diet differences between east and west

[Tokis-Phoenix]

One thing I noticed, is that eggs are eaten very undercooked in my opinion. Even my husband eats eggs which are still completely runny...the whites are still clear! I ordered am "om-rice" (? spelling) and I had to send it back, it was still slimy and giggly! I can't eat eggs like that. I know some health fanatics will drink raw eggs, but I don't think the have an "appreciation" of undercooked eggs. My family will eat soft boiled eggs, but then of course the whites are cooked solid.

I don't mind raw egg, however if i eat it raw it has got to be totally raw, and if i eat it cooked the yolk has gotta be soft or runny but not runny egg white.


It is true though that over in the west, when it comes to omeletes in particular, many of us actually way over-cook our omeletes.
Omeletes are not supposed to be completely cooked all the way through, if you go to a good resturant you will often find this is the case.

When doing korean and chinese cooking, there is a recipe that i really love in particular and which i often include as a side dish to my home cooking. Its basically an omelate wrapped around a portion of rice.
The rice is first fried for a minute or 2 in a small amount of oil and a handful of finely choped onion on a high heat before having the water added (you should add twice as much water as the volume of rice you use), the heat is turned right down, the sauce is added and quickly stirred in roughly, the lid to the pan is then added and the rice is then allowed to simmer for about 15mins on the lowest heat, never or only once been stirred before it is served up in the omeletes.
The sauce basically consists of 2 heaped tablespoons of tomatoe puree, one crushed vegetable stock cube, one tablespoon of soy sauce and half a tablespoon of worstershire sauce (if desired, although not essential), which is all mixed together before being added to the rice.
I usually use about 100mls of rice and 200mls of water, which will give you about 2 good portions/servings of rice.


The omelete's contain no more than 2 thoroughly whisked eggs per omelete, you should oil the pan well (putting the oil in the pan and then tilting the pan until the oil covers the bottom and sides of the pan completely) but not too much.
The omeletes should be cooked on a medium to low heat, too hot and the oil will either bubble through the omelete causing holes or cause the omelete to go wonky and un-even.
The omeletes should be served up as soon as the top of the omelete starts to go dry (but not completely cooked), serve the omelete up by sliding it off the pan onto the plate and then spooning the tomatoe stock rice in a thick line onto the omelate and then folding the sides of the omelete over the rice.


This is how omeletes should be done, not too cooked or oily or un-even and only lightly golden browned on one side (or both if you are doing a thick omelete). I love this korean omelete recipe, its really easy to do, the rice only takes 15mins tops and the omeletes only take about 4-5mins. I usually serve the omelete parcels up as a side dish to foods like home made seasoned sweet potato or normal potatoe wedges and chinese egg fried rice with sweet veg stir fry- trust me, it tastes really awesome and is simple, flavoursome and good delicious food !

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Needless to say, the pounds came off, the mood went up, and overall I feel way better than I had before. Incidentally I also completely cut out japanese/chinese foods but that's just because I'm not a huge fan of the asian diet, it's healthy but given the choice I'd take corn over rice, y'know
But I will not give up my dairy. Say what you want about milk but I drink it all the time and not only is it tasty but it makes my skin really smooth and...luminecent almost and my teeth really white and shiny, before my skin was dull and oily and my teeth were...not very white ^^. Anyways, YAY for milk, I endorse thee.

I don't think dairy is a bad thing, but contrary to popular belief eating lots of dairy so you get lots of calcium in your diet will not prevent you from getting major problems like arthritis and osteoporosis, because for your body to absorb calcium properly and use it well you need to have good amounts of magnesium in your diet too.
Without magnesium, you could actually be doing your bodys system harm by having a lot of calcium in your diet;

"Because magnesium suppresses PTH and stimulates calcitonin it helps put calcium into our bones, preventing osteoporosis, and helps remove it from our soft tissues eliminating some forms of arthritis. A magnesium deficiency will prevent this chemical action from taking place in our bodies, and no amount of calcium can correct it. While magnesium helps our body absorb and retain calcium, too much calcium prevents magnesium from being absorbed. So taking large amounts of calcium without adequate magnesium may either create malabsorption or a magnesium deficiency. Whichever occurs, only magnesium can break the cycle."

You should read the article in the link below for more information on understanding the relationship between magnesium and calcium in your diet and body and how it works, as otherwise you may not get the benefets of the calcium you want;

Magnesium and Calcium Absorption

"In experiments reported in "International Clinical Nutrition Review," a number of volunteers on a low-magnesium diet were given both calcium and vitamin D supplements. AU the subjects were magnesium-depleted and although they had been given adequate supplements, all but one became deficient in calcium. When they were given calcium intravenously, the level of calcium in their blood rose, but only for the duration of the intravenous feeding. As soon as the intravenous calcium was stopped, the levels calcium in the blood dropped. However, when magnesium was given, their magnesium levels rose and stabilized rapidly, and calcium levels also rose within a few days - although no additional calcium had been taken."

"A magnesium-rich diet can be helpful both for arthritis and to help prevent osteoporosis. This consists of nuts, whole grains such as brown rice, millet, buckwheat (kasha), whole wheat, triticate, and rye, and legumes including lentils, split peas, and a varieties of beans. A whole grain cereal or bread in the morning, a cup of bean soup at lunch, a snack of a few nuts, and serving of brown rice, millet, or buckwheat with dinner should help increase magnesium when a deficiency is suspected.

At the same time, refined sugar and alcohol should be reduced, and eliminated when possible to prevent magnesium from being excreted in large quantities in the urine. You may also want to re-evaluate the amount of dairy in your diet. If it has been disproportionately high, reduce or temporarily eliminate it until some of your symptoms are alleviated, or until you feel more of a balance has been achieved through the inclusion of whole grains and legumes. Oriental and Indian diets contain little or no dairy, yet arthritis and osteoporosis are not major health problems in these cultures. Their foods consist primarily of green vegetables, grains, tofu, and seafood, and are twice as high in magnesium as our average diets."

"A diet high in dairy and low in whole grains can lead to excess calcium in the tissues and a magnesium deficiency. The source of menstrual cramps may be coming from eating too much cheese, yogurt, ice cream or milk, combined with insufficient whole grains and beans. Or it could come from taking too much calcium without enough magnesium. Modifying your diet and increasing your magnesium supplementation may allow your menstrual cramps to disappear"



As you can see, the article contains a wealth of information and i have only copied and pasted a few chunks of the info into this post for general quick reading interest here, but i totally recommend anyone here to read the whole thing (which shouldn't take long), as it contains much valuable information on many aspects of nutrition in our body and diets etc .

Magnesium and Calcium Absorption

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

It's really sad that N. Americans have such a bad rep for eating unhealthy. Yes, our portions are out of control, we consume way to much sugar and red meats, we love our fast food and we practically inhale fat. It's just really sad because (contrary to popular opinion) it's SO easy to eat healthy.

I totally agree, its very easy and affordable (and more than anything, enjoyable) to eat healthily, i think the problem we have over in the west in places like America and England though is that many people view healthy diets as full of foods which taste and look like rabbit food.

Another problem i think many people have, is that many people view "diets" as something you only do when you are overweight and want to lose the weight, and many people stop doing their diets as soon as they are satisfied with their weight loss (or they have simply given up on the diet because it didn't work as well as they hoped).
This problem is one of the worst things to do, i think the problem is, is that many people view or treat diets as quick-fix solutions to their weight problems and they generally hate the whole dieting experience from start to end, so they never intend to continue with the diet in the long term because they don't like it. You can only reap the long term rewards of a good diet if you do it in the long term and enjoy doing the diet itself.

The problem is though is that the fatter you get, the harder and the longer it takes to lose that fat- there are two types of fat in your body, short term fats (which are intended by the body to be used in the near future and to be easily burnt off) and long term fats (intended by the body to only be used in times when the short term fats are running out or have run out). There is also general water weight retention in the bodys flesh too.


With the media, more and more now days i notice in the newsagents these womens magazines with all the new celebrity fad diets with big titles saying "i lost 1stone in 2 weeks!" or "i lost all this weight after having my baby through this diet!" or "get bikini slim quick with the latest blah-blah diet!", "lose the christmas pudding pounds by new year with this diet!" etc etc etc...

I hate these quick-fix diet fads- vunerable/gullieble/insecure women look at these diets and think "WOW all my weight problems are solved if i go through this 2 week hellish diet!".
These diets do make you lose the weight quickly, but the weight which you lose often barely even begins to scratch at the surface of your bodys short term fats, rather instead, the weight which these diets cause you to lose quickly is almost always just the water weight in your body.
Such diets can also be particularly damaging to your body because they (in general) tend to not be very nutritionally balanced and the rapid weight loss causes the body a lot of stress (and also can give you mental stress too).


I've never been "fat" in my life, but i have seen the mental anguish some of my mates/friends who are fat go or have gone through (not caused by me BTW), so i know it sucks to be fat, and for many fat people, more than anything they dream to lose the weight quickly.
Now days so many of our problems can be solved quickly- if you have a headache, take an aspirin, if you cut yourself, put a plaster on it, if you get in debt, get a loan, if your fishtank cracks, get a new panel of glass and silcone it in place etc etc.
But there are not quick fix solutions to being fat which are successful or good for you in the long term. I think people have just got to come to the realisations that;

a. A diet is not some short term thing that you do, it is a change in your current diet that should be permanent.
b. Losing weight is not easy, but there is always a reason/s why people are fat, it is never impossible to lose weight, but the chances are it will be hard and the progress may be slow, so you gotta be honest with yourself and keep up your motivation and self-discipline levels.
c. Even if you are slim, just being slim doesn't mean that you have a good diet or are healthy. This is another problem in our society- many of us who have good body weights don't bother to eat healthily or do excercise because they see no need to do so because they are slim. Although being overweight increases the chances of getting numerous health problems, you can still get many of the same problems that people get through been overweight even if you are slim (for example like high blood pressure, artheritus, heart disease etc).



Anyways, these are just my opinions/views. I am in no place to seriously judge those who are fat or whatever, i don't wanna turn into one those PC yogurt eating morning jogging brigade of people we get more and more of now days who think they have every right to agressively judge others and impose their self-rightious views upon other people who don't reform to their way of thinking/behaving etc.
My thoughts/views here are just for reading and i don't want to force anyone to change, if they want to weigh 20stone, get wasted/drunk every weekend, smoke 20fags a day, eat hotdogs in one mouthful etc- then i say, go for it, its your life, live it the way you want, but don't complain if the consequences of your actions catch up with you. But that doesn't mean i don't judge people for what they do, and it doesn't mean that i don't have strong opinions on certain subjects too etc.

Anyways...In a way i understand those who don't live their whole life to be healthy, because in a way i am one of them (i may eat healthy, re-cycle, plant tree's, buy organic food and go cycling etc- but i do smoke, even though hardly at all). Because on a more philosophical note, for some of us we just want to add life to our years and not years too our life . With the way things are going right now, most of us in this country that live to 80 will probably just end up rotting in some NHS home alone suffering from dementure while dribbling away lying in their own filth while the under-staffed and over-worked staff in our old people's homes who eat our food and don't look after us just ignore them etc.
Meh, i know that sounds quite negative, but there are so many problems with old people's home and the NHS in our country now days, for many old people they have no life because this is the way it is for them- who wants to grow old in this country when they are just gonna end up like this?