Chinese Diet And Metabolism

Gone Peating

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So I live in China, but I am a white guy from the US

Once a week I visit a place called Dr. Stretch, a Japanese place that is wayyy better than any massage parlor/physical therapy place I've ever been to. They stretch you out like you wouldn't believe

Anyway, after my session the girl that stretches me out gives me a cup of warm water and makes a joke that it is "boiling", Chinese people only drink warm water they are TERRIFIED of drinking cold water, I am not exaggerating or joking they will not drink cold drinks just ask anyone who's spent any time in China

So I asked her why should people drink hot water, especially after a workout

She says "It will speed up metabolism and prevent you from getting a cold"

It's hilarious bc I started Peating about 6 months ago when I arrived in China, and as I read all of Ray Peat's articles and all of the helpful material on here I realized that the Chinese display an incredible amount of signs pointing to low metabolism: very tired almost lifeless look on their face, very slow to react to things (very obvious if you drive here), very low levels of emotion, unenergetic/unenthusiastic, skinny fat bodies, among other things

Their diet is the anti-Peat diet, they pretty much eat PUFA soaked noodles and low quality pork/chicken at almost every meal

Has anyone spent an extended period of time in China before?
 

somuch4food

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She says "It will speed up metabolism and prevent you from getting a cold"

That would have to come from traditional knowledge. I think there is truth to this. Your body has to expend a lot of energy to warm a cold liquid that you ingested.

It's hilarious bc I started Peating about 6 months ago when I arrived in China, and as I read all of Ray Peat's articles and all of the helpful material on here I realized that the Chinese display an incredible amount of signs pointing to low metabolism: very tired almost lifeless look on their face, very slow to react to things (very obvious if you drive here), very low levels of emotion, unenergetic/unenthusiastic, skinny fat bodies, among other things

In any city, you will find this kind of people. It must be because of learned helplessness.

Their diet is the anti-Peat diet, they pretty much eat PUFA soaked noodles and low quality pork/chicken at almost every meal

If traditionally prepared with good broth, it can be very nutritious. There is not an optimal diet. Ray Peat himself acknowledges that you must do your best with what is available/affordable to you.
 
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Gone Peating

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Sure but my point is that the Chinese are irrationally scared of drinking cold liquids. They claim it will make them feel ill. If you or I or anyone else really in the world drank a nice cold drink we would not feel ill, most likely we would feel refreshed. Clearly, something is wrong that is making the Chinese feel this way.

Even though RP doesn't have a "diet" in the conventional sense, he makes clear that his recommendations are to abstain from pufa above all else because it is perhaps the biggest metabolism killer. I think the Chinese consume more pufa than even the US, they eat noodles cooked in a ton of soybean oil basically every meal.

Sure in any city you will find people like this, but not to the extent that you do here.
 

Fractality

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I think their fear of cold liquids further proves their hypometabolism. If you are hypometabolic, you will be unable to convert energy into heat.
 

Whichway?

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My partner is Chinese and she is like this. Will only drink water that has been boiled, and never from the tap. She also very rarely eats anything that has not been warmed up. She feels the cold easily and gets cold hands and feet so she is probably hypo.

Westerners may be the other way however, where our metabolism may be too hot too easily, which may cause the issues we see with inflammation in all its various guises. I for one am certainly not worried about cool or cold drinks, and find them refreshing.
 

Jing

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Sure but my point is that the Chinese are irrationally scared of drinking cold liquids. They claim it will make them feel ill. If you or I or anyone else really in the world drank a nice cold drink we would not feel ill, most likely we would feel refreshed. Clearly, something is wrong that is making the Chinese feel this way.

Even though RP doesn't have a "diet" in the conventional sense, he makes clear that his recommendations are to abstain from pufa above all else because it is perhaps the biggest metabolism killer. I think the Chinese consume more pufa than even the US, they eat noodles cooked in a ton of soybean oil basically every meal.

Sure in any city you will find people like this, but not to the extent that you do here.
It's true for some people though if I drink cold drinks it makes me colder .. I prefer warm drinks .. but I am colder than most people .. just depends on your body.
 

RobertJM

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Well milk isn’t drank cold I’m pretty sure for what its purpose is (a calf doesn’t drink it cold). Putting it into a refrigerator isn’t natural. Even liquid from oranges aren’t refrigerated either, if you eat an orange ‘as it comes’. Water is usually cold, but drinking too much of it is perhaps unnecessary anyway.

I think Chinese medicine has some good concepts but it is certainly wrong about some things too. They empathise balance quite a lot, which is a concept not overly practiced on this forum (if some postings are to be believed), and that in itself isn’t right IMO. It’s important to increase metabolism but always remember that your body has limitations on what it can do. I’ve learnt the hard way that constantly pressing the gas pedal doesn’t necessarily equate to better health. It’s better to cruise along at a manageable, yet increased metabolic rate.
 

Kehaar

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Has anyone spent an extended period of time in China before?

I've never been to China, but we have a 17 year old 10th grader from China living with us for the year. He's been with us for 2 months so far. He tells us that everything in China is fried in peanut or canola or other PUFA oils. Is it not surprising that they don't have more health problems given so much PUFA intake? This young man seems very healthy.

I also notice that when he makes his super spicy ramen, he sweats buckets at the table (sweat pouring off his face!), whereas my American 15 yo (who has struggled with his weight for the past few years) eats the same thing with no sweating. I wonder what this says about the differences in their metabolism? The Chinese student is quite thin.
 

InChristAlone

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Traditional Chinese medicine believes cold food and drinks are too yin and warm are yang which most people need more yang less yin. I mean obviously some people have too much fire and inflammation, they will be the ones to benefit more from cooling food like fruit. And what do you know tropical places have an abundance of cooling food! I want way way less cooling food in winter.

Also Asians have different genes than Europeans, 50% of East Asians don't have the gene that process acetaldehyde, many of them flush from even small amounts of alcohol. But as far as I have seen Chinese appear to have good health.
 

Ulysses

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I dated a woman from Taiwan this year who loves to cook, and had been frying everything in canola oil her whole life until I convinced her to use coconut oil and butter instead. Although intensely skeptical of my claims when I initially made them, now she won’t stop raving about how much better she feels. Not filling her apartment with rancid PUFA smoke every time she cooks is a bonus, too.
 

Tarmander

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When you kill off all the creative, spontaneous, anti-authoritarian people in your society, this is what you get.
 

Ulysses

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When you kill off all the creative, spontaneous, anti-authoritarian people in your society, this is what you get.
I think that is the natural tendency of civilization in general. It goes through cycles of authoritarianism and relative freedom, but only one of these phases, the former, forcibly alters the population by killing dissidents. Each cycle makes society more authoritarian on balance. The main difference between China and the West is that China is just older, and thus further along in the process.
 

Tarmander

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I think that is the natural tendency of civilization in general. It goes through cycles of authoritarianism and relative freedom, but only one of these phases, the former, forcibly alters the population by killing dissidents. Each cycle makes society more authoritarian on balance. The main difference between China and the West is that China is just older, and thus further along in the process.
Sounds like armchair historian theories right there.

Every society treats their dissidents, creatives, and shakers differently. China recently killed all theirs off, so it doesn't surprise me that they are autonomous robots.
 

Sunny Jack

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Every society treats their dissidents, creatives, and shakers differently. China recently killed all theirs off, so it doesn't surprise me that they are autonomous robots.

To prove this you would have to demonstrate that the pre-Maoist Chinese were more individualistic and creative than present day Chinese people. Not easy.

I have heard similar arguments of dysgenic selection being responsible for lower quality people before (e.g., the bravest Scandinavian genes left with the Vikings, or the best of the British were culled in the First World War trenches or emigrated to America and Canada), but it is a very difficult thing to prove.
 

Tarmander

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To prove this you would have to demonstrate that the pre-Maoist Chinese were more individualistic and creative than present day Chinese people. Not easy.

I have heard similar arguments of dysgenic selection being responsible for lower quality people before (e.g., the bravest Scandinavian genes left with the Vikings, or the best of the British were culled in the First World War trenches or emigrated to America and Canada), but it is a very difficult thing to prove.
Yeah you're probably right. I was thinking along the lines when Mao invited criticism and killed those people in particular. But maybe the smartest/fittest saw the writing on the wall at that point and kept quiet.
 

Bogdar

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Don't know if it has been mentionned but their tap water is not drinkable, they have to boil it to kill germs. That's what I've learned when I did a trip to China. So yeah not surprised that she says we can become ill with "cold" tap water.
 
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Gone Peating

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Don't know if it has been mentionned but their tap water is not drinkable, they have to boil it to kill germs. That's what I've learned when I did a trip to China. So yeah not surprised that she says we can become ill with "cold" tap water.

They even heat up bottled or filtered water, it's not just the tap water
 
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Gone Peating

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I've never been to China, but we have a 17 year old 10th grader from China living with us for the year. He's been with us for 2 months so far. He tells us that everything in China is fried in peanut or canola or other PUFA oils. Is it not surprising that they don't have more health problems given so much PUFA intake? This young man seems very healthy.

I also notice that when he makes his super spicy ramen, he sweats buckets at the table (sweat pouring off his face!), whereas my American 15 yo (who has struggled with his weight for the past few years) eats the same thing with no sweating. I wonder what this says about the differences in their metabolism? The Chinese student is quite thin.

I can tell you that from my time in Shanghai, they are a pretty unhealthy looking lot. Skinnyfat bodies, poor skin quality, and always walking around hacking up phlegm and coughing
 

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