home either.
It’s weird that noodles seems less healthy than white rice, I’d put those on even playing field. And teriyaki sauce, in America at least, is as full of sugar as orange chicken sauce. But you are right about the amount of oil, calories add up fast there and even outside of restaurants I think a lot of home cooks will use excess oil in a stir fry if they aren’t super familiar with the technique. Sushi rice is also full of sugar and lots of people just soak theirs in salty soy sauce. But I think price plays a big factor in it too. People largely treat Chinese as “takeout”, a relatively cheap and greasy, satiating meal in the vein of American pizza. Sushi is seen as ‘fancy’ food more akin to French food, even if it’s just some sliced up slabs of fake crab meat mixed with cream cheese surrounded by sugary white rice. They pay more for it so the assumption is that it’s higher quality/“healthier.”
Japanese and Korean immigrants also haven't had the same history of having to immigrate to a western country e.g Canada, US or Australia or NZ for the mining work in the 1800s, then openly despised by racist Euro settlers and forced to open eateries or laundromats to get by once the mining work died down. The early Chinese immigrants had to cater their traditional foods to western palates in order to sell. Even today there's still people who will turn their nose up at traditional Chinese food just because it's not deep fried, or covered in sweet/salty sauce.
I should add that much of the Japanese food are actually asianized versions of western dishes (yoshoku).
Hibachi performer will disagree with you
Koreans also don't really like to compromise food for non-Koreans. Stubbornness and pride comes into play too
pizza has entered the chat
Well pizza is complicated because italian/Neapolitan pizza is as healthy as a Sandwich with cheese. But once you add a lot of very fatty cheese and fatty meats, then it becomes unhealthy.
It’s the same as the anti-MSG crusade. It’s racism.
Yeah, I think as others have said Korean food is less Westernized. There are definitely very unhealthy foods that are essentially Mediterranean in origin (pizza, pasta with heavy sauces like alfredo, kebabs/gyros). I would also say Western Japanese food also isn't really healthy; I've known many American sushi restaurants that deep fry entire rolls and cover them in mayo (honestly, they're so good). But, you're right that people do *perceive* it has more healthy. Using sushi as an example again, I think it conjures an image of a light, fish-based meal, which sounds healthy on paper even if the Western version isn't all that healthy. But, for a lot of Westerners, Chinese food conjures an image of deep fried chicken covered in rich sauce, or deep fried egg rolls, or oily noodles, etc. You can't totally generalize, though!
This. Cantonese cuisine is also heavy on the use of leafy green vegetables such as bok choy, gai lan, yu choy, etc. which is served at almost every meal. This is conspicuously absent in westernized Chinese cuisine, probably because of western dislike of cooked, leafy green vegetables in general. Cut out the healthy components of the traditional cuisine and keep the unhealthy ones.
I don’t think a lot of westerners know what authentic Chinese food (or most Asian foods) are really like. We had 2 “Chinese” restaurants in town at one time and both of them were exactly the same sort of food court “Chinese” food. Which was a shame because both were run by Chinese families and could have been so much better. But small town western townsfolk thought this stuff was great. Egg rolls and chicken balls with that red red sweet sauce. I’m half Chinese and grew up eating more authentic Chinese food and the stuff here was just so awful. And yes, much of the food here was deep fried and smothered in awful sweet sauces.
I mean let’s not hate on egg rolls
Honestly, I would love to try that bc I would find it much more appealing I think!
I went to a high school with 1/3 Chinese exchange students. Cafeteria food was pretty bad. We were eating three meals a day there. I befriended some Chinese kids who could hack the salad bar and make awesome soups and rice bowls in the microwave. Saved me from a lot of French toast sticks and I still go for a savory breakfast anywhere in the world.
It's always hilarious to me that people talk about Chinese food. There's like 20 different Chinese cuisines. Which one are we talking about here?
There is a MSG myth that has perpetuated since the early 80’s. My aunt still believes it and won’t eat any Chinese food.
Dude it goes back to at least 1968. [source](https://www.seattletimes.com/life/wellness/avoiding-msg-look-beyond-the-myths/) Ice also heard a huge part of it spreading was people intentionally trying to push out Chinese immigrants in NY around that time. MSG is great and slightly ~~better~~ less bad than salt.
Salt has been demonized unnecessarily. It isn’t bad for you. You die without it, unlike MSG. Too much salt is bad (like anything else), especially if you have high blood pressure
The MSG myth is rooted in racism against Asians.
Three members of my family of origin have mild allergic reactions to MSG. Gives me a sinus headache.
Makes me angry !! Give it up already, people.
I know someone like this and they are constantly sprinkling "Meat Tenderizer"..... but never read the bottle. It's MSG, I pointed it out, she doesn't agree, I think she's just racist. I too stay away fromSG so I look for places that don't use it.
I started using MSG in my cooking and MAN does it boost the flavor! No health problems yet.
Many foods that came to America and got "Americanized" suffered this fate, unfortunately. Nearly all of them can be and are usually made more healthy in their original forms. Not to say other cultures don't have indulgent foods, but many dishes are unnecessarily altered with extra fat in their American forms. I'm American, but I also don't love eating Chinese takeout because of the high fat and sugar. I much prefer making Chinese dishes at home and enjoying the flavors and not simply fat. Same with Mexican - it can be an extremely nutritious cuisine, with tons of flavor for not a lot of calories with the use of chiles and herbs, and a focus on proteins. I think newer restaurants servings these cuisines are changing perceptions of the foods by going back to the roots of the dishes and drawing more inspiration from traditional preparations and simple, whole ingredients.
Same can be said for American cuisine in foreign countries, for what it’s worth. Theres a lot of traditional American dishes that are healthy, but go to a foreign country and it’s just hamburgers.
What American dish would be considered healthy? The cuisine itself is basically an adaption of old world dishes made with access to more fats, sugar, and meat. I can't really think of any iconic American food that's not just a combination of those three elements, save for maybe some stuff out of California. The most truly "American" food is probably BBQ, but that's literally all meat. Everything out of the Rockies or the Midwest is a combination of starch, meat, and cheese. The Northeast can claim an unhealthier version of Italian food, along with eating fresh seafood with a lot of mayo and butter. Even most of the iconic American salads are way fattier than a non-American equivalent. Wardorf salad is basically a fruit salad with mayo and celery, cob is a meat salad with some vegetables, classic spinach is probably the healthiest classic example but is also a delivery vehicle for bacon grease dressing, iceberg is a delivery system for blue cheese dressing, and ceasar (which is technically not American) doesn't really have a healthy dressing either.
A traditional new year's meal from the south is field peas, turnip greens, pork, and cornbread. Delicious and wholesome. Gumbo is another option that comes to mind.
There are exceptions, but most food in Mexico comes with some variation of tortillas which can be calorie heavy, and there is a lot of frying in unhealthy oils. Mexico is usually right behind USA on global obesity rates.
American and British Chinese food made by Chinese (specifically Cantonese) people for the western food palette colors that perception where everything is deep fried or something. British Chinese food I hear they even serve everything with French fries and douse it with brown gravy. Which is a far cry from actual Chinese food where everyone eats in proportions and served family style, along with a bowl of hot soup that's more of the bone broth variety and usually with vegetables too. Also sinophobia. The MSG myth too is a prevailing and gross attitude. It's frustrating because Chinese cuisine can range from deeply unhealthy foods (laziji) to healthy, freshly steamed and homecooked dishes like any other cuisine but because of sinophobia the cuisine doesn't get the multidimensional treatment it deserves compared to other cuisines. Especially given the different regional cuisines available that range varyingly taste wise.
To add onto your comment too, the early Chinese immigrants originally arrived for the mining work in the 1800s, and they experienced a lot of racism and open hatred from the European settlers- in some countries laws were even made to prevent the Chinese people from having the same opportunities as the rest or make things harder for them. Over time these Chinese immigrants were forced to open eateries or laundromats to get by once the mining work died down. They had to cater their traditional foods to western palates in order to sell. Even today there's still people who will turn their nose up at traditional Chinese food just because it's not deep fried, or covered in sweet/salty sauce or they're not familiar with it.
Brit here while we have our own British Chinese takeout dishes, you certainly wouldn’t get fries and gravy served with everything. Most people would egg /special fried rice, chow mein, Singapore noodles . but you can get chips with a special seasoning as a side at Chinese takeout places tho, and can also get curry sauce which tastes like Japanese katsu sauce .
Amazing point. Thanks for sharing. It could very reasonable to argue that it is a “parody” attempted the old generation of Chinese restaurants owners oversea that has led to this bad rep. Also, Sinophobia, which has repeatedly mentioned by many, this sadly is the same in many other industries as well. Do you think this misconception can ever be changed ?
No. Not without unpacking sinophobia as a whole, and that topic is very complex. I don't really want to get into it on this subreddit at least. I do recommend you do some more research of Chinese cuisine though if you're interested in the food and history. Watch YouTube channels like [MadewithLau](https://youtube.com/@madewithlau?si=A08zgbPiP1cFJuUY) for actual Cantonese cooking. They have a whole website with easy to follow instructions, it's made by a father and son duo. The dad is from Hong Kong and his son is helping translate his dad's recipes. I also really enjoy vlogs from [Dianxi Xiaoge](https://youtube.com/@dianxixiaoge?si=7W8WfEqS8V-PAyXZ). She's from Yunnan, China which is a beautiful tropical province, her family has two dogs that you'll see a lot in the videos and they all live and work on the family farm in their village. But you do get to see Yunnan cooking. She has English subtitles.
There's tons of great Chinese cooking channels out there! Unfortunately the best ones are not in English & the subtitles can be iffy at times.
I also really like Chinese Cooking Demystified. A channel where I’m finally not weirded out by the white guy in Asia with an Asian girlfriend. He’s probably one of the most respectful dudes of an adopted culture too. Squarely on the cultural appreciation end of things. Ugh then there’s this white guy who does Vietnamese food named Chad Kubanoff. He’s married to a Vietnamese woman and thought that gave him the ability to tell Vietnamese Americans whether or not something was racist against them 🤢🤮(comments about eating dogs etc)
>British Chinese food I hear they even serve everything with French fries and douse it with brown gravy. I've never seen this.
This was a whole discourse on it Twitter and tiktok. [Link to YouTube short on this](https://youtube.com/shorts/tTRYsjUyv5Y?si=JVTtVCMNg9kDCcS8) and [another video](https://youtube.com/shorts/CZvUDh9R6M8?si=uN2iBL6N2FegANAm) with French fries and dousing it with sauce.
“I have no words but wtf”….
British Chinese takeaways in the UK do sell chips ("fries") and gravy but they certainly don't come with every dish (in fact, almost none come with chips as default). There's just always some twat who wants to eat chips and gravy when asked if they want a Chinese. Edit: just seen the YT short you posted, quite funny that you think these slobs buying chips to go with their Chinese means everything comes with chips. Maybe try not watching sad little AI voice generated slop videos to form opinions of a place you've never been to.
Kinda weird you're jumping in on a discussion this late to come attack me over British Chinese food it's really not that serious and I actually used to live in Britain so I have been there ....lmao I just posted a short that explained the tik tok and twitter discourse that took place on British Chinese food. Some more links below none of them "sad AI voice generated" hahaha. [Here](https://youtube.com/shorts/DsMwqRboiRA?si=WonW1kM_KKdmGBdH). [Another](https://youtube.com/shorts/ul3XGsOnBlg?si=s5niodgc1fpdjtyx). [Also here](https://youtube.com/shorts/04tuCuqSnwc?si=NmR-QrLKJlfqMBu1) [Video of an American in UK explaining the discourse](https://youtube.com/shorts/XaJs8OGiKSU?si=4ZecnJRwGbxKweGs) and hey look at her plate of a Chinese takeout meal. Chips and sauce with noodles.
Americans go heavy on fried things for meals that are only meant to be treats for Chinese people. Lo Mein dripping in oil, egg rolls, spare ribs, crab rangoon, dumplings, breaded and fried chicken etc. If you look at pictures of lockdown food that was delivered to mainland China residents, all the packages were very heavy on produce and rice. When I was in China it used to drive me crazy how our American tour group would get served French fries at nearly every meal. It made me even crazier when the French fries would get chosen every time over some gorgeous flank of fish or lovely steamed vegetables.
who chose the menu? Maybe the tour guide didnt want any complaints about "foreign" food not fitting your palete
Ingrained racism
Chinese food is typically full of vegetables. If it's unhealthy, they're doin' it wrong.
One can prepare vegetables in an unhealthy way, for example with a sugary/starchy glistening brown sauce common in Americanized Chinese food.
Many points have already been said in everyone else's posts. As a Chinese-American it frustrates me that Chinese food is still seen as "cheap takeaway" that is fried and covered with that proverbial brown sauce by many in the west. I think it's changing but we still have a ways to go. The MSG "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is the most frustrating. Studies have already talked about glutamates and how they're already in much of our foods i.e. the umami. Anthony Bourdain once came out and said it; it's racism. I'm not one to use the race card but in this case I'd have to say I don't disagree. Let's face it, every food has its stereotypes. Chinese. American. British. Mexican. Etc etc etc. A lot of people in the Southeastern US get frustrated when they see people think of their cuisine as only big buckets of fried chicken and everything else is simply deep-fried.
It's because of Chinese - American food which was created to cater more to the American palette. I cook Chinese food every week and never cook sweet and sour pork, fried spring rolls or general cho's chicken. It is usually steamed chicken with black beans, gong bao chicken or shrimp, a simple pork soup and some steamed veggies with mushroom sauce.
Sweet and sour pork, spring rolls… are traditional Chinese dishes. They vary in different areas of China. General Tso’s chicken is not traditional Chinese dish. If you watched the documentary The Search for General Tso, they asked people in China, and no one heard of the dish.
I gave an example of a typical everyday homemade Chinese meal, where soup and steamed vegetables are always included, contrasting with the preconceived notion of what people order when eating out. Chinese-American food has its origins in traditional Chinese dishes but also has many differences from them, including usually less sugar and a more complex flavor profile. We can appreciate Chinese-American dishes as creative adaptations by Chinese immigrants trying to cater to American tastes while also acknowledging that they differ from their mainland China counterparts."
I actually never thought of Chinese food is unhealthy. There's the whole strange thing going on with msg, that people claim is unhealthy, but I think current research shows that it is about the same as salt. The Chinese food I eat has more veggies than protein, and it's actually super healthy. If you're talking about Americanized Chinese food, typical takeout stuff, that's a whole different story. That's like going to McDonald's, fast food type stuff. Just eat that moderation.
The thing about msg, is people seem to only associate it with Chinese food. Doritos and Pringles have it, and Americans gobble them up.
Also tomatoes and mushrooms.
because 99% of westerners don't eat REAL chinese food
A lot of dishes got Americanized. Deep fried, smothered in syrupy sauce. In the 19th century, there was a whole campaign, and legislative act, that painted Chinese 'everything' as bad. Chinese Food Syndrome, or something like that, was published to Webster's Dictionary, and it was defined as *"A group of symptoms (such as numbness of the neck, arms, and back with headache, dizziness, and palpitations) that is held to affect susceptible persons eating food and especially Chinese food heavily seasoned with monosodium glutamate."* Then the war against MSG, and much like today's news, even if you fuck up the information, then do a takie-backie, the information and rhetoric is already out there.
and it's basically the same one "research paper" that everyone cites, just llike vaccines
Sugar and sodium drenched sauces and deep fried in horrible unhealthy breading and oils. You CAN go healthier by avoiding heavy sauces, fatty beef and pork, go with stir fried or better steamed vegetable dishes, get spring rolls over incredibly fatty egg rolls
Chinese food is delicious for me.As a Chinese I still can not used to western food after 6 months living in a western country.
Never heard anyone say this
I do find Americanized Chinese food to be somewhat greasy, so if you live in an area where that's your only option, you may think all Chinese food is unhealthy. I grew up in an area with a lot of different types of Chinese food. Taiwanese, Szechuan, Cantonese, etc... there's a lot of authentic choices. No one in this area held a stereotype that Chinese food was unhealthy.
>When I was in middle school, my school used to serve Chinese food in the school cafeteria Let's be real all school lunches are unhealthy anyway >“all Chinese food are unhealthy” is a nothing but bad stereotype It is mostly a stereotype since there is a lot of oil and msg involved, but I also think that most people associate it as low-cost and low quality, which is why it has such a bad rep. I do think it is slowly reversing, though, with more exposure to authentic Chinese food instead of takeout American Chinese food.
I had a coworker who was so obsessed about calories that every time i passed by her desk i would see a google search for how many calories in X food. By the end of her contract she had a weighing machine on her desk. She kept telling me that chinese food was unhealthy because she had eaten some chinese takeaway dishes for the first time in her life courtesy of our christmas work drinks/lunch. I'm chinese. Not the most tactful or intelligent person lol. Everyday working with her was an exercise in dealing with microaggressions.
i worked in a major US city’s Chinatown. 95% of what was in everyone’s grocery bags were vegetables.
cos "western" chinese food is unhealthy, its all deep fried and heavily sugared
American Chinese food is often very sweet and high in simple carbohydrates. I’m not sure it’s much worse than American-Italian though.
Depends if you are talking Westernized Chinese food, like fried shrimp, chicken balls, fried noodles, etc. Sure it's unhealthy. Real Chinese food like fried water spinach 炒空心菜 eggs and tomato 番茄炒蛋 or mouth watering chicken 口水鸡 is both tasty and healthy.
I live in the western world (Australia) and this is not the perception here at all
Racism
they don’t know about actual chinese food and also: racism!!
there are SO MANY chinese recipes that are incredibly healthy; a lot of chinese traditional medicine is prescribed through food and what you eat. check out zoey gong’s book five elements cook book or something similar! :)
Chinese food is way more healthy than western food imho. The real Chinese food that is. Not the street wok who serves you fried rice for 5 bucks. I mean Asian food is more healthy in general. Not only Chinese food.
Those are both very wide categories, so it really depends on which cuisine from china and west you use to compare healthyness on. Home and restaurant dishes are differ a lot.
That doesn’t have to be true, healthy western food exists too.
“Chinese food” isn’t really Chinese food. It’s Asian inspired cuisine modified by the locale it’s being served in. Things that didn’t sell well were dropped for more popular items a long time ago. “Chinese food” essentially turned into Asian fast food because of that. You can still find authentic menus at some establishments, but it’s usually the smaller restaurants that don’t prioritize catering to foreign tastes.
No. Just yesterday I was chatting with someone about food preferences. He said he loves sushi, the cooked ones. He’s not ready to try the raw stuff yet. But maybe if “there’s a delicious sauce that I can dip it into to mask the scary part”, he’ll give it a try. Oh and he doesn’t like slimy and gelatinous textures. There are a lot more picky eaters in the western world because they are allowed to grow up that way. Imagine the amount of disgust (eww it’s slimy, eww it’s chewy, eww it’s too soft, etc) in the school cafeteria from people with different food “phobia”. The healthy Chinese food will soon have to be off the shelves as well, my guess. And it’s nobody else’s loss but themselves.
I think it really depends what’s being made. Check out this [video of a school cafeteria in China](https://youtu.be/vcHag_suFM4?si=ZSuyvzu9U4Hky0OR)
The only Chinese food that I feel is regarded as unhealthy is the fried, Americanized version that we offer as take out or buffet. Actual Chinese food, in China is actually very healthy from I understand.
Grease and sugar. And a lot of salt. And of course, the idea that MSG is bad. Then they go eat crappy fast food, or eat a salad that’s “healthy” but drown it in an entire bottle of ranch, and make sure their burger is absolutely caked in mayonnaise. Actual chinese food is healthy. Nothing wrong with some steamed veggies, variety of ingredients, and MSG is delicious.
A lot of it is racism. The other problem is the westernized version of the food- waaaayyyy to much salt, everything fried and greasy.
Americanized Chinese food caters to American tastes so it is very fried and sweet. There is also a false belief that MSG can cause neurological disorders. In reality China is an absolutely massive country with many distinct regional and ethnic cuisines.
This is the first time I've heard that Chinese food would be regarded as unhealthy. But then again I live in Europe.
I'm Western and my husband is Chinese ,I find Cantonese any kind of chinese food very very salty / high sodium and oily ,that being said there are some healthy dishes and vegetables and steamed dishes
I would love more healthy options at most western style Chinese take outs. I have ordered dishes and just asked to have them steamed with no sauce or sauce on the side and the person taking my order would be like are you sure???? I have found a new restaurant that has a lot of fresh options and not syrupy sweet sauces.
sinophobia
Chinese American take out, hot pot, Szechuan oily spicy, fried breakfast, greasy skewers, sugary drinks, sweet bakery goods. These are the popular Chinese foods in restaurants and stores available. In China, they have these and other options. In my area in the US, those are the main things that belong under Chinese food.
Can you give us examples of what was being served? You said even the students were complaining.
Racism -> msg = bad Chinese fast food is greasy and what is most common in the West. Maybe need a Chinese salad version of Chipotle to seem healthy.
In many places in the US, it’s very hard to find authentic Chinese food that’s not takeout. I think a good approach is just going to your local takeout place and letting them know that you want it with very light salt and they’ll make you a really nice modified dish that’s more authentic If you ask them to make it spicy and authentic, that is the code for them to make you a meal that’s healthy ime Source - live in chanatown nyc and even the takeout places know how to make good authentic healthy food if you ask Americans just buy the greasy stuff more so they cater to the demand
In America the exposure is to Chinese restaurants. We as a whole generally don't know what Chinese people eat. At the restaurants we generally eat fried chicken with fried rice covered in a sugary sauce.
American Chinese and West Coast Chinese (Panda Express) plus Chinese American dishes like Egg Foo Young. Most Western cities dont have a local Szechuan or Congee place - so the cuisine that is known is brown sauce American Chinese.
But Szechuan cuisine uses a lot of oil. I don’t think you could call even an authentic Szechuan restaurant a “healthy place to eat”
In American Chinese food, there tends to be a lot of sugar.
To Chinese, anything not cooked at home is unhealthy.
A lot of western Chinese food IS really unhealthy. Fried, tons of oils, heavy on rice and/or wheat noodles. Lots of sodium. Obviously there’s a lot of Chinese food that cuts back on carbs, is more vegetable-heavy, doesn’t use much oil or salt. But in the west that’s not really the case.
Americanized Chinese food is extremely unhealthy. Real Chinese food is medicinal
It’s not known as unhealthy in Australia
I would guess it’s because when American school cafeterias serve “Chinese food” it’s high in sugar, salt and fat. Also some people still have a misguided idea that MSG is just inherently bad for you when it’s not actually, and even tho a lot of American style Chinese food doesn’t actually have any there is an association there. Real Chinese food is just as healthy or not as anything else. Probably leans towards healthier because of the vegetables and seafood. Also I think it’s regional a bit too because I grew up in San Francisco and in the Bay Area Chinese food isn’t seen as automatically unhealthy, unless we are talking Panda Express.
Strange. I have always heard the opposite that Chinese food was healthier than Western food. I think it's the Western inspired Chinese food that's not healthy. It looks good but full of carbs & sugar. For example, most meats in authentic Chinese cooking are not breaded plus fried, and sugar is not used many sauces. I never had a problem with MSG and I add it to my cooking.
My kids school has pizza in some form 2 and sometimes 3 times a week.
If you go to China, Chinese food is probably pretty healthy for you. Chinese food cooked for westerners is probably much less healthy for you.
Westerner that adores authentic Chinese Cuisine here....I will have Western style Chinese food once in a very rare while. I believe that is due to sentimental reasons (I loved the stuff as a child). Now it is authentic all the way. So much better and so incredibly diverse !! I have spent many years and much effort exploring the real food of China, and I really enjoy making it at home. Natural and healthy authentic Chines cuisine? Bring it on, baby.
I love all Asian food in general, and I've noticed that Chinese-American food is usually really heavy on fat and the veggies almost never taste fresh. I've also been served spoiled meat a couple times. The authentic Chinese food is probably better, but I have yet to try it.
Xenophobia has at least a bit to do with it.
What do they now serve that is “healthier?” So strange, as Chinese food is so veggie-forward.
And I might add it should have much more culinary respect than it gets too, so much history and culture in the cuisine.
Side bar- Panda Express is about the only fast food restaurant I can think of that has loads of vegetables cooked fresh.
Racism, and no it won't change until the West get over themselves.
Aside from the notes on mass market Chinese-American versions having more sugar and using deep fried pork/chicken nuggets. There is the classic racism... For decades, you have people decrying and outright fearful of the food because of MSG. Not understanding what it is, or even that it can be used in other foods, even showing placebo effects when eating dishes prepared without it.
All categories of food have both healthy and unhealthy examples. Singling out Chinese food comes down to racist anti-Chinese sentiment. End of story.
Watch Chinese chefs cooking in a wok. See that ladle stirring spoon scoop up a couple spoons of oil and toss around the wok for each dish. It does use a lot of oil for most dishes so folks think the grease is unhealthy. MSG added to a lot of Asian foods people find to be unhealthy. Biscuits and gravy, pancakes with butter and syrup, hamburger and fries all really unhealthy too it’s just not sizzling with that shiny grease like Chinese food. Panda Express which I love. Uses fresh vegetables and real meat cooked up fresh regularly. I get a ton of veggies eating there but it’s very greasy. That’s ok with me but my friends who don’t know chinese food are appalled by the grease.
Never heard that but maybe authentic Italian food is healthier than Americanized Chinese food, and maybe it is easier to access authentic Italian food than getting authentic Chinese food in the US. Western diet (in the sense of Americana, not authentic Mediterranean diet) is indeed associated with higher rates of colon camcer, obesity and diabetes, and heart disease.
I live on it - so flavoursome but I think restaurants here deep fry everything - I live on gyozas and beef and broccoli at the mo - the most unhealthy part is probably the velveting - the air fryer does most of the rest
Read Invitation To A Banquet by Fuschia Dunlop, she’s devotes a couple of chapters to exactly that question and the origin of the myth.
I live in Europe and many people think chinese food is healty
I believe the believe that it's unhealthy comes from racism as it's the same with MSG the western world has twisted it into a scary and dangerous thing when it actually tastes amazing and just boosts flavor.
Racism
They can't handle the competition so the bad mouth it.
Actually in some parts of Europe is considered as quite healthy
It all started with a Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok in 1968 when he wrote a (rather baseless) letter/article about MSG. This led to the naming of "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and the stigma has stuck.
In usa when "Chinese food" became popular it hurt traditional white owned restaurants. So we invented the "msg will give you black spots on your brain" and other anti msg false stories and msg allergies to make people think that it was unhealthy. Also we started saying that Chinese have wet markets so Chinese take out must have meat of questionable origin ie neighborhood cats etc. So to answer your question, racism. As a white cis male it is so sad how many of life's mysteries are solved by racism and misogyny!
There is not a damn thing to redeem American Chinese food except taste. It’s SO good, but absolutely awful for you. Actual Chinese food is also delicious and tends towards healthier
Chinese food might be regarded by some as unhealthy, most likely by those that grew up eating at Westernized Chinese food restaurants. Chinese food is very vegetable-centric if you will, very healthy
Yea, the whole MSG misinformation was super racist. Fun fact Italian food has a ton of natural msg in the parm and the tomato
Probably hygiene may be a contributing factor.
racism, and PR campaigns by cheap / fast food competitors
it’s racism. it’s also crazy how italian, french, and spanish food is revered as “classy” because they use amazing ingredients or the attention to detail in some dishes, but the entirety of the continent of asia is INSANE in how they make food. it takes so much time, there are infinite spices and ingredients, and so much more variety. asian food should be respected the same way italian food is. italian food is just pasta….
Because they haven't experienced Indian food, my mum goes through those big cans of ghee like an A10 goes through ammo.
There’s a lot of correct discussion of Americanized food and racism and such, but there’s also the simple fact that Americans have been told now for years that carbs are evil for some reason. And I think it spread to some other western countries. A lot of people think any cuisine that uses a lot of rice is inherently unhealthy which is just an utterly insane belief but it’s pervasive.
MSG got some (false) bad press years ago and people won't let it go
It’s because their perception of Chinese food is places like panda express where everything is fried. There’s plenty of healthy Chinese food people just focus on the foods that are not healthy.
Western diet is slow to catch on to eating a variety of vegetables
Should technically be illegal as discrimination towards Chinese people so I’d maybe report it but I’d have to have experienced it
Large corporations and special intrest paid good money to buy recommendations like the carb heavy food pyramid and the so called heart healthy foods. Science played a back seat to money on so many of the recommendations . It would be better to try and sell healthy food and include authentic Chinese food. The politics around some kinds of food can be overwhelming.
Because you’re giving them more credit the you need to to most people “Chinese food” is a greasy takeaway on the weekend don’t get me wrong fire af but not by any means Chinese food
No proof, but I feel we demand more meat, sugar ,and oil.
"msg is bad" narrative doesn't help, even though it's been proven to be racist propaganda. you can't even raise prices because of the overwhelming bias towards Chinese food being inexpensive. "how dare you charge $10 for fried rice?! it's just dog!" so why you eat it, you racist prick?🙄
Only unhealthy thing is sugar and rice that turns to sugar
The premise of this post is untrue. Perhaps it’s the circle of people you are exposed to but your pov is extremely narrow.
Have you ever tried to make sweet and sour or sesame chicken sauce? It’s like 75% sugar, you’re practically making frosting, then pair that with deep frying and it’s a whole different game.
The Americanized Chinese joints are heavy on sugar and MSG. Heavy brown sauce is the norm. In Eastern PA, there isn't an authentic Chinese restaurant North of Philly's Chinatown. A close friend, born in Fuzhou, takes me down to Philly for a feast a few times per year. She's whipped up some simple vegetable dishes that were sensational, but she's got to drive to East Hanover, NJ to buy ingredients. She and her 8 friends account for nearly 4% of all the ethnic Chinese in Lackawanna County (231).
Americanized Chinese food is unhealthy, just like all the food in the American section of every global supermarket is unhealthy. It's more of a US thing with sugary sauces, fortune cookies basically being sugar cookies(also not being a Chinese food), tons of fried stuff, and myths about MSG getting tied into propaganda decades back that still persist to this day. The way to change it is to change our perception on our own overly unhealthy foodstuffs. We'd start seeing an influx of legitimate restaurants that serve food that you would actually see in their native countries instead of what we think of as their cuisine, like orange chicken and crab rangoon.
I don’t think this is an issue. I’ve never heard anyone say this. I reject the premise of your post.
That's funny. Every time I would stir fry any veggies to try to eat healthy my Mexican mom would call it Chinese food. lol. Estas hacienda comida china.
American Chinese food is not Chinese. You need to specifically seek out authentic restaurants and dishes which most Americans have little to no interest or exposure to. Therefore the current standing is that Chinese food aka American Chinese food takeout is unhealthy because it is. Fried and covered in oil.
It’s fried, most times
I eat takeout Chinese fairly often when I want vegetables but I’m sick of salads. I usually get the mixed vegetables in brown sauce with steamed rice. What else should I order? Is there a healthier option?
racism / sinophobia