Asian food - what to eat?

[SunsetRunner]

Whenever I travel to an Asian country I find it very hard to stick with my eating habits. It's not that I'm tempted with delicious food all around but simply I can't find any healthy choices. Recently I've been to South Korea and I gained a bit of weight there. For one, I'm not a big meat eater but literally, every dish is meat based. The concept of vegetarian food isn't something really known there and sometimes, even claiming that the food is vegetarian, you may find bits of meat in it. Another thing is sugar. Tons of sugar. Even dishes that shouldn't really have any added sugar like French toast sprinkled with a caster sugar or octopus carpaccio sprinkled with sugar. Lack of nutritional information also doesn't help ( It helps that I can read Hangul but still actual nutritional details very often are incomplete or even non-existent ). Being on a business trip, eating in the company's cantine didn't help either. Lot's of amazing food ( more like a food-hall in the mall ), servings huge. Also, I'm not vegetarian and I can have meat from time to time but having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day is way too much. I admit the food made me feel fulfilled but also delivered lots of problems due to high sugar and salt content ( like bloatedness and even heartburn to which I said "goodbye" almost 2 years ago ). I tried to shop for food myself but found it difficult as Koreans seem to love ready-made quick packaged foods rather than whole foods. Lack of ability to cook ( I was staying in the hotel ) also didn't help here.

Did anyone of you experience such a problem? Maintaining weight isn't really a big issue. Gained here so I will lose there etc. My problem is mostly that I have no choice when I want to maintain my usual eating habits. I experienced a similar problem in the Philippines and Thailand. Lots of food but simply not suitable for me. At least not for every day eating. Now I moved on "recovery" diet but in January I go to South Korea again ( minimum 2 weeks ) and I'm worried the problem will be back. How would you deal with such a problem?

[Dominique]

I think the problem isn’t specific to Asian food (which is indeed delicious!), it’s being at home (controlled environment, you buy and cook whay you eat) vs. away from home (uncontrolled environment, you eat mostly out, higher food availability, often "all you can eat" situations). I tried to document this for myself in this other topic. The latest episode was a 10-day trip to France visiting family, during which I gained more than 2 kg. I know I’m not good at resisting temptation, when there’s plenty of tasty food available at all meals, so what I do is enjoy it and recover from the temporary excesses when I’m back home to my familiar routines and environment. Since I only have 3-4 such trips each year, it’s manageable. If I were travelling for business (which may be your case?), it wouldn’t be. 

[SunsetRunner]

@Dominique controlling isn't hard. The buffet situation appeared only during breakfast which I got fed up after 3 days, so I focused on getting some eggs, salads etc. The problem I find usually is related to the fact that Korea is a carnivore paradise 😄 They just despise veggies which I love to eat and all the dishes are really difficult to see what's inside. Only last day really I decided to eat anything as it was a farewell lunch. One thing is controlling weight but another is how the food affects my body. As I said, heartburn came back ( I used to suffer horrible heartburns in the past, eating heartburn tablets like candies! ), bloatedness and feeling of discomfort. My colleague complained about similar things. Huge amounts of salt and sugar in every dish, when I already drastically reduced the use of it, also was a kinda shocker for my body. When I travel to European countries it's much easier to find actual real food. Also, this health-awareness and how it connects to the food is much higher in European countries. Korea is at the doorstep of that. When I visit the Philippines the situation is even worse because I learned to cook lots of Filipino dishes at home and I know how much "artificial" they can get. For example, I convinced my wife to stop using MSG which I believe was one of the reasons why we've been always hungry after anything she cooked. But abroad I just know everything is "enhanced" with additions of tons of sugar ( I don't understand why everything must be sweet, even simple toast! ). I remember and read your thread and found it very interesting. I don't travel that much, although more this year. But when I travel it's not less than 2 weeks. When going on business I usually spend a whole day in the office ( starting at 9am, finishing usually at 10pm ). At work, I can actually get two meals, lunch and dinner but I find that I simply miss my own food despite all the deliciousness of foreign meals 🙂

As a side note, there is something interesting about Koreans I noticed. They seem to be very rarely overweight so I tried to look at and imitate their eating habits ( for example you don't need to eat whole huge serving during lunch 😄 ). However, there is a tricky side to it - the obesity in South Korea starts with BMI 25, while in European countries usually, it's around 30 - it is a huge difference. This is because despite not being that much overweight they start suffering obesity-related diseases when reaching lower "over-weightness" than standard European.

[emili]

happily or sadly depending on how you look at it, I have always been to places that cater to every whim.. even in Italy. I am trying to put myself in your shoes based on your description and I think I would live on fruit, soup, bread and a treadmill. 

[KayenF]

That's so true. The only difference I find from this article (with regards to obesity over there) is that they do eat meat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and these viands are heavily seasoned, but they are eaten with lots of side veggies and of course, white rice. Its a staple.

Another plus is that the meat over there isn't heavily injected with hormones or any external items to make them bigger (at least from what I know, living there for a while).

South Korea has actually many vegetarian dishes. You just have to ask for them specifically as meat is also very prevalent, specially in restaurants and such.