The Asian Diet

[cygnenoir]

I can't eat japanese food because nearly everything has meat or fish in it :/

Not so! I eat sushi all the time - but only vegetables. And often, but not always, miso soup is vegan. I also get vegetarian udon with a veggie soup stock. Yum!

Once I was in Tokyo and my friend wanted a cheese pizza. So we went to the market and they had something like two different kinds of cheese. Two tiny blocks of generic cheese and that was it. I couldn't believe it! When I asked my Japanese friends they just said "ewww, cheese is disgusting!"

So maybe it's the lack of cheese? Ha!

 

[misssakura]

I'm well aware of sushi and miso I just don't consider them to constitute the majority of a Japanese diet I can cook a bit at home but going out is a big nono, I've checked with all my local restaurants and they have no vegetarian options.

My sister has really bad skin now..but she used to have gorgeous skin until she was about 21/22. I think part of the problem was that she ate junk food and picked at her skin as well as using too many products. She over tans too. She eats a load of salads and healthy things now but her skin will never recover (or at least I don't think so).

My friend Bevan eats Japanese food all the time and his skin is amazing...lord I don't know its so hard

 

[Bluestar07]

like what Hipkitten said, i don't think it's about what we eat (because we do have a lot of unhealthy foods too), but rather about portion size.

whenever travelling abroad to western countries i've found that the portion sizes are easily 1.5 times that of what you would normally find here in asia. that has to account for quite a number of calories

Agreed - One portion can last me lunch and dinner. (I'm Asian too)

I think it's not necessarily the Asian diet that's healthy. As pointed out, we can have pretty unhealthy and processed food as well.

Eating with chopsticks does not slow down the process of eating ... if you're good with chopsticks.

Rice is fine is moderate proportions. Personally I favour brown rice for it's fibre content and texture. The rice use to make the Japanese maki is more glutinuous and is more filling. A typical meal for me consists of a bowl of rice (about how much you would hold in your palm), a piece of chicken breast steamed with ginger, shallots and chilli and some stirfried veggies. I do have meat at every meal but it's not the main course like on most western menus.

I guzzle water because it's hot and humid here so Asians need to hydrate ourselves more. Also because of the humidity levels, our skins don't get dry so easily. However, it's hot hence making us more prone to breakouts.

 

[cygnenoir]

Honestly, a lot of it is probably just genetics and culture. My Japanese mother has never worried about her weight. She has always been slim. I have never once heard her say the word diet. I, on the other hand, living in American culture, am constantly thinking about diets or dieting!

Also, much like in Europe and the UK, most urban Japanese people walk a lot. My mother has always avoided the sun as well. I know tanning is more acceptable for young Japanese women these days, but in certain circles pale skin is very desirable (think of all the skin-whitening products).

And finally, at least in Japan, they have really amazing plastic surgeons!

 

[Deleted member 49693]

^ Same in Korea. If you have sun-kissed skin, it makes you look like a commoner because in the olden days it makes you look like a farmer who has been working out in the sun all day. My Korean family are very traditional so no sun bathing for them...

 

[Bluestar07]

^ Yeah many Asians are obsessed with having fair pale skin .... hence the plethora of whitening products available.

 

[shoegal2183]

I don't think the healthy 'Asian Diet' really applies to all Asian cusine. I think the people who are considered to have the diet worthy of being modeled are those people who live places where they have less access to processed food and live off of what is natural in their setting. That is at least how I understood the idea when it was explained to me.

 

[nuyste]

koreans and japanese eat very healthy - relative to other cultures. although their overall weight/size/frame is mainly biological, their diets are categorized as "high carb, VERY low fat" which contributes to healthy frames. hardly anyone in these cultures are significantly overweight or obese. food at the dinner table is not oily, high in fat, processed, or any of that. a lot of the food consists of rice (brown or white, with beans, chestnuts, etc mixed in), root vegetables usually steamed or boiled in asian spices and flavoring (again, low in fat), lean meats, fish, and soups made from scratch. i think this sort of diet, in the long run, goes very far in maintaining a healthy body.

 

[sillybear]

The book 'French women don't get fat' is a rip-off. Basically the book is just saying eat every few hours but small quantities and you will stay slim....

I don't think it is a rip-off. If you eat less, eat slower, and enjoy yourself, you will inevitably lose weight. I have lost tons of weight myself simply by eating less, and eating when I am physically hungry.

 

[eternitygoddess]

I'm Asian and I agree with the diet. If people really want to lose weight, just adopt an Asian diet.

I'm Chinese and my family NEVER eats huge slabs of meat like steak. Duck yet, chicken yet, but never in such huge amounts as Westerners like to consume. We don't eat butter, cheese, cake, pies, none of the rich, milky stuff.

Also drink tea instead of your sugar-loaded beverages and drop the desert. I can't understand why people like eating desert after dinner. It's so uncomfortable for the stomach.

 

[Deleted member 49693]

I don't think it is a rip-off. If you eat less, eat slower, and enjoy yourself, you will inevitably lose weight. I have lost tons of weight myself simply by eating less, and eating when I am physically hungry.

No I meant the book is commonsense....

 

[Parapluie]

Is this what Victoria Beckham went on after giving birth? I thought I remembered something about her going on an Asian diet...

 

[shoegal2183]

No I meant the book is commonsense....

It may seem like common sense but when it is a common thing to sit down and eat a half pound hamburger plus french fries in like a minute its kind of a revolutionary idea

 

[shoegal2183]

I also posted this on the milk discussion but
This is an interesting paragraph from an interview with the Alex Jamison, girlfriend of Morgan Spurlock from Supersize me and 30 days

" Take milk, or what she calls the "dairy dilemma". The US department of agriculture's recommendation of three servings of the white stuff a day (including yogurt and cheese) is "about twice what the World Health Organisation recommends. Why is that? Why are we all of a sudden needing so much more than everybody else on the planet? I don't understand that. And we have diseases here that involve protein and calcium that they don't have in rural China; they have very little dairy in their diet there, and they have no osteoporosis. Here we're told to drink milk for healthy bones but we have more osteoporosis than anybody. There is something happening here - we're not being told the whole story."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1678392,00.html?gusrc=rss

 

[kiss&tell]

I'm half Viet half Korean and since we usually got chilli in our food, it boosts metabolism as well.

 

[LucindaMay]

Is this what Victoria Beckham went on after giving birth? I thought I remembered something about her going on an Asian diet...

No, actually I think she went on the "starvation diet".

 

[agneslo]

^

 

[missbliss]

lol, that's mean! anyway I wouldn't mind eating endless amount of sushi if it would help me lose weight. It's so uncommon here though & pretty expensive. I love egg-drop soup to, mmmm! Miso soup is pretty yuck.

 

[cocohokkaido]

I think the traditional Asian dishes tend to be more healthy than a typical western dish. That said, much of Asia today has been influenced by the west so an average Asian's (who lives in Asia) diet tends to have more meat and dairy than what appears in traditional Asian meals.

It's funny because I am from Hong Kong and it is still where a great deal of my relatives are based, yet I find myself to be much more health-conscious than them---- I'm a huge fan of Mediterranean cooking and I force it upon them whenever an opportunity presents itself. Yes, the portions over there are smaller, but they also consume high-fat foods in both Asian and Western style of cooking. It's hard to explain unless you are sitting down in a typical eatery in Hong Kong; you'll see that although you may not necessarily be consuming steaks and fries, the cooking methods are just as fat-laden.

I believe it comes down to your own sensibility. Like, I don't think incorporating too much soy products in a diet is good for everybody. This is where the ancient Chinese homeopathic stuff kicks in---- if you have a lot of 'yang' (like me), you can't eat soy all the time. My mother (who grew up and still lives in Hong Kong) tells me to eat more red meat daily!

At the end, do what makes you feel good in a balanced sort of way. Now that I'm older, I find myself gravitating towards more Chinese/Asian cooking. When my boyfriend (who has Shanghai heritage) and I cook at home, we make a lot soups with fresh vegatables, fish, light amounts of meats, and tofu (mainly for him) because we feel good eating them. I think it has to do with us growing up with that kind of diet, but we also immensely enjoy a good macaroni-and-cheese and juicy burgers! Have balance---- I believe that's what we all need at the end!

 

[susie_bubble]

A lot of women and teenaged girls in Hong Kong tend to graze a lot. We have tons of street food stands, sweet shops in malls (like eating a strawberry whip for a quick and non-fattening sugar fix) and a lot of informal restaurants and cafes where you can have like little tiny dishes. Girls can easily just have three pieces of dim sum whilst walking around the streets and that would be dinner. Though there's more variety to eat in HK, I tend to find I lose a lot of weight there because I graze all the time. It's not particularly healthy but it does sort of adhere to the French Women Don't Get Fat theory - i.e. eating smaller portions of things.