The undisputed kings of nanny statism, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (a/k/a the Center for Making Your Decisions for You), have a new and ominous target:
When it comes to eating out, Americans love Chinese. And Chinese restaurants deserve credit for keeping a lid on saturated and trans fat, thanks to vegetable oil, no cheese, and a host of seafood, poultry, and (hooray!) vegetable dishes.
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But Chinese restaurant food is loaded with salt and — if you’re not careful — delivers a load of calories, thanks to its oil, noodles, and deep-fried batter or breading.
Of course, what never occurs to the diet police is that the reason that “Americans love Chinese” is precisely because it contains ingredients, healthy or otherwise, that make it taste good. Remove the salt, oil and deep-fried batter, and it’s not Chinese food anymore. And therefore would cease being so popular.
This was the same lie that CSPI and other groups spread about the trans fat ban — that food tastes “exactly the same” with alternative ingredients. That’s simply not true. Just as diet cola does not taste the same as regular cola, nor sugar soda taste the same as corn syrup soda, nor 1% milk taste the same as whole milk, neither do “healthy ingredient” alternatives taste exactly the same as their unhealthy versions. Changing the recipe changes the taste. And, truth be told, people eat unhealthy foods not out of ignorance, but out of their own subjective tastes and preferences. They like it.
So the question becomes: Where does CSPI go from here? Will they call for bans of “unhealthy” Chinese dishes or ingredients, as they have done in the past with other foods? Will activist legislators and their bureaucrat henchmen call for warning labels, or bans in school cafeterias, or advertising bans, or targeted taxes? Will class actions be filed? One from Column A and one from Column B? Stay tuned.
For Discussion: I’m actually not a big fan of Chinese food — except for sweet & sour pork (a/k/a Pork McNuggets):
More sugar means less salt. Sweet & Sour … may be slightly lower in calories and saturated fat. But either way, you’re eating more oil-soaked breading than meat.
Yeah, so? What’s your point?
What’s your favorite Chinese dish, and does it get a thumb’s up or down from CSPI’s menu? (PDF – 3 pages)
1 response so far ↓
Link PeterTheFish // Mar 21, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Living in India, I've had a chance to experience some "authentic" Chinese food. It is relatively low in salt, sugar (where applicable) and oil compared to its American counterpart, and there are far fewer deep fried items on the menus I've seen. I can say without reservation that for the most part it sucks – no doubt in part due to the culinary tastes of the average person brought up in the states.
If people in the US loved "authentic" Chinese food, Americanized Chinese food wouldn't exist. The fact that it does is a reflection of American tastes &preferences, which of course need to be reined in by regulation.
The alternative would be for people to choose to eat a healty diet and exercise regularly, which is apparently less preferable than being told what to do.