 How do you enjoy authentic, tasty Asian cuisine while staying healthy, especially if you're pre-diabetic? David, is there a way to do it? Somebody's asking on the internet. Oh, this is trending right now. All things surrounding fitness, nutrition. They're just, like, very, very relevant in 2023 right now. There was a viral post on Asian-American Reddit saying, how do you guys keep your cultural food while dealing with pre-diabetes or diabetes? This person goes on to say they're 31 years old. They're Chinese. Lately, they've had to eat Western-style foods because they're now pre-diabetic. Avocados, apples, chicken breast, chicken thigh, salmon, almond butter, green beans, asparagus. But they really miss eating white rice on a daily basis. Andrew, they miss the bulldock, spicy chicken ramen. They miss noodles. They love noodle soups. They can't get their parents to, you know, adopt anything other than white rice. And basically, they're saying, how do you guys do it? I feel so limited and kept away from my, you know, Chinese foods that I love due to my situation. Right, right. I mean, a lot of people feel like eating healthy foods in America at least kind of can stray you away from the Asian restaurants and part of your culture. So we're going to try to talk about this as people who have gone out to eat at a ton of Asian restaurants in our life. 10,000. Yeah, especially, like, Chinese food had it all, okay, the unhealthy to the healthy food. We're going to try to talk about it and, like, see if this can help. You know, I don't have all the end all be all solutions. These are just suggestions, everybody. So please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. You know, I feel bad, you know, I could see where they're coming from. I feel like Chinese food in general gets a bad rap for being unhealthy. Not because the Chinese cuisine is unhealthy, but probably what is available on the street and what, you know, Chinese people who are trying to survive and just make money have decided that people want is generally sometimes not as healthy. Would you agree, like, in terms of the cuisine is not unhealthy, but what people serve in America to represent the cuisine is oftentimes more on the unhealthy side. I would generally say home-cooked Chinese food definitely is on the healthier side, but restaurant Chinese food, especially stir fries and all the tasty, quick stuff. You mean basically the stuff that is punching incredibly above its weight and a taste per dollar ratio distribution? No, the stuff that is very common, like everything from Chinese American food, which is general sauce, orange chicken, egg rolls. All right, now to your more, you know, even soup dumplings have a lot of fat. You have all your- Right, because the oils of whatever they're using, the amount of salt, sugar, sodium, et cetera, et cetera. Sichuan food, stir fried in the hot, red oils. Yes, not that healthy, but there is a lot of healthy Chinese food, but that's more home-cooked style and a lot of steamed dishes. Those are not the most popular dishes. Yeah, I would agree with that. Do you think it is ultimately true that, yeah, a healthy style, it does come with some sacrifices, as people who ate whatever they wanted, like six times a day for X amount of years, you can't eat 100% of your most dopamine receptor touching foods all the time, as much as you want in whatever volume you want. Yeah, I will say this. In America, living here and eating what's available here, it does feel like when you try to eat healthy, you are gonna end up eating more Western food, like a sweet greens type stuff. You're gonna eat more salads, more digs, you're gonna eat more sweet potatoes, more chicken breasts. Or you're gonna have to be, try to be hella selective at the Whole Foods open, raw bar, whatever. Yeah, it's not necessarily gonna be always soy sauce, braised, five spice marinated chicken, I mean, which actually isn't that bad for you, so maybe you should figure out how to do that. But I mean, there are a lot of Chinese dishes, but yeah, it does feel like you eat more American food, so you do kind of lose a little bit of your culture sometimes. But obviously there's kind of hacks now and there's so many, David, diabetic friendly Chinese recipe books. Right, keto foods, whether they're pre-prepared or you prepare yourself keto cookbooks, right? Yeah, there's still ways to get your Asian flavors in. But yes, it will be tough to go to the restaurant and get your favorite stir fry without oil. The truth is, man, I think this is a commentary on American culture and just sort of like abundant food sources in 2023, right? Like you can come to America, only eat Asian food and still become pre-diabetic or diabetic if you like wow out. Yeah, because the portions are huge and a lot of the food here is not homestown. Right. It's made with a lot of oil. It's high glycemic. Yes. It could make you insulin resistant, right? I mean, it's restaurant food. It's made to make you feel good. Right. But actually there are a ton of, like we said, keto cookbooks, diabetic Chinese diabetic cookbooks. And you know what it is? I just got a stress that in America, guys, it's a land of abundance, but you have your own free will to make your own choices. Andrew, if you look at these home-cooked meals from Italy or the meals that they serve in like Milan public schools and then you contrast that with Italian-American food, look at the difference. Oh no, very different. So Italian-American food is, yeah, it's not as good for you as actual Italian food is, yeah. Right, right, right. But you know the dishes that are not popular in Chinese-American cooking? Andrew, bok choy, watercress, Skylon, eggplants, mushrooms, tofus, konjac noodles, konjac rice, cauliflower rice, instead of obviously wheat noodles or rice-based noodles, stir-fries, but using different oils, using less oil, using, like you said, the poached braised steam technique, the takeouts, they don't serve that style. Maybe the takeouts do in Asia, but not over here, right? And it's tough because if you like Chinese food most of the time when you're thinking of Chinese food, you're not thinking of steamed chicken, even though I love the steamed chicken dishes, I would order that. But a lot of people are thinking, oh, I want those super juicy, fatty, soup dumplings. Oh, I gotta get the twice-cooked mala Sichuan pork with chives, yeah, or like, oh yeah, let me get, yeah, the red braised pork belly. No choy, cow yolk. Yeah, and it's like, that's what you're thinking about when you think of Chinese food, when you go out to eat, yeah. Right, right, and those are actually, like, imperial dishes that were meant to be, like, eaten very seldomly back in the day, too, but obviously protein sources have been ultra-stabilized and cheap and, you know, they're so, like, commercialized farming now. And you can even make guo-tia with vegetable wrappings if you really want to keep it more like keto or low carb. Joe, some of these recipes look really good, man, and they still look like really Chinese. Yeah, how much do you think it is? That is true, it's about the representation. It's not about the total cuisine with a thousand dishes, but it's about what gets represented. But I will say in a macro sense, I do think that Japanese and Vietnamese cuisine and then maybe Thai and then Korean, and as much as it pains me to say this, and I'm just saying this on a median level, I might put Chinese coming in five out of five on those five cuisines, though. Well, as far as health. Median health per dish, but it doesn't mean that there's not a ton of healthy dishes that this poster is, like, ignoring. Again, yes, the most popular Chinese dishes that people want to name, that the average person can name, probably are not the most healthiest, but really for what cuisine it is, minus sushi, sushi's healthy in a different way. Yeah, no, and listen, man, I feel like that there's a lot of hacks people can still do to get their rice fixed in, to get their Asian flavors in. You can still buy Chinese flavor marinades at the store and marinate your chicken yourself. Right, low sodium, low calorie. Yeah, put it in the air fryer yourself. I mean, you know what I mean. And you know the crazy thing is, this is a quick thought that I'll end with before we get into the comments section. It's like, it's kind of messed up, but it's almost like, and don't take this the wrong way, guys. But if everybody ate like a diabetic, probably, and I'm not saying different people don't have predispositions or they're born into it, but less people would become diabetic if they already ate like a diabetic before they were one. Right. Listen, guys, like I said, I'm not saying for sure. I'm just saying I'm just throwing it out there. And again, hey, it's a lot of portion control too, man. A lot of people in America, they would feel like, oh, like, dude, of course you can eat a soup dumpling. Of course you can eat a piece of fried chicken. Just you can't eat all of it all the time. Right, right, right. Basically, this person was saying that there are so many little tricks and tips and hacks here. Andrew, you can use different seasonings. You can mix your rice to be one-third white rice, one-third cauliflower rice, one-third quinoa or brown rice, and that's gonna still ultimately give you that taste vibe of white rice. Right, right, I like that. I like that one. Andrew, what about lean proteins like fish and chicken, right? Obviously, lean beef, particularly, you can just cook those meats with Asian seasonings on them in an air fryer or like a Instant Pot or something like that. And even though it's not 10 out of 10 like a restaurant Chinese dish, it doesn't mean that's not a Chinese dish. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, it could still appeal within like sort of the taste palette. Andrew, a lot of people were saying, you know what, you gotta just lean into the egg dishes. Fan-che-chiao-dan. Ah, tomato egg, yeah. Right, right, right. But there's a way to do it, obviously, it matters the oils that you pick. It matters all the time. Right, there's a lot of steamed egg dishes. What about tofu dishes? Lots of great tofu dishes. A lot of people were talking about how can you make your parents understand? Because this guy, this original poster was like, when I go visit my parents, all they do is like shame me for not eating the white rice and like things like that. Is it true that the older parents, it really depends on how educated they are or how tapped in they are to like, you know, westernized health medicine? Andrew, how often are they gonna get on board with it? I think it's different because listen, if they're generally healthy or feel like they're healthy, living a long time with maybe just like mildly high cholesterol, which is like fairly common. I guess like at the end of the day, they're gonna look at what they grew up eating and what they're eating at home as passable. But what happens a lot of the time is that the American kids like us, we grew up here, we're mixing it in with western-sized portions. We're eating out a lot at the restaurants. We're not cooking food as much. We're not walking enough. We're not walking enough. We're not running enough. We're not doing enough cardio. We're eating a lot of carbs. Like we just think like, oh yeah, my parent, I'm eating rice and fish, but you're eating like a portion, like 30% larger than what they eat in Asia. And plus they- Maybe 300% larger. And plus they walk around more and it's maybe a hotter climate, especially in like southern China. So I'm just saying, there's a lot of things different guys. Yeah. I mean, Andrew, here are some charts about eating low glycemic foods, basically that are not gonna rise your blood sugar as much, you know, your glucose levels, your insulin levels. Yeah, obviously, like we said, you can only eat Asian American food nowadays, or I'm sorry, Asian food, but because of what's available out on the street, you could become insulin resistant or pre-diabetic, even just eating your own culture's food in 2023. Exactly. And I think that that's the key here. People are just saying, you know, portion size, Andrew. Like we said, here are some substitutes, Andrew, instead of rice, use cauliflower rice or black fortune rice. I like black fortune rice. It's good. For bread, there's keto bread, oopsie egg bread, Ezekiel bread. Some keto bread is still really good. For pasta, Andrew, there's chickpea pasta, red lentil pastas, pastas that are made out of more vegetable-based things, right, protein-based things. Instead of starchy potatoes, Andrew, substituted for a, still a carb, but a complex carb, like sweet potatoes. Because, yeah, Andrew, also there is a ton of stuff. If you are willing to pay, Andrew, there's a lot of pre-made keto options in 2023 or you can make your own. They got keto mantou buns. Right, right. You know, I would say to this OP though, I get wanting to still feel Asian and eat Asian food, you know? Because it's part of your identity, right? And you don't want to hope, maybe this person doesn't speak Chinese very well, maybe they're not around a lot of Chinese people, so they feel very distant from the culture. So they're just like, man, me eating the food or going to the restaurant is what makes me feel culturally Asian. So it's kind of like part of me. First of all, one, you have to enjoy the feeling of being healthy, but two, like, just don't eat it as much, I guess. Right, and when you do eat it, eat a smaller portion, right? Yeah, and then save the other part of it, and then you can eat it again the next day. So now you're splitting up a meal into two. Right, go out with more people, split it about a lot more people. Yeah, hang out with friends, split the check, so it's cheaper, also intermittent fast, so you eat less food in general, so when you do eat food, you can kind of eat more of the tasty food. Right, go for a 30-minute walk after you eat, so it lowers your glucose levels, right? It prevents your blood sugar from spiking as much. Exactly. This last comment said, I just refrain from eating foods that negatively impact my health. Any culture that harms you is not worth preserving. Whoa. Somebody said, I just go to Whole Foods and eat that. You can always make up a new cultural food, a healthier version with different sauces and spices. Yeah, that is true, but I'm also saying, you know, again, every culture has its unhealthy food and its healthy food, but people, when they look at Chinese food, they focus on the unhealthy food because that tends to be the most commercially viable. Right, right, right. And if you actually go to Asia, you will see that there are different chains, like in Shanghai, Guangdong area, and there's a ton of chain restaurants that never made it over the US that only serve steamed foods. David, one of your favorite dishes of all time is a dish that is very hard to find out here, which is huangmenji, which it probably has a lot of sodium, but as far as fat, it's just braised chicken thigh in a pot with veggies. Right, right, right. And I guess the part where you got to be careful is the rice scoop of rice they often give you. Yeah, maybe the sodium, but essentially. But you could cut that out and you can get Conjak noodles actually at the huangmenji. You just like braised chicken, that's your favorite dish. Right, right, right. I mean, ultimately, I think guys, you can still eat what you want from your culture, but you just gotta eat it way less often, a smaller portion, and just be cognizant of where you're getting it, right? But a lot of times, we might be more watchful if you're an Eastern person when you're eating fast food because it's so clear what it is, it's Western, right? Right, right, right. But then you turn off that awareness radar when you eat Motherland origin food. Yeah, that's true. Trust me, Asian food and Chinese food, to me, is still overall healthier than whatever you consider American food. Yeah, what do you think about that argument that they were saying, oh my gosh, all the healthy foods nowadays are Western foods? Yeah, right now in the West, yeah, but there's also... Because we're living in the West, right? It's like a lot of that harvest time, like digging sweet greens food, it's more... There's actually a lot of braised vegetables too. It is true that the cold salads, you're only gonna get that from Southeast Asia, like Vietnam and Thailand. Right, right, right. Also, there are a lot of low-key Asian sauces if you look at the totality of Asian things, like yuzu, ponzu sauces that hire in sodium, but low in calories, low in sugar, possibly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think ultimately, man, it really is... You just gotta walk too. You gotta get some walking in. You know what I mean? Just get some Ultra Boost, get the little iPhone hand grip, you know? I feel the pain of this OP, man, but you gotta figure it out, man. Dude, I just feel like when you're like, basically like, oh, I missed the junk food, and I'm like, I mean, come on. You're talking about the fried Chinese donut, the yo-tiao, that's like... Would you say that this OP is not increasing their knowledge base to figure it out? Yeah, just look it up, look it up, and then yeah, you gotta start cooking at home, plus you'll probably save money too. Yeah, trust me, as people who, as somebody who ate out like six times or even eight times in a day, it is true that all the sodium, sugar, fat, oils, carbs, it will catch up with you eventually. Guys, as much as I love to eat food and I love my Smala Sauce too, which is our chili oil, you can buy it now, smalasauce.com, I would still recommend you guys intermittent fast. Cut one meal out so that you can maybe eat slightly more enjoyable meals later on in the day, but just you gotta eat less food. Yeah, I mean, also I think that if you really want to, even though it's not as healthy, you can coat your proteins that you cook in your air fryer in soy and sesame oil. Five spice. It's gonna make it taste Asian. Boom, five spice, garlic, whatever you want, what is it, gochujang, the little- Garlic, miso, Brussels sprouts, yes, the Brussels sprout is Western, but the flavoring is Asian. It's still gonna fit within, you know, that sweet, savory Asian tongue palate. All right, everybody, we're gonna wrap it up right there, but let us know in the comments down below what your suggestions are on eating healthy, authentic, still good-tasting Asian food. Yeah, because I know that watching, you know, becoming insulin resistant or watching for pre-diabetics traits or diabetic traits, it is a thing in the Asian community, especially amongst the older crowd. Do not blame your pre-diabetics just on the food, though. That's false, especially if you're eating primarily Asian food, you're either eating the wrong Asian dishes or there's another aspect of your lifestyle that you're not, like, kind of, you know, working on. Listen, guys, it's 2023. We got, like, the old days, we used to go eat the carbs and then go to the farm all day and, like, do work all this agriculture. Society's just different nowadays. That's why old Asians like to walk around so much. It's because they just ate. That's why they're always walking around. Anyways, guys, let me know in the comments down below. Hit that Like button. Check out Smaala Sauce. If you do like finishing oil and that fits in your diet, then it's really, really tasty. Let us know your other tips and tricks in the comments section below. Until next time, we're gonna hop off, boys, we out. Peace.