Which regional Chinese is healthiest/greasiest?

[Ce'nedra]

Of course we can't stereotype any cuisine as being entirely one or the other but on the whole/in general, which regional Chinese cuisine do you find contains the most fats/oils? What about which cuisine uses lesser fats/oils and focuses more on fresh produce and/or vegetables?

I'm asking on the basis of home-style food as well. Let's discard the obviously msg-laden, oil-swimming restaurant food.

It's strange because I would often hear that Cantonese cuisine is extremely unhealthy but I only see this happening in, again, the restaurants. Home-style Cantonese is often fairly delicate in flavour and if done properly, stir fries are actually healthy because it uses very little oil and is cooked very quickly, allowing the vegies and other bits to remain good and fresh. In addition, the nutritional value of stir-fried vegies/meats are better maintained than many other styles of cooking.

I also hear Fujian cuisine (which I would include Teo Chiu despite that being from Guangdong) is fairly healthy. Again, this cuisine is based on alot of fresh foods.

Also, Fujian cuisine uses alot of seafood and fish is obviously healthier than red meats when eaten in large quantities.

From many of my friend's experiences, they believe Northern/Peking cuisine to be the least healthy because they claim much of it is heavy in oil and far too much red meat. Another says Sichuanese cuisine is least healthy because almost everything involves alot of chilli, oil and thick sauces.

Can anyone offer me their perspective of this?

[Dejah]

Of course we can't stereotype any cuisine as being entirely one or the other

I'm asking on the basis of home-style food as well. Let's discard the obviously msg-laden, oil-swimming restaurant food.

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Ahem...Not ALL Chinese restaurant food is "obviosuly msg-laden oil-swimming". That's stereotyping.

And, chilis ARE healthy.

Any of the regions will have healthy and not-so-healthy choices. Thick layers of juicy scrumptious melt-in-your-mouth fat on pork belly can't be that healthy!

[liuzhou]

we can't stereotype any cuisine as being entirely one or the other but on the whole/in general

Ha ha!

[Ce'nedra]

Ahem...Not ALL Chinese restaurant food is "obviosuly msg-laden oil-swimming". That's stereotyping.

And, chilis ARE healthy.

Any of the regions will have healthy and not-so-healthy choices. Thick layers of juicy scrumptious melt-in-your-mouth fat on pork belly can't be that healthy!  

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Ok ok take that back, MOST Chinese restaurants haha

Chillis are good in certain amounts but the amount they eat at...I don't know...I heard it can give you stomach problems?

Which region is, overall, healthier though?

For eg, I think Vietnamese and Japanese cuisine is, overall, pretty healthy compared to most. Just my personal opinion though

Ha ha! 

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Yes Mr Righteous China Man

[Big Bunny]

Any traditional cuisine may be made as healthy or as unhealthy as you like.

BB

[Ce'nedra]

I suppose there's no real answer

[hzrt8w]

It may be easier to nominate a dish to be the most unhealthy than to generalize and say a cuisine to be most unhealthy.

For example, in Hong Kong it's common to find boiled gai lan with oyster sauce. Is this healthy? (Okay, perhaps skip the oyster sauce.) Or steamed tofu with some minced shrimp, with a dash of light soy sauce. Is this healthy?

In Beijing it's common to drink a bowl of plain soy milk in the morning. Is it healthy? (But it got balanced out by eating an oily fried dough...)

Most cuisines have both the healthier side and an unhealthier side.

[faine]

Yeah, I think it'd be very difficult to single out any one cuisine as being more deadly then others. Regional cuisines are usually pretty well suited to their area of origin: they make sense for where they come from. If people have stayed happy and healthy eating this kind of food for generations, then it can't be that "unhealthy."

The issue, then, comes when you take a cuisine out of context or change it...or if you keep on eating rich traditional food without the traditional (read: lots and lots of exercise) lifestyle. But again, I don't believe there's such a thing as an "unhealthy" cuisine.

Some of the food I ate in China was pretty damn greasy (and tasty) and some wasn't...same holds true for Chinese places in the USA. I know it's detrimental to my arteries, but used correctly, a good hit of honest grease and MSG can make me a happy puppy.

[Ce'nedra]

Everyone here is just about right.

I'd have to slap myself because Chinese regional cuisine is much MUCH more complicated than that. In fact, after just reading a bit of 'Food Culture in China' by Jacqueline M. Newman, I realised that it's difficult to even define what is native and what is not. With all the travelling and mixing going around in China, people seem to have adopted far too many varieties of cooking styles, famous dishes (and further refined them), etc for us to even specifically label as Southern/Northern/Western/Eastern/other Chinese.

In that case, it's hard to compare one regional cuisine to the other because the lines are extremely blurred.

Oh and the book also says: surveys show no matter where they live, the Chinese are increasingly eating similarly than differently. Thus making it even more difficult to make generalizations and/or divisions.

Apparently the only main difference is the wheat and rice divide. Beyond that, no ingredient or flavour is exclusive to any particular region.

Anyway, I really recommend reading Jacqueline's book on Chinese regional cuisine (or the lack of) -just found it online woohoo! It's very thorough for a 'preview' of a book (not that I'm complaning).

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Jt6u8R...eQToGu7VWU-Ry_w