Anyone ever been to China??

I'm going to China for three weeks this summer, and I hear that the food is really greasy and there's not many vegetarian options... Has anyone ever been to China? What is the food like there? Am I going to gain a bunch of weight?!?

I literally just got back from China! I was only there for 10 days and my biggest complaint was the food. I did not like anything there. It depends where in China you go, too. I was in the southern part and there was definitely a lot of greasy food. But there was also a lot of fish and vegetables. Rice, noodles, and dim sum (dumplings) were popular too. 

I was really worried about gaining weight and thought I did, but came back and lost 2 pounds...? Plus, I ate McDonald's and pizza hut much much more there than here. It was strange.

Ok I am rambling, but back to your question. Since you will be there for a while, you will be able to learn some of the language. It will be easier for you to order veggies and chicken, or some other type of healthy protein. But try out some of the food too! I mean you are going to China and thats awesome! Be a little open. Try out congee for breakfast..it was a different kind of rice porridge and it was good. I didn't put veggies and fish like the Chinese do though..I just couldn't do it. I sprinkled some equal on it and it was good. I think around 200 cal. for a cup but filling. Hope this helps somewhat!! enjoy your summer vacation.

I went there a year or so ago and am also vegetarian.  I found it tricky to find many veggie options, but if you stick with bean curd, stir fry veg, steamed rice / noodles etc you shouldn't go far wrong.  The food isn't actually too greasy, of course it depends on the restaurant, but on the whole, not bad!

I returned the same weight I was when I left.

Breakfast was weird - I was eating steamed quash, boiled aggs and tomato and cucumbers slices most days lol.

hope this is of some help.

p.s they have starbucks if all else fails!  and mc donalds and kfc lol

My brother went to China recently and he was very shocked by some of the things they do there. First he said they ate foods that he wouldnt eat for a million dollars. Second he said when he went to the different restaurants they gave you your plate of food and an empty bowl. He had no idea what it the bowl was for until he looked around him. He said that the people would chew their food for the taste and then they spit it out in the bowl (is this way oriental people are so skinny???). He said it was gross. Then to top it off he went to use the restroom and was shocked when he seen that they had holes in the floor to pee in. No toilets. The holes flushed but you had to stand over the hole in the floor! Now I dont know how the girls bathroom is but good lord if it is the same I would cry! But on a good note he said the place was amazing aside from the weird stuff!

maybe you could go to the grocery stores instead of restaurants and pick up fruits and vegetables to snack on

also you could bring a pack of quaker oats to make for breakfast each morning, and pop some oriental fruits and honey on top

infact you could probably bring lots of canned foods, crackers and other healthy non-parishables

when you do go out to eat try to do the same things you would over here [control your portions, if you have a translator get them to ask the waitress if they can make vegetarian alternatives for you, mcdonalds salads!

honestly i don't think people gain weight  on vacation from just eating enough food to sustain your body [greasy or not]... the weight gain comes when you hit too many buffets or have too many desserts or too much street food when you really don't need to

sightseeing burns a ton of calories! especially if you skip going by bus/train/car and walk everywhere

when i went to california on vacation i lost so much weight just because i walked everywhere! [and also because food was so expensive]

 

you'll be fine! have fun!

this is such an amazing opportunity i would love so much to go to asia

Yep, holes in the ground for the girls too. Needless to say I only used that once because I usually refused. But I learned how to do it. There are even holes in fancy restaurants!! But the hotel has a regular toilet thank goodness.

Breakfast was a little strange, but I ate eggs and fruit mostly.

Does depend what part of China you're going to. Many Buddhists are vegetarians or vegans. If you stay away from fast food, whether American or Chinese, you should be fine. The food isn't necessarily greasy, but there are a lot of sauces.

Sugar on jook sounds so gross... but then I don't like salt in my oatmeal either...

And the bowls are for garbage for things you don't want to swallow, like tough meat, fat, and bones, not because people are chewing for taste only.

Original Post by kcnae3:

My brother went to China recently and he was very shocked by some of the things they do there. First he said they ate foods that he wouldnt eat for a million dollars. Second he said when he went to the different restaurants they gave you your plate of food and an empty bowl. He had no idea what it the bowl was for until he looked around him. He said that the people would chew their food for the taste and then they spit it out in the bowl (is this way oriental people are so skinny???). He said it was gross. Then to top it off he went to use the restroom and was shocked when he seen that they had holes in the floor to pee in. No toilets. The holes flushed but you had to stand over the hole in the floor! Now I dont know how the girls bathroom is but good lord if it is the same I would cry! But on a good note he said the place was amazing aside from the weird stuff!

The bowls are to mix your food in (mixing rice with the main dishes, since they are served separately) and then the people bring the bowl up to their face to eat, since it's tough to eat rice with chopsticks! They are not spitting it out. That's silly.

You will get used to the toilets. Just imagine you're camping/hiking. :) It's really not a big deal.

I lost weight in China over a couple of weeks, mostly because I ate healthy... You will have lots of opportunities to have just white rice, veggies, etc. They aren't big on dessert there AT ALL so you won't even have to deal with temptation. Just stay away from the fried stuff and you'll be fine. I live in California and found that the Chinese food here is better than in China! (at least what they serve the tourists) so again I wasn't tempted to overeat because seeing the same food every day actually got a little boring.

They also have Diet Coke, etc. so you can easily avoid the calorie-laden beverages. Be sure to always drink bottled water, not tap. Have fun!!

Thanks so much guys! I feel tons better!

I spent just a week in China about 10 years ago. I stayed at Great Wall Sheridan in Beijing and did day trips with a guide and 3 other people. We  would do the tourist thing, visiting places of interest and lunch in a restaurant was included every day.

I thoroughly enjoyed the food! My brother and I had buffet breakfast every morning at the hotel..it was included in  our package. There was an american section of food, a chinese and a japanese section,   and yes, there were things i would never have thought would be served for breakfast..dim sims, and what amounted to main meal dishes..meat and vege. Lunch during the tour was also a buffet. I found the food different to our takeaway chinese..it was much better over there, and healthier in my opinion. I'd never eaten so many vegies as i did in China.

I didn't put on any weight in 2 weeks away..a week each in China and Hong Kong, the food being pretty much the same in hong Kong as China.  There certainly were things i would not touch..eg, something that look suspiciously like battered, fried chicken feet, ewwwww. I ate with chopsticks , which slowed me down somewhat, plus I did a great deal of walking. .that great wall of China is waaaaaaaaay steeper than you imagine. I also did a lot of walking the streets around the hotel I was staying at, exploring the surrounds and soaking in the sights, smells, sounds and atmosphere of this amazing place.  Some mall type cafes also have a set up where you  serve up your own food from the bain marie and then they weigh it to determine how much you pay...what a brilliant idea.

I didn't see any "hole in the ground" toilets but then i did stick within Beijing and outlying tourist destinations.

Enjoy your time in this fascinating place, and use common sense with what you eat, get plenty of walking in while exploring, but don't let food be such a focus that you miss out on experiencing China.

Some of the replies made me giggle - yes, of course it is different! Goodness!

As others have said, the cuisine varies greatly depending on the region. I was in Tianjin, which is near the coast. Therefore, they relied on seafood for a fair portion of their food. There were always tons of vegetables available and rice at lunch and dinner. Breakfast was usually a rice ball soup or egg drop soup, so I would think that would fit vegetarian quite well. Vegan would be extremely different, I would imagine. There are going to be somethings that are quite interesting - I had octopus, donkey, chicken feet, fish eyes, shrimp eggs, marine animals with antennae, etc. If you are at a large meal, you will get a bowl - as loulou said, it is to put your food in, since it is often served on a lazy susan in the middle. Where I was, it was acceptable to spit bones onto your plate/bowl. There is some chopstick etiquette that you may want to brush up on, depending on where you'll be. 

And depending on where you're going, yes, there may be eastern toilets. Or as some stated, holes in the ground. They are flushing holes though! :) And some of the bathroom "stalls" may not have doors.

I was in China for three weeks during 2004 (a trip during my undergrad program) - I stayed in Beijing for one week and Wuhan for the other two.  I absolutely LOVED the food!  I actually found it to be quite healthy - tons of vegetables, steamed rice, fish, etc.  In my opinion, the food is NOTHING compared to "Chinese food" in the States, which is much greasier and features meat as the focus of the meal; in China, many of the meals I had were steamed veggie-based.

I did not gain weight while I was over there ... I may have even lost a few pounds (can't recall exactly).  The funny thing was, as much as I had been "forewarned" about the food in China, I was 100% healthy throughout my trip - as soon as I came back to the US and started eating my normal diet again (which admittedly was slightly less health-conscious than I now eat, but not completely out of line), I was sick as a dog for two days.  Hmm.

Yes, there are some foods available that you may not be used to - but be open-minded - it is all part of experiencing the culture.  So live it up!  Have a great trip, and enjoy it.  Let us know how it goes!!

Original Post by ewinnie:

I'm going to China for three weeks this summer, and I hear that the food is really greasy and there's not many vegetarian options... Has anyone ever been to China? What is the food like there? Am I going to gain a bunch of weight?!?

i live in shanghai!

yes most of the food is cooked in ridiculous amounts of oil.  even though i'm half chinese myself, i really cannot tolerate most restaurant food.

most of the big cities are migrant-magnets and they bring food from their home regions and set up little restaurants.  yunnan food and indeed most food from the southern regions is on the lighter side, food from the north and northwest is heavier but with more of a focus on grilling, so it slightly evens out, and hunanese and sichuanese food is very spicy.

there are however lots of vegetarian options- there are quite a few people who "chi su" = are vegetarians, and there is a myriad of tofu products cooked with the same flavours as meat is.

healthy options would be soup-noodles (my favourite are the lanzhou variety, hand-pulled right in front of you!) and you can ask the restaurants to poach or steam vegetables for you instead of frying.  also, the white rice here is like nothing you'll have ever tasted where you're from!  it has this delicious sweetness to it, which i absolutely adore.

and finally- if all else fails, fruit here is ridiculously cheap and absolutely wonderful.  in summer, i highly recommend the watermelons and white peaches- divine!  one of my best friends came travelling here 5 years ago and lost 20 lbs in 3 months, because she lived off fruit and tofu!

hope that was helpful; if you want any more info, please feel free to contact me directly.

 

I love China! Personally I never found the food a problem, just pick carefully and you'll be fine. Like fuglyduckling said, the fruit over there is fantastic. Most dishes are cooked with  lots of veges, or you can easily order them as sides. I am also a fan of the noodle and dumpling soups - healthy, tasty and satisfying.

Yes, the Chinese have a very varied diet, but isn't trying all the food part of the experience? I don't get people who won't try new food/refuse to use squatter toilets/want to stay in the comfort of their hotel... I mean really, people, get out of your comfort zones for once! You only live once... so far as I know!

Hope you have a great trip :)

I'm Chinese, and I have been back to China a lot.  I say that losing weight is easy there because it is so easy to find cheap sources of veggies and fruit.  Plus you do exercise a lot more.  Dessert most of the time tends to be fresh fruit than junk such as sweet desserts, so as long as you avoid the foreign dining areas, it should be just fine.  Just avoid deeply fried foods such as shenjianbao (mmm) and youtiao (yummmm)

I just want to make a note about those hole-in-the-ground toilets - at least thye're more sanitary than sit-down toilets!  Would you rather squat over a hole or sit down on something that millions of other people have sat down on and not know how often is has been cleaned?

The hole thing just seems hard for me to imagine as a female. And Yes they really were spitting their food out! He saw it with his own eyes. They werent mixing, spitting! I swear!

Yup, squatter toilets are waaaaay more hygenic. And actually, they don't normally look like holes, more like the toilet is set into the ground, and they have tiles around the edge. And plenty of parts of the world have them - a lot of Asia and sometimes in France too. If a toilet is not too clean, I'd much rather be squatting over it than sitting on it! I am a New Zealander living in Malaysia now and a lot of public loos are 'eastern style'.

Original Post by kcnae3:

The hole thing just seems hard for me to imagine as a female. And Yes they really were spitting their food out! He saw it with his own eyes. They werent mixing, spitting! I swear!

Also, why would people randomly spit their whole meal out? I have been to China several times and have never once seen this. Sounds like your brother was telling tall tales to me... Either that or he saw a couple of people spit out pieces of bone and misconstrued the situation.

it really depends on where in china you're going to...

I was born in Hong Kong (southern China, Guangdong Province) and I'd say that vegetarian dishes are somewhat hard to find...but if you want to try authentic vegetarian dishes, you should definitely try restuarants serving buddhist dishes like Buddha's Delight or other foods made with imitation meat.

This is an example of a hong kong style orange chicken made with imitation meat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BuddhistcuisineTofuMeat.jpg

And when it comes to sanitation, hk is by far the best...but when it comes to other parts of china, i can't really tell you anything but that people are rude, pushy, and unhygenic. Avoid dodgy looking people...most of them will con you into paying them or they might even pickpocket you. mainland china isn't exactly the best place to be at

When I was in Hong Kong I really enjoyed the local breakfast of congee, noodles, and dumplings. Dim sum was a great lunch as well. I had a harder time finding food to eat in the evenings though. I can't remember why. Anyhoo, my suggestion is to bring a box of powerbars. Just in case.

Original Post by kidswithbombs:

And when it comes to sanitation, hk is by far the best...but when it comes to other parts of china, i can't really tell you anything but that people are rude, pushy, and unhygenic. Avoid dodgy looking people...most of them will con you into paying them or they might even pickpocket you. mainland china isn't exactly the best place to be at

I totally disagree. Yeah, ok, HK is pretty modern. But so are Shanghai and Beijing. I met plenty of friendly, helpful people in China... and I can't even speak Mandarin/Cantonese. Not to mention the amazing sights and landscape of mainland China... it's a fantastic, beautiful, lush place and I have had amazing times there