Just wondering if anyone is living in China and following Peat's diet guidelines? I'm possibly the only one. If not China then maybe some other Asian country might be interesting too. Just wondering what kind of difficulties anyone (if there is indeed anyone) getting hold of certain things or whatever advantages there may be.
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Well yeah fruits are not a problem. Strangely I'm unable to get beef liver where I am....the only thing I can get is lamb's liver. Not sure why that is. Also I'm not sure about buying something like gelatin online...just don't trust that it won't have some dodgy stuff in it. There's easy access to fresh crab, oysters etc although I've heard the quality of them is not good in China...but not much I can do about that.
What makes you say that? Fruit and white sugar are certainly not expensive?
White sugar lacks nutrients and fruit is expensive, as well as milk, beef, tubers among other things. Cheap oranges are around 1US$/piece. Apples and bananas are a little cheaper (and the cheapest fruits). Melons are at least 10$/piece. If I want to go organic, first it's almost impossible, second it would be at least 8$/kg for bananas and apples. You can find Dole fruit juices for 1.5$/l, but then you don't really have higher quality juice.
Not sure what you mean by 'sugar lacks nutrients'.....sugar has nutrients in Japan? Not quite sure what kind of sugar you're referring to. I mean ordinary white sugar like Peat recommends.
As for fruit are you taking about Japan? Obviously its very cheap in China. A huge water melon is about $0.7, imported milk is $1.5 per litre, imported juice is $1.5 to $2 a litre. Oranges can be expensive if they're imported but otherwise not so much. Beef is certainly more expensive than other meat but still a lot cheaper than the UK at least. You need to go to the market for fruit and vegetables otherwise you pay more at supermarkets, normally for better looking packaging but worse quality too.
I think you must be talking about Japan. I think its pretty common knowledge that Japan = expensive, China = cheap. Even basic things like accommodation and travel cost a fortune in Japan, never mind anything else. I know because my sister in law is Japanese.
My post is more about availability of certain Peat items, I certainly never thought anything here was expensive. The only thing that does seem to be expensive here is ice cream....not sure why.
I meant that sugar price is not really important since it is not a huge part of the nutrition like fruits.
I think you must be talking about Japan. I think its pretty common knowledge that Japan = expensive, China = cheap. Even basic things like accommodation and travel cost a fortune in Japan, never mind anything else. I know because my sister in law is Japanese.
My post is more about availability of certain Peat items, I certainly never thought anything here was expensive. The only thing that does seem to be expensive here is ice cream....not sure why.[/QUOTE]
Yes I was talking about Japan, I was just sharing. In my experience in Japan, it's really food that takes a much bigger part of my budget than when I was living in Europe. Strictly speaking about availability, you can find pretty much everything.
Where do you live in China? And how much you end up spending on foods every day?
Ok sorry I got confused then. I used to live in Tianjin, then Beijing and now currently Dongbei. Everything is cheap and you can get fresh (still living if you want) seafood very cheaply but like I say I'm not sure of the quality of it. I'm sure it must be easier to trust what you're buying in Japan even if it does cost more. Do you eat gelatin?
The local juice is not very good but you can get imported which is fine and its not too expensive.
Regarding sugar, that is what Peat recommends and Danny Roddy consumes daily so I have no problem with sugar. Its consumed to support the thyroid rather than to provide nutrients. All foods have different roles. Like rice for example has few nutrients, its consumed for energy.
The local juice is not very good but you can get imported which is fine and its not too expensive.
Regarding sugar, that is what Peat recommends and Danny Roddy consumes daily so I have no problem with sugar. Its consumed to support the thyroid rather than to provide nutrients. All foods have different roles. Like rice for example has few nutrients, its consumed for energy.
Not sure I've seen Peat recommend refined table sugar as a major ongoing staple?
My reading is that recommends it as a supplement or an occasional stop gap when good fruit, honey etc is not available? My reading is he favours fruit over refined sucrose because the fruit contains minerals that are important for metabolising sugars well, such as potassium, magnesium. I guess someone who is getting high nutrient density from other foods, and is in a state to assimilate and retain minerals well, may have more capacity to use refined sucrose in larger quantities.
I've lost my fear of eating refined table sugar, but I'm not making it the bulk of my fuel.
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Nice to be in China. I hope you get to explore the variety of regional cuisine there. If there's one country I'd like to tour and to get a sampling of regional flavors, it would be China. Not having been to China except for Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shenzhen, and Xiamen, what I know of it would be very much on the few documentaries I've watched, and the impressions I get from US press. More often than not, it is the bad things I hear. About the fake honey that abounds in the US, mostly sourced from China. About the melamine added to milk products to boost the protein content on lab tests. But I also know that most imports of oranges, pears, and apples into the Philippines are from China.
And that there are many imports of pork and chicken as well, which are kept in the dark from consumers here. There was one time when the most popular local burger chain, called Jollibee (the only company to push Mickey D's from the top spot in any country) closed many of its stores and it was reported that it was a computer system glitch that caused it. But rumors would have it that it was because its import from China had become delayed being released at the port of Manila. It was around the time when trucks were being delayed in the sudden traffic congestion brought about by road usage restrictions by the mayor of Manila. If there was a coverup on the real reason, I would attribute that to consumers here not liking the thought of eating chicken from China. Philippine chicken tastes better, because it incorporates copra meal, a by-product of coconut oil production, whereas China doesn't have that feed input. I recall being having eaten a chicken dish in Shenzhen once, and didn't like the taste of the chicken, which tasted of fish, and I thought maybe their feed input incorporated some fishmeal. When I buy pork, I would take the time to smell the pork, as the smell is sometimes a giveaway as to whether it came from China. I rather like my pork fresh, and would rather buy from the public market, where I can see the actual pig being cut up into parts. It just tastes so much different how our pork tastes. And if the pork is organic, even more so.
Of course, coconut is taken for granted here, as is in other parts of Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. As far as tubers go, they are popular everywhere in Asia. Potatoes are no problem, although I think many potatoes, the Russet variety especially, are still being imported from the US, especially as it is great for fries. But we have different varieties of sweet potatoes, varying in color and in sweetness. We also have a purple yam called ube, and cassava or yucca is often used to make a sweet dessert, unlike in Cuba where it is a carbohydrate staple. However, I haven't tasted lotus root, which is a delicacy in one region of China. It is the same root of the plant that makes the lotus flower, which adorns ornamental ponds. I was commenting on another thread of how superior the amino acid profile it has, given that is has a high amount of glycine and serine, as compared to methionine and tryptophan.
As for fruits, I think Southeast Asia is Peatarian heaven. The thing is, in the Philippines, oranges are imported. We have lemons and calamansi though, although they are not substitutes for orange juice, as orange juice can be taken without adding any sugar, being very sweet already in itself. If you go by the seasons, you can buy them at a low price- sapote (chico), watermelon, melon, guyabano (soursop), guava, cherimoya, pineapple, papaya, banana, jackfruit, durian, dragonfruit, and avocado. On bananas, some popular local varieties are saba, latundan, lakatan, and senorita etc- Cavendish tastes rather bland and is expensive. The funny thing about our bananas: saba is usually boiled or fried coated in sugar, latundan is eaten to help harden the stools, and lakatan to loosen the stools a bit. What we have none of are apples and berries, except for strawberry, which has to be grown in the cool mountains.
Speaking of the mountains, we also make coffee. The coffee I like is the liberica variety, which the locals call barako. I buy it by the kilo, at around P400, or $9, as a dark roast bean. I just use my Vietnamese coffee maker, and let the coffee drip into the cup with evaporated milk and cane sugar lying in wait.
We also have local beef and goat meat. Lamb is imported, so it's white pricey. The bovine organs that are most popular are the liver, intestines, and the stomach. Likewise with goat, although there is also a market for its head. With pork, practically every internal organ is eaten, as we have a dish called dinuguan, where the internal organs are cut up and mixed in pork blood with vinegar, serrano pepper, and flavor. Because there is a demand for it, these parts command a price that is not far removed from the flesh. With pork, the skin is also eaten. Pork hocks are either deep-fried or cooked as a stew, and its facial skin and ears are cut up, roasted, and stir-fried as an appetizer, or even a main dish. The skin from other parts of the body are made into pork rind. Speaking of deep-fried, which pork rinds are, the intestines also make good deep fry.
Since the Philippines is an archipelago, we have a regular supply of oysters and mussels. Squid come in different sizes and varieties. Some are great for grilling, some fried, and large ones are made into rings for calamares. The nice thing is they are affordable, and is the best bang for the buck given that you eat all of what you pay for, meaning apart from the tiny transparent plastic-looking part, there are no bones or sinews that you have to remove.
As for fish, large grouper heads fetch a good price- the Chinese here love to eat it, although very few really know that it has the high gelatin content which we Peatarians value. The grouper, known as lapu-lapu here, is a reef fish with a nice flesh texture, and it tastes best freshly caught and steamed. There are other varieties here, but I won't bore you with details as Ray Peat discourages eating fish, but I should end with a note saying that our fish are not cold-water fish, so I would venture to guess that they have a higher saturated content than counterparts in colder waters, so I wouldn't shun them outright. I'll eat the less oily varieties, and not eat the skin where the fat mostly resides. I'll also eat less of the large fish, as they are high up on the food chain, and have a higher mercury content.
And that there are many imports of pork and chicken as well, which are kept in the dark from consumers here. There was one time when the most popular local burger chain, called Jollibee (the only company to push Mickey D's from the top spot in any country) closed many of its stores and it was reported that it was a computer system glitch that caused it. But rumors would have it that it was because its import from China had become delayed being released at the port of Manila. It was around the time when trucks were being delayed in the sudden traffic congestion brought about by road usage restrictions by the mayor of Manila. If there was a coverup on the real reason, I would attribute that to consumers here not liking the thought of eating chicken from China. Philippine chicken tastes better, because it incorporates copra meal, a by-product of coconut oil production, whereas China doesn't have that feed input. I recall being having eaten a chicken dish in Shenzhen once, and didn't like the taste of the chicken, which tasted of fish, and I thought maybe their feed input incorporated some fishmeal. When I buy pork, I would take the time to smell the pork, as the smell is sometimes a giveaway as to whether it came from China. I rather like my pork fresh, and would rather buy from the public market, where I can see the actual pig being cut up into parts. It just tastes so much different how our pork tastes. And if the pork is organic, even more so.
Of course, coconut is taken for granted here, as is in other parts of Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. As far as tubers go, they are popular everywhere in Asia. Potatoes are no problem, although I think many potatoes, the Russet variety especially, are still being imported from the US, especially as it is great for fries. But we have different varieties of sweet potatoes, varying in color and in sweetness. We also have a purple yam called ube, and cassava or yucca is often used to make a sweet dessert, unlike in Cuba where it is a carbohydrate staple. However, I haven't tasted lotus root, which is a delicacy in one region of China. It is the same root of the plant that makes the lotus flower, which adorns ornamental ponds. I was commenting on another thread of how superior the amino acid profile it has, given that is has a high amount of glycine and serine, as compared to methionine and tryptophan.
As for fruits, I think Southeast Asia is Peatarian heaven. The thing is, in the Philippines, oranges are imported. We have lemons and calamansi though, although they are not substitutes for orange juice, as orange juice can be taken without adding any sugar, being very sweet already in itself. If you go by the seasons, you can buy them at a low price- sapote (chico), watermelon, melon, guyabano (soursop), guava, cherimoya, pineapple, papaya, banana, jackfruit, durian, dragonfruit, and avocado. On bananas, some popular local varieties are saba, latundan, lakatan, and senorita etc- Cavendish tastes rather bland and is expensive. The funny thing about our bananas: saba is usually boiled or fried coated in sugar, latundan is eaten to help harden the stools, and lakatan to loosen the stools a bit. What we have none of are apples and berries, except for strawberry, which has to be grown in the cool mountains.
Speaking of the mountains, we also make coffee. The coffee I like is the liberica variety, which the locals call barako. I buy it by the kilo, at around P400, or $9, as a dark roast bean. I just use my Vietnamese coffee maker, and let the coffee drip into the cup with evaporated milk and cane sugar lying in wait.
We also have local beef and goat meat. Lamb is imported, so it's white pricey. The bovine organs that are most popular are the liver, intestines, and the stomach. Likewise with goat, although there is also a market for its head. With pork, practically every internal organ is eaten, as we have a dish called dinuguan, where the internal organs are cut up and mixed in pork blood with vinegar, serrano pepper, and flavor. Because there is a demand for it, these parts command a price that is not far removed from the flesh. With pork, the skin is also eaten. Pork hocks are either deep-fried or cooked as a stew, and its facial skin and ears are cut up, roasted, and stir-fried as an appetizer, or even a main dish. The skin from other parts of the body are made into pork rind. Speaking of deep-fried, which pork rinds are, the intestines also make good deep fry.
Since the Philippines is an archipelago, we have a regular supply of oysters and mussels. Squid come in different sizes and varieties. Some are great for grilling, some fried, and large ones are made into rings for calamares. The nice thing is they are affordable, and is the best bang for the buck given that you eat all of what you pay for, meaning apart from the tiny transparent plastic-looking part, there are no bones or sinews that you have to remove.
As for fish, large grouper heads fetch a good price- the Chinese here love to eat it, although very few really know that it has the high gelatin content which we Peatarians value. The grouper, known as lapu-lapu here, is a reef fish with a nice flesh texture, and it tastes best freshly caught and steamed. There are other varieties here, but I won't bore you with details as Ray Peat discourages eating fish, but I should end with a note saying that our fish are not cold-water fish, so I would venture to guess that they have a higher saturated content than counterparts in colder waters, so I wouldn't shun them outright. I'll eat the less oily varieties, and not eat the skin where the fat mostly resides. I'll also eat less of the large fish, as they are high up on the food chain, and have a higher mercury content.
I've seen him discourage eating oily fish (PUFA) and fish that is near the peak of the food chain (mercury etc), but otherwise I don't think he is particularly down on fish. He's mentioned eating cod gimself.
That's a good thing to know, Tara. I would hate to miss out on a readily available food source. Cod is one fish we don't have here though. I've tasted it when I was living in the US, and I'd say the low oil content makes it a challenge to cook to a taste I'd be going back for. However, dried cod, as the Spanish, especially the Basque would call 'bacalao,' is to die for when made into a stew that has been slowly simmered.
I forgot to mention octopus. It has a tough flesh, but baked in a low heat over 2 hours in a covered pot, it would soften up. Drenched in oil oil and served cold as a salad, it is great.
Except for the grouper, most of the popular fish are the oily ones, unfortunately. They lend easily to being roasted, and don't easily break into crumbly pieces. The less oily fish can be had for a lower prices, and these fish are usually stewed or incorporated as soup. I find it a challenge myself to make the soup tasty, but the Thai and Filipino soups that taste good are those where the taste is not derived from the fish oil, but from the ingredients that give the soup a sour, tart, sweet, salty, and spicy flavor. A good combination of spices will make the soup interesting.
Thanks for the reply Yerrag, an interesting read. Yes I have tried the local cuisine but since its mostly floating in oil its somewhat against Ray Peat's disapproval of PUFAs. Just one meal would be enough PUFAs for a month of strict Peat eating.
I have a lot of fears about the quality of meat and other products here. The chicken like you say is particularly weird. It even looks weird and I don't know how it manages to be so small. But the fish and seafood is about as fresh as you can get (all still alive at purchase) so you can't complain on that count at least. The fruit is good but seasonal. I'm used to the UK too much where you get oranges that are simply perfection all year round. I guess that's the benefit of cheap imported fruit in the UK.
I have a lot of fears about the quality of meat and other products here. The chicken like you say is particularly weird. It even looks weird and I don't know how it manages to be so small. But the fish and seafood is about as fresh as you can get (all still alive at purchase) so you can't complain on that count at least. The fruit is good but seasonal. I'm used to the UK too much where you get oranges that are simply perfection all year round. I guess that's the benefit of cheap imported fruit in the UK.
Luann
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Oof, good luck. Stats show that china consumes lots of vegetable oils - be strong!
Hasen, restaurants are all about taste. And with little oil, food mostly don't taste as good. That said, it doesn't mean the food has to be soaking in oil - unless it's the typical fried rice or fried noodle dish. Food deep-fried correctly, with a high enough temperature and in the right quantity at a time, is actually not very oily, as is the case with spring rolls. The good restaurants, with knowledgeable clients, know to pay attention to this detail. My knock against restaurants all over has to do with their choice of oil, which is why I'm glad I don't have to eat out that much. They all use the cheapest oil, as coconut oil is expensive. If the Philippine government knows how to market coconut oil (of which the Philippines is the largest producer) , it should start on a campaign of "Coconut Oil Used Here" for restaurants so patrons can benefit from eating food cooked with the right kind of oil. The US oil industry's promotion of corn, soy, and canola oil (with the Canadian oil seed people) as "heart-healthy" has done a great disservice to the whole world's health, and that is the least the Philippines and its coconut oil industry can do.
One thing I've learned looking for good restaurants is to give very little credence to reviews, whether it's online or in magazines, for the most part. What you read is in English, and caters mostly to Western tourists and ex-pats. It becomes a "tourist trap" review, where the food is not unlike the Americanized Chinese restaurants that dot suburbia in the United States. I imagine this could be like the "paki" restaurants in the UK. In Bangkok, for example, it is hard for me to find authentic Thai restaurants. The pad thai is too sweet, for example. Or the fish cake is filled with starch binders, it could not stand on its own without the sauce. The soup, Tom Yum, tastes like it came from a condiment pack. Etc. Since you already live there, you may want to ask locals where they go when they celebrate the 1st birthday of a child, or birthdays, or weddings. These places would serve authentic local food.
One thing I've learned looking for good restaurants is to give very little credence to reviews, whether it's online or in magazines, for the most part. What you read is in English, and caters mostly to Western tourists and ex-pats. It becomes a "tourist trap" review, where the food is not unlike the Americanized Chinese restaurants that dot suburbia in the United States. I imagine this could be like the "paki" restaurants in the UK. In Bangkok, for example, it is hard for me to find authentic Thai restaurants. The pad thai is too sweet, for example. Or the fish cake is filled with starch binders, it could not stand on its own without the sauce. The soup, Tom Yum, tastes like it came from a condiment pack. Etc. Since you already live there, you may want to ask locals where they go when they celebrate the 1st birthday of a child, or birthdays, or weddings. These places would serve authentic local food.
Well yeah of course, the tasty things have a lot of oil - like KFC. But if you want to follow Peat and avoid PUFAs you have to make some sacrifices in this area.
If you eat at the normal restaurants the locals took me to, the stuff is normally floating in oil. Or if you order stuff and have it delivered its the same. If you go to a top restaurant then it will be better...but even KFC is not floating in oil but its certainly still packed with PUFAs. If they were using coconut oil that would be different but I'm not sure of any countries that do that, never mind China.
Yeah exactly so I don't often favour the local cuisine. If you buy fresh meat, seafood, vegetables etc and cook it yourself there's no problem. I even purchased coconut oil online which seems to be authentic based on its melting point and that it wasn't cheap.
Well I speak fluent Chinese and my girlfriend is Chinese so I've certainly tasted the stuff the locals like and they like oil...the more the better...hence the floating in oil part. I remember in Tianjin someone thought I was crazy when I was cooking because I was deep drying some stuff and then putting it on paper towels to absorb the oil! I live in Dongbei now and nobody here speaks a word of English...there's basically nothing for tourists here. Its not like Beijing or even Tianjin where I used to live where you at least had some foreigners there.
Actually the opposite is true. In the UK the Chinese food is nowhere near so oily since we don't like that kind of thing. At least not as much as the Chinese, where like I say, its literally bathed in the oil.
There are certainly lots of good things about the Chinese diet but the oil part isn't one of them.
I must admit that I have to google Dongbei to know where that is, but I imagine from the name it is mid-north- a wild! guess! You're out of luck then, as far as oily food goes, unless you move with your wife to Taiwan, where you can find food much less to the oily side. And still use your fluent Chinese to work your way around what food it offers, seafood being no stranger to this island. And you will find plenty of organic food, as Taiwan is pretty high up in agricultural circles, and the organic sector should not be far behind.
Perhaps, you will find that Dongbei may not represent a large part of China when it comes to oily food, or it may. You would know better since you have moved a bit around China, though much remains to be covered. Good luck with your adventures there, especially with food.:)
Perhaps, you will find that Dongbei may not represent a large part of China when it comes to oily food, or it may. You would know better since you have moved a bit around China, though much remains to be covered. Good luck with your adventures there, especially with food.:)
I googled it - and shows how rusty my Chinese is - it's northeast instead of mid-north! Wow- that is really up north. That makes it close to North Korea already. Perhaps my knowledge of China is very southern, and Dongbei would be very different in many ways. Maybe your spoken Chinese and my spoken Chinese would be as different as a Welsh and a Scots, and the differences in food preferences would be even more pronounced.
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