Part of the attraction of Chinese food, for many, has always been its reputation as a healthy cuisine. But that reputation, a view held by 52% of all Americans, is largely based on the notion that you can easily make a meal of "plain steamed vegetables, no MSG," and that such a no-salt, no-fat, no-flavor, no-interest stuff is Chinese cuisine. And it isn't, not at all. Moreover, the typical Chinese restaurant menu contains some real health horrors. The Center for Science in the Public Interest reported that a typical order of Lo Mein has as much salt as a whole Pizza Hut Cheese Pizza, and an order of Kung Pao Chicken has almost as much fat as four Quarter Pounders!
The Center, in 1994, had a technical lab analyze dinner-size take-out portions of 15 popular dishes from average Chinese restaurants. Says the Center, "The average Chinese dinner we looked at contains more sodium than you should eat in an entire day. It also has 70 percent of a day's fat, 80 percent of a day's cholesterol, and almost half a day's saturated fat. … Fat ranged from a respectable 19 grams (Szechuan Shrimp or Stir-Fried vegetables) to an outrageous 76 grams (Kung Pao Chicken). … 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." So here are some more ideas for making Chinese food that will fit your nutritional needs:
The Center's recommendation for eating in a more healthy way at Chinese restaurants is to "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." They also suggest ordering a portion of steamed vegetables and adding it to your entree. "You'll have more than enough sauce to make it flavorful."
To begin cooking healthy Chinese meals, the primary consideration is portion size. The total amount of food required to make a filling meal for two, eaten along with rice, is about ½ pound of meat and the same weight of vegetables. And, of course, the same dish and a companion dish of the same size will serve four.
Then think about cooking methods and choices. In your kitchen, forego the marinating of meat in egg and similar fat-trapping ingredients before stir-frying. Avoid batter-frying (make General Tso's Chicken with simply stir-fried chicken, not breaded pieces.) You'll be able to "afford" some deep-fried dishes in your diet if you eliminate fat where it adds little or no flavor to the dish.
Tofu, by the way, is far from fat-free. You won't kill any cows when eating tofu, but don't be fooled into believing that it is calorie-free and fat-free.
Avoid dishes with heavy sauces, or lift morsels out of the sauce and eat them with a greater proportion of rice.
Cantonese dishes tend to be lighter, using fresh ingredients.
Reduce the amount of oil you use for stir-frying.
Try other cooking methods, like as steaming and baking and roasting.
Try partially freezing meat to more easily slice the meat thinly and uniformly, and to remove the fat.
Reduce the amount of meat in your meal — the Chinese commonly consider rice, noodles, vegetables and fruit to be the main building blocks of their daily diet, with meat as a modest highlight.
MSG, short for Monosodium Glutamate, is a common ingredient in Chinese restaurant meals. But MSG has been blamed for causing what some people have called "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" or "Hot Dog Headache," an array of symptoms like headache, facial reddening, dizziness and chest pains. The symptoms generally go away within 2 to 3 hours.
Although it has no particular flavor of its own, It enhances the flavor of almost every food, and is the center of a newly-classified family of flavor notes that the human tongue can taste, a flavor named "umami" (Japanese for "yummy") (no, really!). Umami is the savory taste found in foods such as tomatoes, mushrooms and seafood, for instance. Its effect can be likened to the way chocolate stimulates our "sweet" taste receptors without itself being sweet unless sugar is added. Just so, eating food seasoned with MSG stimulates the "umami" or glutamic acid receptors on our tongue, enhancing savory flavors. Originally purified from seaweed, MSG is usually made from fermented sugar beet or sugar cane molasses. MSG shows up in many foods other than Chinese foods, and shows up in many other places throughout the grocery store and in almost every restaurant of every type, either by direct addition by the chef or in many standard prepared ingredients. KFC chicken actually contains so much MSG that in at least one country, the product exceeds the legal limit for added MSG. Instant soup powders, the broth in which tuna is canned, the "basting" in frozen turkeys, and ANYTHING containing "hydrolyzed vegetable protein" are just a few of the places it shows up.
"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," or CRS for short, is unpleasant but is not known to be life-threatening under normal circumstances. At particular risk are those with severe, poorly-controlled asthma. Some authorities point out that the "syndrome" is not always reproducible in sensitive people by the ingestion of MSG alone, and speculate that the overall high sodium levels in Chinese foods may be the source of the problem. Glutamate is also an insulin trigger, meaning something special to diabetics and, to the rest of us, producing that "hungry again an hour later" feeling. Aspartame (Equal® and most diet soda sweeteners) increases the effect of MSG.
Most recipes you'll find do not call for the addition of MSG, although some do. If you want to see what it does, it is available in your local supermarket as Accent® Brand Flavor Enhancer. The amount the Accent® people recommend for addition to a large (feeds 4) entree is 1 teaspoon of the product.
Do you NEED to use it to cook Chinese food? Here is what author Irene Kuo, author of "The Key to Chinese Cooking", said:
"What we knew as "taste-essence" in China was a seasoning agent made at home primarily from dried fermented wheat gluten and/or soybean protein, often further enriched with powdered dry shrimp or seaweeds. It was used to enhance weak flavors, such as watered-down broths, poorly seasoned foods from unskilled hands, or meager meat dishes, intensifying primarily the natural flavors of meats and poultry. While "taste-essence" is of Chinese heritage, it was never accepted by the elite society of gastronomy where cooking skill and lavish use of natural ingredients are the essence. Today's version is a chemical compound known as monosodium glutamate or MSG and to me it does nothing to enhance flavor. Rather it gives food a peculiar sweetened taste that I find absolutely distasteful, and for some people it has unpleasant side effects."
I have not used it myself heretofore. Although I am experimenting with it at this writing, I can detect no great benefit, and I doubt that I will continue to use it.