Chinese food?

Is this good for you? Everything I've had is always kind of oily so I'm a little suspicious. Is the food in Chinese restaurants generally better or worse then the typical American restaurant?

That;'s like saying 'is american food good for you?' Sure, some of it is, but its all about preparation and what you pick. I'd say CHinese restaurants in America are prolly worse because most of its made for people wanting those deep-fried, battered foods chinese can be famous for.

I mean, you can go to an American restaurant and have a green salad, grilled fish or vegies, or you can have deep fried chips. Same with chinese - stick to the steamed, boiled, vegetable filled food and avoid the fried, sauce laden foods. I'd get menus before you went to these places.

You can ask them to cook without MSG and oil sometimes

Most chinese restaurants have vegetarian dishes. Those are usually pretty good. Chow Mein is good too. The trouble is that the food usually has a lot of salt in it too. Eat it in moderation and lots of water.

If you eat real Asian food (as opposed to the stuff that you get in resturants in the West), it is very healthy, with an emphasis o vegetables and fish. I lived in China and currently live in Vietnam, and the food is great. The only problem here when eating in a restaurant is the MSG that they put in in some places.

Yeah real Asian food is what I meant. (Sorry for the confusion). I was just wondering because that's what I ate for years and I never had a problem, but I recently moved to college and the dorm food is killing me. I'm trying to figure out if it would be better to stick to what I had before.

Stick to the Asian food, is my advice. I eat Asian pretty much every day, and it has everything you need. Even oil is not such a big problem as many of the dishes are stir-fried, you just have to make sure that the oil is really hot.

Yeah. I'd stick to what you're used to and just try and change your cooking style if you wanna lose weight/add health (less oils etc). Microwaves are very handy and there's lots of low-cal/low-fat recipies out there fore microwaves, even for Chinese food. I used to eat a tonne of rice nad was never overweight. I've gone to 'college' and the change in diet ruined me!

Lie I always say: people here in Viet Nam eat tons of rice. However, obese people only started making an appearance once potato chips and KFC hit the market. 'Nuff said!

Yup, what hanno said ~.^
back home we ate at least 6 times a day, from the moment we up till we zzz. We luv those late night hawkers who came around with late night snacks... mmm....

Yeah sweet_tart, it is amazing: Asians tend to eat non-stop but don't get fat as long as they stick to their tradional food. Of course, they tend to be less sedentary than Westerners, but their snacks are also considerably healthier than what we tend to eat. I learned from my Vietnamese wife to to the same and snack on some fruit, and they sure have delicous fruit over here, whenever I feel like a nibble.

I see pictures of my dad way-back-when, and he was sooo slim, and he ate 6 bowls of rice everyday... just for dinner. (and he was really studious, hardly into athletics)

He started packing on the pounds ONLY when he was introduced to pizza, and had to resort to eating nothing but pizza for a long time while my mom moved away for a year and he had no one to cook for him.

Aha, I look at pictures of him as a skinny student in grad school in in his late twenties and cannot recognize him from the large, round man he is now.

Thanks guys! I'm going to be stocking up on food for next semester then... I don't think I ever gained weight until I was introduced to western food either. :( It's so hard when you literally live a floor above the dining hall. I wish they had healthier stuff.

Oh my gosh... I love this line of thought... I was in Thailand this past October... ate everything in sight, but ate typical Thai food.  As in not touching the "American/European" stuff at the hotel's breakfast buffet but instead having rice/fish congee and fruit for breakfast.  My weight stayed the same after 2 weeks of vacation.  And I'm still eating Asian food... can't stop cooking Thai... but not the loaded coconut curries, instead I'm enjoying steamed fish, meat and fish salads, and lots of fresh veggies with chilis.  What a way to "diet"...lol...

Chinese food is ok. Since I started eating chinese food more often ( thanks to my chinese boy-friend ) I lost weight easly. But you got to eat it in the chinese way, those hudge portions are meant to be shared and not eaten by one person, so if you eat out, make sure you dont go alone, or at least doggie-bag the rests.

I never eat anything fried though, because, we all know, its not good for the waist line and arteries.