How come Chinese people are usually slim when their food is so fattening?

Answer 1

Good question!

Well, their food in China is made differently from here. They don't have nearly so much meat in any of their meals, in fact their staple diet is rice. Since rice is so filling, they don't need to eat as much.

I suspect that they also don't fry their food in 10 tons of oil as they do in Western countries.

Also, the Chinese are more physically active than the rest of us. Although they have a lot of technology, plenty of them choose to cycle places rather than take a car, probably due to the large population and the congestion that would result!

Yeah, I have a friend from Korea who came to live over here for a year (I know it's not China but a lot of their food is similar, or so she said) and she put on an incredible amount of weight whilst she was over here, despite eating what we would class as "really healthy".

Answer 2

Authentic Chinese food really isn't that fattening. Restaurants usually add lotsa oil and MSG to make it taste better.
I have also heard that Chinese people have a different body type, so even if they eat a lot, they remain slimmer compared to non-Chinese eating that same large amount of food. From what I know, there is even a different BMI standard for Asians due to this.

Answer 3

First, I'm a Chinese living in Malaysia. Before I answer this question, let me stress that most Chinese, the countries they live in, are not 3rd world countries. So, it's not that we don't have food to eat. Why we're slim or fit even if we eat so much is because our every meal is balanced. If there's meat there'll be vegetables. We exercise all the time. It hot here so I guess that burns the fat. Last but not least, we drink tea, which helps drain the oil inside our body.

Hope it helps!

Answer 4

I am a chinese. Chinese originally is used to be very skinny. But there were 2 types of body shape. Very skinny-skinny and perfect-a little fat. Depends on fattening food such as roasted chicken and ducks, it doesnt really affect chinese that much on being fat. Some poor farmers have no chance to eat meat, so they eat what they had planted. Thats why you can see most of chinese people are skinny. Another reason is because its from the chinese family genetics. Hope it helps.

Answer 5

Traditional Chinese food is not fattening. Because the Chinese cater to English tastebuds they make fattening food. Traditional Chinese food usually consists of mostly vegetables, rice and seafood.

Answer 6

If you are referring to Chinese food like in the restaurants, most asians do not eat that stuff on the regular. Most of my Asian friends in the US eat very clean like, white rice, brown rice, tofu, vegetables, some eat meat but it's not prepared the way it is in most American
" Chinese food" restaurants. Most chinese food restaurants in america prepare the food in a way that it is what they think would be appealing to american tastebuds. Like you might go to a chinese buffet and see fried chicken nuggets, french fries, fried chicken wings, the sweet and sour sauce might be really sweet with lots of sugar or corn syrup. They'll have white rice or fried rice, rarelly will they have plain brown rice( brown rice is healthier). They may have vegetables but it is usally smothered in some kind of sauce or gravy. If you ever went to an authentic Asian restaurant, the food is usually not as fattening and there may be smaller portions, rarely is it a buffet, or junky like chinese takeout. The veggies and seafood may be steamed, which is healthier.
Takeout relies on sugar and fats to flavor the food, where as authentic traditional homemade food relies more on herbs, spices, roots, peppers etc for flavor. Not emty calories. That's why people say chinese food can make them hungry after 1 hour. Because it was empty calories to begin with. At authentic restaurants you will be full and it will hold you.
Plus a lot of americans eat take out like4X/ week at least. Over in China many people still eat a lot of homemade meals which is healthier and keeps them slim, but Over in China, increasingly, people are getting fat because they are starting to adopt the american diet. they are also getting higher rates of heart disease and diabetes from adopting american diet and lifestyle.

Answer 7

Chinese food in china is much different to chinese food in the western world. They probably dont add as many colours, preservatives, fake flavours, sugars, oils etc to their food.
Portions also are smaller, think about when you cook at home, do you cook as much as you buy from the chinese?
Note: Chinese is the least fattening of all take aways. Indian food is much worse, as is pizza, McD's etc. And at least you eat veg with chinese food!

Answer 8

First let's clarify:
What are fattening foods?
About 10 to 15 years ago the US surgeon general recommended to Americans to eat low fat products, because the statistics showed that Americans were getting seriously overweight in average.
Statistics show that the population followed his advice, as well as the food producers, however the percentage of obesity in the population grew instead of decrease!!
More recent investigations show that the real culprits in American diet are the simple carbohydrates, NOT the FAT. E.g. donuts, cakes, cookies, candy, pasta, pizza, SODA, SODA, SODA.....
No surprise the Chinese are not fat is there?
Notice that instead of SODA they drink herbal tea, and instead of desserts they usually have some small amount of fruit.

Answer 9

Chinese food made in America or other western countries is quite differently than it is in the motherland.
Here it is loaded with oil and often fried. The sizes are out of control. Who needs a pint of ANYTHING at one sitting? Plus in China there's all of that manual labor and 'Communism' to keep them skinny.

Come to think of it, I've never actually seen Chinese people eating in a Chinese restaurant.........

Answer 10

When I was there I noticed they didn't really eat bread, and they eat very little dairy too.

Also, the food over there is a bit different to the Chinese food over here, I think some of it, not all, must be slightly modified for western taste.

But I disagree about portion size, they tucked away some amount of food when I was there, I couldn't believe it