Food curiosity

I am seeking some informative answers from people who have been here a long time or are able to ask their taiwanese spouse’s for the answer.

I am genuinely interested in how healthy the food is here, especially the stuff i see my girlfriend gobble down that i wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole; mostly cause it’s everything i feel should either be ground up and put into hot dogs or dog food. In the west, isn’t it considered the left over crap that’s not eaten?

I’m refering to the stuff in the glass display cases at most 小吃店’s.
the kidney’s. stomach, intestines, pig fat, and all the other stuff i can’t really identify.

also, what is the appeal in eating this stuff? and it’s never refrigerated? doesn’t that worry anyone here?

I’m sitting here eating subway and she’s eating a steaming bowl of intestine soup, guts and guts on a bone.

i have, of course, asked her the above, but she says she doesn’t care if it’s healthy or not, it just tastes good. i have to wonder if my subway sandwich looks as gross to her as her food does to me.

[quote=“bushibanned”]I’m refering to the stuff in the glass display cases at most 小吃店’s.
the kidney’s. stomach, intestines, pig fat, and all the other stuff I can’t really identify.[/quote]
Remember Taiwan was part of the third world until very recently. They used to have to eat everything. As well, when food is scarce, fat is OK. My roommate in China, who lived through a famine as a small child, would drink the sesame oil I bought. When I see the Hakka food here, it revolts me – it’s basically just pork fat, with no meat – but then I remember my roommate drinking a bottle of oil; you have to get the calories from somewhere.

[quote=“bushibanned”]and it’s never refrigerated? doesn’t that worry anyone here?[/quote] Same thing: until recently, they didn’t have refrigerators. If they couldn’t survive it, they would have died in infancy. Same Chinese roommate would refuse to put meat or eggs in our fridge because she needed the space to store her cosmetics.

Probably.

And I would like to know, if the Taiwanese are so healthy, why do they always have the cold? And what’s with the obsession with going to the hospital all the time? Has this been going on for a long time? Was there once a time when people didn’t permanently have the cold, and the hospitals treated sick people? (Or are they really sick?)

On the food: perhaps it because this kind of food has very little in it that prevents Taiwanese people ballooning to American or European levels of obesity? Maybe it’s not so much that it’s healthy, but that it contains a reasonably filling combination of benign packing. I know if my wife had eaten European food when we lived there she’d have been the size of two elephants. Now, no matter how good the ingredients might have been, it would just have been too much food.

ok, i get it. Kinda.
But taiwan isnt a third world country anymore and there are refrigerator’s.
I don’t understand how people, who are healty, have an income, can survive on this. These small shops make a fotune and I see the same people eat there day after day. Why not modernize the menu? It’s a known fact that animal fat consumption contributes to a plethora of health problems.

I get really unhealthy if i only eat the food from these places. I get tired, run down, pale, and even sickly looking.

None of it looks fresh. It sits in red and green tubs all day.
If it’s merely a filler, how do the people here get a proper balance of vitamins and minerals? And where is the health department?

I find this to be quite mind-boggling but i appreciate your responses nonetheless. I hope to hear more.

I fear sounding naive, and I have been here almost 4 years
cheers

[quote=“bushibanned”]
But taiwan isnt a third world country anymore and there are refrigerator’s.
[/quote] If you didn’t have it when you were a kid, you’re not going to really think it’s necessary.

[quote=“bushibanned”]I get really unhealthy if I only eat the food from these places. I get tired, run down, pale, and even sickly looking.
[/quote]It seems to me that most Taiwanese are tired, run down, pale (within the confines of their skin color) and sickly looking. I agree with you – the food here doesn’t seem too healthy. What really bothers me is the massive amount of dental decay you see in little kids. Teaching kindergarten was revolting just for this reason.
It amuses me when I go home and have to listen to people saying how they envy me, being able to eat Chinese food all the time. Why, it must be wonderful! they enthuse.

I’m in the restaurant business and from experience I know that Taiwanese eat few different vegetables. Look at the lunchboxes. A lot of grease rice and few veggies.

In my place I tried to put a lot of different vegetables on the plates and they mostly return them and only eat the meats. Lucky for me they like my vegetable soups, hey … 1-0 for me. And… look at the salad buffets, most Taiwanese eat dressing with salad instead of salad with dressing.

I know that in the past farmers had to eat fats, (porkfat) because they needed the calories and nothing else was available and fats kept for a long time. But nowadays office workers don’t need this kind of food. They need a healthy balanced diet, but nooo…they prefer grease fried foodstall chicken etc… Even the children are in the habit. look at all the stands after schools out, full of youths, go at night on the street, foodstalls are very busy. They snack all day, the wrong food. And recently they are getting fatter, especially older women and men.

Actually, pork and other meat and fish is mostly bought fresh everyday on the market and anyway meat needs to mature for a while (without flies actually and in the fridge preferably), only offal needs to be consumed pretty quick as this will deteriorate fast.

Another thing they are doing is putting sigar in most of the things they eat. And than they are complany that western candy and chocolat are toooo sweet, come on who are they kidding. Taiwan consumes a lot of sugar, although in a stealthy way.

I always have to laugh when I think back at the time people in my home country used to say (when the first chinese restaurants appeared) that chinese food is soooo healthy, yeah…right!

The years I spent in Taiwan I really opened my eyes when looking at food, I will eat most things here but I’m very carefull when it comes to clams, they can give you the runner. But in doing so I try to pick the best for my health, I doesn’t work all the time and sometimes no other choice so I’ve to eat it. Outside of Taipei there are not to many Subways. BTW, their bread is crap but until now there’s no other choice, but it’ll change soon.

Verdict: in Taiwan they don’t handle food (even my wife and other employees I have to correct sometimes they are handling food) as it has to be and they still eat stuff they don’t have to. so, be carefull what you eat wher you are at that very moment. I’ve eaten the most strange things and haven’t been sick toooo many times yet.

One more thing, if you decide to eat deepfried stuff, look at the oil first because a lot of vendors don’t chance it tooo often. It won’t make you sick immediately but it’s cancerogenous. They mostly use soya oil.

I have Taiwanese friends and family members who say they really like the taste of guts.

I think they do realize that they don’t have to subsist on these items westerners find revolting, but still they like to eat them. My theory is that, during the days when nothing else was available, they just managed to find ways of cooking these items so that they tasted great (to them). And perhaps these cooking/flavoring methods have continually improved.

By the way, I noticed more innards than actual fat. And innards are not fatty (as long as they’re not deep-fried), and probably can have a lot of nutritional value (livers, for example).

I would also disagree that Taiwanese/Chinese dislike eating vegetables. All of my Taiwanese/Chinese friends and relatives eat more greens than my western friends. However, from observing my parents, I think there may be a prioritization of value going on. Meat is more expensive than vegetables. When I was younger and I only had enough space left in my stomach for one more bite at dinner, my parents always wanted that last bite to be meat, rather than rice or vegetables.

Perhaps at banquet or treating-of-guest occasions, this would explain why you, the guest to be impressed with the host’s wealth and/or generosity, feel there are too many meat dishes on the table. But I don’t think this tendency is limited to Taiwanese hosts.[/i]

Vegetables like cabbage and bamboo are eaten mostly but not in great quantity. A lot of veggies are just used as decoration.

Agree with Aprimo on all points; the genuine liking of guts; the overeating of meat because of recent farming history etc.

You can see the same things in southern Europe and France. People there enjoy eating things that would now seem yucky to many people in Britain and the USA (although it was not so long ago that we ourselves were eating brains and tripe, and quite a few people still like their liver and onions, or steak-and-kidney pie).

In Spain now, people eat a lot of meat, fish and animal products. It used to be more expensive but as living standards have risen people have eaten more and more of these “luxury” foods and a little less of the healthier ones such as grains and vegetables. We always hear how the Mediterranean diet is so healthy but the plain fact is that many people now eat too much meat and indeed too much food altogether. In Spain you see quite a few overweight people and I presume it’s the same in the rest of southern Europe.

The cooking style is also important, as Aprimo says. My father remembers gagging on boiled tripe; perhaps cooked in salted water with a few onions. Yet I’m quite partial to the odd bit of tripe in spicy hotpot, and I hear that Italians do some very creative things with it.

Actually it’s the same with veges. For over a century the Brits have massacred vegetables, boiling them to death and adding precious little in the way of herbs or spices. A few hundred years ago it used to be different, and things are now changing back again. But the various styles of Chinese cooking have always had interesting things to do to vegetables, ranging from adding a little ginger and garlic to a cabbage dish to the complexities of Buddhist vegetarian cooking. I find Taiwanese home cooking of vegetables very good on the whole (although I don’t much like the greasy offerings found in cafeterias). Southern Europe is the same. They don’t do boring vegetables.

KFC, MacDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, fish and chips, diet (sic!) Coke, pig’s knuckles, haggis…

Um, the Western diets are a model of healthy eats? What you and most other westerners don’t understand is that the so called animal fat consumption that you see, isn’t really that fatty because the fat has been cooked out of it. You’re eating fat yes, but you’re not eating the fat. Now, I’m not saying you should eat that stuff everyday, moderation is the keyword. However, eating it isn’t going to kill you.

Also, do Taiwanese/Chinese people have a greater amount of health issues related to food than the US? Given the obesity problems in the West, it seems that the Western diet should modernize less. Chinese food and this kind of eating has been going on for centuries and they don’t seem to suffer from it. The one major exception is that throat, stomach and esophageal cancer that afflict Cantonese people. I’ve heard that this is from the roast duck and the way it is marinated is a reason for this. :idunno:

[quote=“bushibanned”]I get really unhealthy if I only eat the food from these places. I get tired, run down, pale, and even sickly looking.

None of it looks fresh. It sits in red and green tubs all day.
If it’s merely a filler, how do the people here get a proper balance of vitamins and minerals? And where is the health department? [/quote]

If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger. Homestyle cooking is a bit different from what you see outside. You will still get the balanced diet, have greens, lots of tofu, and other not-so-fatty foods. Outside, caloric intake aside, you’re talking about snacking. People here eat in smaller amounts but more frequently, whereas in the West, we tend to have huge set meals and then snack on processed junk foods. :s

People have their comfort foods. It’s regional. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you or the view you have on Taiwanese/Chinese food. Heck, I know other Chinese people from other parts of the world who are revolted by the cuisine here - butt, liver, gizzard, stomach, intestine, foot, nose, ear, testicles :loco: ??? So by no means is this kind of food “universal” or loved.

Me, I love it :laughing: :uhhuh:

[/quote]Um, the Western diets are a model of healthy eats? [quote]

IN general, no. Western fast food is horrible, but I certainly grew up with very healthy food in my house, and therefore i guess that’s my frame of reference.

[quote=“bushibanned”]I am seeking some informative answers from people who have been here a long time or are able to ask their Taiwanese spouse’s for the answer.

I am genuinely interested in how healthy the food is here, especially the stuff I see my girlfriend gobble down that I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole; mostly cause it’s everything I feel should either be ground up and put into hot dogs or dog food. In the west, isn’t it considered the left over crap that’s not eaten?

I’m refering to the stuff in the glass display cases at most 小吃店’s.
the kidney’s. stomach, intestines, pig fat, and all the other stuff I can’t really identify.

also, what is the appeal in eating this stuff? and it’s never refrigerated? doesn’t that worry anyone here?

I’m sitting here eating subway and she’s eating a steaming bowl of intestine soup, guts and guts on a bone.

I have, of course, asked her the above, but she says she doesn’t care if it’s healthy or not, it just tastes good. I have to wonder if my subway sandwich looks as gross to her as her food does to me.[/quote]
I guess it’s obvious from your post that you’ve never lived in a farming community in the U.S. All the stuff you find disgusting we grew up eating. And as for refrigeration, well I knew quite a few farmers’ wifes who didn’t rush to stick everything in a refrigerator. If it was going to be eaten within the next day or so it usually ended up staying on the kitchen table (covered of course).
I think the more affluent a society becomes the more wasteful they become. I also think there are quite a few Taiwanese that don’t have a full sized refrigerator too. :wink: (My roommate actually balked when I wanted to buy a second-hand one because he said it was a waste of money).

[/quote]
I guess it’s obvious from your post that you’ve never lived in a farming community in the U.S. All the stuff you find disgusting we grew up eating. quote]

No, I didn’t and had no idea either. I did, however, grow up with a danish grandpa who made head-cheese and occasionally would boil cow tongue. :s

I agree with Yellow Cartman and Aprimo on this subject. Taiwanese eat WAY more veggies than Americans at least. Maybe they cook the veggies it in oil, but so what? I eat Chinese food almost exclusively and now weigh 8 kilos less than when I first came to Taiwan three years ago. Americans and vegetables? Hmmm, french fries, iceberg lettuce (almost no nutrition) covered in cheese, salad dressing, bacon bits, croutons, baked potatos topped with butter, sour cream, bacon and cheese, or over-boiled broccoli with no seasoning or in some cases drenched in butter.

Although I don’t eat guts, I love eating from the food stalls and have never gotten sick from the food here or in mainland China.

Hang out in the public bathrooms and you’ll know why. People here don’t wash their hands properly! It’s a very rare occasion when I see someone do more than turn on the faucet, quickly run their hands under the water, turn off the faucet, shake a couple of times and they’re off. :noway:
That’s my biggest pet peeve here. According to the CDC the most important thing you can do to keep from getting sick is wash your hands. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/op/handwashing.htm

I frequently wash my hands (properly), and take vitamin C everyday and I haven’t had a cold in over two years. :slight_smile:

In Scotland people only used to eat kippers because that was the only alternative to salting them.
It’s a long time since Scotland was a third-world country (OK, who am I trying to kid?) but I still love tripes, brains, kidneys, liver, etc etc, just as I love pig guts here. OP, your g/f is right – they taste good.

[quote=“Erhu”]I agree with Yellow Cartman and Aprimo on this subject. I think that Taiwanese eat WAY more veggies than Americans at least. Maybe they cook the veggies it in oil, but so what? I eat Chinese food almost exclusively and I weigh 8 kilos less than when I first came to Taiwan three years ago. Americans and vegetables? Hmmm, I’m thinking french fries, iceberg lettuce (almost no nutrition) covered in cheese, salad dressing, bacon bits, croutons, baked potatos topped with butter, sour cream, bacon and cheese, or over-boiled broccoli with no seasoning or in some cases drenched in butter.[quote]

I didn’t start this thread becuase i think westerners eat better, healthier, or wiser. nor did i start this thread with the intention of slamming either western or taiwanese eatin habits. i just want to know the appeal in eating the stuff.

ARGH! AM i QUOTE BUTTON CHALLENGED?

It tastes good. That’s all.

ok! well i guess it’s settled then! :slight_smile:
but it looks so yucky

Another reason people get more sick here is that people are crammed in much closer together. The more people you come into close contact with, the greater chances you have of catching disease.