There’s nothing Chinese about Chinese ready meals | Fuchsia Dunlop

Ignore the scare stories: the salty, sugary, deep-fried stuff beloved of western taste buds is a far cry from the real thing

Should health warnings be slapped on Chinese food? That’s certainly the message given by some newspaper headlines, prompted by the release of a survey by the pressure group Action on Salt. The group assessed data on salt levels in takeaway dishes from six randomly selected restaurants in London’s Chinatown and 269 supermarket ready meals, side dishes and dipping sauces, and found that the salt contained in many of them was wildly in excess of healthy limits.

One main course-plus-noodles bought in Chinatown contained nearly double the UK recommended maximum daily intake for an adult; many of the supermarket ready meals contained around half the recommended daily intake. Experts agree that eating too much salt raises blood pressure, and makes strokes and heart attacks more likely.

Related: Some Chinese ready meals found to have more salt than 11 bags of crisps

Few cultures understand the intimate connection between diet and health better than the Chinese

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Continue reading... March 13, 2018 at 08:51PM