My lesson about healthy eating

I had an eye opening experience speaking to a friend earlier this week.

My friend is of Vietnamese descent, and has that cute slim body as all her family and friends do too. They always look healthy, happy and I can't remember ever meeting anyone from a Vietnamese background that was overweight.

As I am looking to fine tune my eating habits and find ways that work for me, I was curious about how it is they manage to stay so slim and healthy. I always thought it must be genetic, and as we were talking about food I asked my friend only half jokingly if she and her friends ever eat, as they are all so slim!

My friend told me "I always eat and I eat too much!" I laughed as obviously she does not look like she eats "too much". But she was quite serious and said, "no really, we eat a lot" . So I asked her what they eat and this is what she said:

"We eat a lot of vegetables and fish. Most of our food is vegetables. And we eat seafood."

As she told me this I remember all the times I visited Cabramatta, and the place was packed full with vegetable shops and tables groaning under the weight of fresh vegetables. There were also several seafood shops, again full of fresh fish of every kind. People were everywhere making their purchases, and it was obvious to me that these foods are a major staple of the local peoples diet.

I did not see any butchers, and I asked my friend if she ate any meat. She told me that they ate very little meat, maybe twice a week and a very small amount, about 100 grams at a time (100 grams of red meat is about the size of a small toast).

I asked her if they miss not eating meat, and she said no, this is the way they always eat, and it's the way children are brought up. They do not eat fried foods, take aways, junk food and very little fat and sweets. Because she had eaten this way since she was a child, she really has no desire to eat any other way.

So here I was thinking she was healthy and slim because of genetics, but I have learned it has a great deal more to do with what they eat on a daily basis.

I asked her what her typical meals would be during a day: for breakfast they often have clear broth soup with vegetables and rice noodles, for lunch it can be seafood and vegetables rice paper wrappers and for dinner, vegetables and fish stir fry with rice or noodles.

I was inspired, and since I like to try new things, I researched Vietnamese recipes. Tonight I cooked a simple stir fry of chicken, bok choi, Chinese broccoli, chinese cabbage, oyster mushrooms, carrot, ginger, garlic, basil and coriander, seasoned with fish sauce and a bit of soy sauce. As I am avoiding carbs at the moment, I didn't have rice, but I didn't need it. The meal was absolutely delicious and I feel full and totally satisfied.