Sometimes you'll feel like ordering Chinese after a long day, and you should, because your fabulous self deserves it. However, it's key to know the ingredients and cooking method of what you're ordering.
Use nutrition expert Hope Warshaw's Eat Out, Eat Right: The Guide to Healthier Restaurant Eating when you're calling in an order from your favorite Chinese takeout spot. Trade the crab rangoon for steamed dumplings and you're golden!
Green Flag Words
The asterisks (*) denote foods that are high in sodium.
Ingredients
bean curd (tofu) (get it sautéed, but not fried)
assorted vegetables, such as broccoli, mushrooms, onions, carrots, cabbage, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, lily buds, wood ears, and bean sprouts
fish, shrimp, scallops, squid
chicken, roast pork
pineapple
tomatoes
soy sauce,* hoisin sauce, plum sauce*
Chinese hot mustard
hot oil
chili sauce
sweet (duck) sauce
broth (for both-based soups)
Chinese spices
ginger
garlic
Cooking Methods/Menu Descriptions/Names
brown sauce*
oyster sauce, black bean sauce*
light wine sauce
lobster sauce
simmered or braised
steamed
stir-fried with vegetables
hot and spicy tomato sauce
served on sizzling platter
slippery white sauce or velvet sauce
moo shi (or moo shu)
chow mein
chop suey
Red Flag Words
Ingredients
duck
cashews or peanuts
pieces of egg
water chestnut flour
bits of pork or egg
Chinese noodles
Cooking Methods/Menu Descriptions/Names
fried or deep-fried
battered or breaded and fried
deep-fried until crispy
crispy
served in bird’s nest
sweet-and-sour
spare ribs
orange peel, orange, or lemon chicken or beef (usually deep fried)
whole fish (usually fried)
Kung Pao
At the Table
Chinese noodles
Excerpted from Eat Out, Eat Right by Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE. Copyright © 2008 by Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE. Excerpted by permission of Surrey Books, a division of Agate Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Comments
Date: 01/15/2009 - 11:21 am
Nice list of foods. What does it mean? These are ok things or bad things? I'm confused.