Healthiest cuisine?

[youngbaldie]

I believe there is a myth out there that east asian cuisine is automatically healthy. I am not sure if this is all wrapped up in the stereotypes of chinese medicine/herbal remedies or eastern thought, but if you really analyze the ingredients of chinese food for instance, it appears to be quite unhealthy. Infact, with so much white rice and noodles, its probably one of the diets highest in glycemic index that exists.

Also, traditional japanese food is loaded with salt which leads to very high rates of stomach cancer in that country.

I am confused as to why people assume that japanese/chinese/korean cuisine is somehow automatically healthier than western. I wish this was the case (rice is one of my favorite foods), but I don't think it is.

Is there a particular diet that anybody can recommend? Or should we just take the healthy things out of many various diets and mix them all together, while excluding all of the bad aspects.

Its a real shame with rice too, because I used to live on rice since I don't eat red meat, and barely any chicken. But white rice is probably just as unhealthy as eating say..sugary candy every night. Bad for insulin resistance. Its the fact that japanese or chinese consume large amounts of white rice. This fools me into thinking it must be healthy, because I too give into stereotypes (if I perceive them to be harmless ones).

I used to eat buckets of white rice and curry every single day and was fooled into thinking I was healthy by doing this. It tasted great, seemed natural, and yes, I assumed because it was east asian, it must be like Green Tea. Silly me I guess.

I have tried eating brown rice, but it gives me cramps. Nothing tastes as good as white anyway. Too bad, because I really need the calories since I don't eat much meat at all.

 

[powersam]

low GI.

no potato, pasta , rice, whitebread. except of course japanese rice which is low GI. basmati is good too, only slightly higher, but the amount of ghee used in cooking basmati probably negates those benefits.

 

[powersam]

haha i wouldnt try that, i think that was actually a form of torture at one point, make someone eat some raw rice then make them drink hot water. stomach explodes etc

the thing that i wonder about, was if basmati rice had its GI level measured with tradionally cooked rice (ghee) where the fats would lower the GI, or whether it was simple boiled as per normal rice.

 

[CCS]

eat oats. Best plant protein you will get, cheap, fast, nutritions, high fiber, excellent on cholesterol lowering effects. I live on them as my charbohydrate.

Other benifit to asian food is the right kind of fish. I eat mackerel, and take fish oil to be safe. Mackerel is high in omega-3's, low in mercury, and cheap. I get it canned and eat the bones. They have calcium.

Green tea and spices are very good too. Get losts of both, but get them from the US, where there is better quality water and less pesticides. I put unsweatened cocoa powder or garlic powder on my oats. I need to buy ginger powder since the root is so strong, unless I find another way to eat it. Cheap though.

 

[Harie]

The only rice I eat, for the most part, is brown rice, which is decently low GI.

Rolled oats FTW! I eat at least 1 cup of raw rolled oats per day, every day. I tried eating steel cut oats raw, but I couldn't digest them much at all.

 

[CCS]

rolled oats were crushed before they dried. More surface area to volume, and more cracks, so you can digest them. I don't know how anyone can eat steel cut oats unless they boil them for a few hours. I don't eat my rolled oats raw, though. I microwave water for 2 minutes, add the oats, let them sit for 3 minutes, and then eat them. I never want to worry again about burning something on the stove or having watch it.

 

[youngbaldie]

Japanese rice is low GI? Really? I thought they use glutinous sweet white rice, the worst kind.

 

[Harie]

harie do you eat simple carbs after training , 0 do you stick to wholegrains 24/7?

After training I have a tablespoon of honey, plus a protein shake & rolled oats again. The honey spikes my blood sugar and gives me carbs ASAP, and the rolled oats keep my carb supply going after the honey is all used up.

 

[kalbo]

I think they say Asian cuisine is the healthiest mainly because of the amount of vegetables they use. But I guess they don't consider the amount of processed carbs they use either.

I don't see how Chinese food could be considered healthy since they pretty much deep fry everything and then add pounds of sugary sauces on top. But maybe we're just getting a more modern mainstream chinese cuisine, which could be a lot different from traditional Chinese food.

I think Vietnamese and Japanese are probably the healthiest Asian cuisines. Vietnamese grill all their meet and use lots of fresh vegetables. As for Japan, they say old Okinawans are the healthiest people in the world and a lot of that is due to their diet. It consists of mostly plant foods and fish.