Calories In Chinese Food

I love cheap Chinese food. I know it isn’t healthy. I know that it is very caloric. Yet, I was truly amazed by this video put up by the Center For Science In The Public Interest.

I’m amazed because this time they have pictured foods that are similar to what I as a vegan may ask for when I go to these places. The Chinese restaurants I go to have a posted policy of using only vegetable oil. However, the shock that hits closer to home still hits deeper nonetheless.

To put these listings into perspective the “average” person’s calorie needs are about 2000 calories a day. Some people a little more, some people a little less, unless they are in boot camp or they are a serious athlete.

400 – 600 calories is about the size of a reasonable meal for most of us. An extra 250 calories a day is enough to put on 26 pounds of fat over a year.

Stir Fried Greens
Calories: 900 Sat Fat: 11 grams Sodium: 2,200 mg


Tofu & Mixed Vegetables (Homestyle Tofu)
Calories: 900 Sat Fat: 9 grams Sodium: 2,200 mg

The best advice I ever heard about eating out is to ask for half of your food be brought to you wrapped up to go. When I eat Chinese food on the weekend I will either skip lunch or skip dinner ( and I am not hungry ). The portions really are the sizes of two meals.

To see more grisly examples and get tips on mitigating the impact of your Chinese restaurant meal you can check out the full article at https://cspinet.org/new/200703211.html.

The culprit is deep frying for the high calorie count and the various sauces for the high sodium count. Don’t laugh off the sodium count. Articles come out every year linking excessive sodium intake to shortened lives and even osteoporosis.

February

February is my least favorite month.

The area I live in only gets 1 – 2 dustings of snow per winter. We get ice, we get barren trees, brown grass, cold air and the bleakness of frozen concrete urban sprawl zones. In short all of the ugliness of winter without much of the beauty.

By the time February rolls around I am done with the bleakness of winter. The bleakness in the current news doesn’t help either.

I’m thinking about this favorite quote of mine from concentration camp survivor, psychologist and inventor of logotherapy ( a form of cognitive therapy ) Viktor Frankel:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Okay, time to pump things up.

February is my least favorite month, but is also the shortest month and we are already 10 days into it.

The news is bleak, but I have new hope with our new President. I can’t imagine another person with a mix of qualifications better to tackle the problems at hand. Good grief, just imagine if the opposition won.

It is starting to get light out when I wake up and stay light for about 10 minutes after work.

In a few weeks it will be that weird in between time, not winter and not spring with a sense of foreshadowing in the air. Soon after that those ephemeral flowers you see on bushes that only last a few weeks in spring will come out. Then buttercups, then those blue chicory flowers, then dandelions. Squirrels, rabbits, birds. Cats lazily sleeping on porches.

Now, I feel better.

Good night! 🙂