Chinese Food

[KimC]

Gong xi hau niam! Or something like that: Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the Year of the Monkey when clever people are predicted to do well by creating a lot of monkey business. (Ross?)

Anyone in our VR.com have "issues" after eating Chinese food? When did you first discover that you can no longer eat like you used to?

Curious George,

 

[Raverlaw]

Kim,

What kind of "issues" do you have? Do spicy foods bother you now? Or is it something else?

 

[Georgia]

I really don't have problems with Chinese food - just am careful with it the same as with any - namely, because of the coumadin issue I don't eat very much broccoli beef and watch the amount of cabbage and such.

I don't have issues with salt, so Chinese continues to be a fav for me.

 

[Marge]

My "issues" with Chinese food would be related to sodium content. I have CHF and I'm supposed to have no more than 2000 mg a day. Chinese food can be a real problem. Along with most of the other "ethnic" foods that I really like!

Nevertheless, I do once in a while go out for a meal at a Thai, Italian, Mexican or Indian restaurant. If I do that, however, I don't eat or drink anything with sodium the rest of the day. I'm supposed to balance my sodium intake with about 500 mg per meal, with a few 100 mg left over to play with -- however, since I don't have fluid retention [yet, anyway], my cardio, bless his heart, said it was OK -- but very occasionally -- to "dump" all my daily sodium intake into one meal.

 

[Nancy]

It's sodium (lots of soy sauce) in Chinese food and also MSG.

 

[KimC]

I felt horrible after eating Chinese food last night ... don't know if it was simply something that didn't agree w/ me but my hands and face swelled up and I had a 8 on a scale of 1-10 stomach ache. This was new to me. I may be allergic to soy, or it could be heart-related. Who knows. I worry too much, don't I?

 

[Marge]

Could be soy. Could be lots of things. Could be something you only recently developed an allergy to.

Friend of mine, after years of happily eating Thai food, developed a peanut allergy. Since many if not most Thai dishes use peanut oil, she had to stop eating Thai food.

 

[Marge]

<< It's sodium (lots of soy sauce) in Chinese food and also MSG. >>

Yes, Chinese food is loaded with sodium -- don't I know it!!!

Not only from soy sauce but from other sauces that are commonly used in Chinese dishes. The old reliable stand-by of Chinese cooking, oyster sauce, for instance. It is hard -- probably impossible -- to get low sodium dishes in Chinese restaurants because it's so hard to get them individually cooked. Even though the ingredients are generally cooked fresh, the sauces are done ahead of time.

But very few good Chinese restaurants out our way (SF Bay Area) use MSG these days. Back when MSG was still commonly used, I was always able to tell when a restaurant used it, because I'd get pounding headaches from the stuff.

 

[epstns]

Oh boy, Marge, that brings back memories -- the MSG ji-ji-jitters!

Seriously, although I'm not on a reduced-sodium diet, I do notice that after a meal at our favorite Chinese restaurant, for the next day or so I weigh an extra couple of pounds when I weigh in at the gym.

It affects all of us, but must be really a NO-NO for those on reduced or restricted sodium diets.