An Invasion of Fat

March 18, 2010

I remember one night when we ate in a Shanghai restaurant and at the next table, this overweight kid, maybe ten, said in a shrill voice, “I hate vegetables. Where’s the meat. I demand more meat.” Then he pounded the table with both fists while his face screwed up in a rage. His mother had an embarrassed look on her face but she didn’t say a word.

The Opium Wars in the 19th century that forced China to open its doors to foreign drug dealers (English, French, American, etc.) and Christian missionaries was nothing compared to the recent obesity invasion. In 2005, it was predicted that 200 million Chinese would be obese within 10 years.

McDonalds has more than 1,100 locations in China.
KFC has more than 2,900 in over 400 cities.
Pizza Hut has about 500.
Starbucks over a 1,000.

China’s bulging middle class has fallen in love with the Western fast food diet and couch potato lifestyle. Those hit worst with the expanding waistline are the pampered single-child generation. More than 11% are reportedly overweight and the number of obese children is rising at the rate of 8% a year. Much of the new fat is in wealthy urban centers such as Shanghai—where the obesity rate among primary school children hit 15.2% last year, according to the state media.

Read Doing Business in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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2 Comments | America, business, China, Chinese history, Christianity, food, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

All About Balance

March 8, 2010

 On my last flight to China on United Airlines, I got sick from the food. I knew airline food is often horrible, but I was an idiot and ate anyway.

After landing in China, I went to a Chinese pharmacy for help.  The Shanghai pharmacist took an American medicine for diarrhea off the shelf. I said no. She looked surprised.

“Give me Chinese medicine. Western medicine does too much damage to the body.” 

She smiled and looked impressed. “He knows,” she said. “You do know that the Chinese medicine will take longer to heal you.”

I know that Yin and Yang underlie all aspects of Chinese philosophy and medicine. I know that the Chinese believe in balance so the body remains healthy.  That’s one of the reasons you often see Chinese up early in the morning doing Tai Chi in parks. Maintaining health is more than eating properly. It also includes exercise. That doesn’t mean everyone in China follows the philosophy of Yin and Yang.

Tai Chi

Western medicine, on the other hand, waits until the patient is sick—then uses drugs, many that are dangerous, surgery, chemicals and radiation to try to fix things often with side effects that are worse than the disease.

Discover Attitudes Toward Health in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar. 

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, food, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

One Child

March 7, 2010

China’s one-child policy is due to a population of 1.3 billion people in a country where food crops may be grown on only sixteen percent of the land. What isn’t well known is that the one-child policy applies only to the Han majority. That policy does not apply to the hundred million people that belong to the fifty-six minorities in China. That means Tibetans may not be able to worship and maintain the feudal, nomadic lifestyle like they had before Mao’s reoccupation of Tibet in 1951, but they can have as many children as they want.

Crowded China

The biggest challenge is growing enough food to feed the bulging Chinese population of 1.3 billion people.  The Chinese government says if it weren’t for the one-child policy, there would be another four-hundred million mouths to feed and provide shelter for.

Meanwhile, Christians in the West (people who believe abortion is wrong) criticize China for this policy. If China did not have the one-child policy, I doubt if these antiabortion voices would have stepped up to feed four-hundred million people. How many would have starved if a famine struck?

There are other exceptions to the one child policy, and you may read about them at the Asian Correspondent .

You may also learn more about China from Tom Carter’s Book, China: Portrait of a People

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

2 Comments | China, Christianity, family values, food, health care, parenting, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Attitudes Toward Health in China

February 28, 2010

The focus in China is on prevention—meaning to plan your lifestyle around healthy habits. That’s why early in the morning you may find many older Chinese outside exercising using the graceful, poetic movements of Tai Chi to insure health and longevity.  

Meanwhile, behavior shows the old attitudes toward preventative health eroding. More than three hundred million Chinese smoke American cigarettes and obesity is a growing epidemic in China as it is in the United States.

Shanghai McDonald's

How could obesity not be a problem since the Chinese are having a love affair with American fast food? China loves most things American. McDonalds and Domino’s Pizza are considered gourmet restaurants and can easily be found in China’s cities.

Learn about Doing Business in China

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

6 Comments | America, China, economy, food, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chocolate Tofu Pie Recipe

February 26, 2010

I’m taking a break from serious subjects for this post.

The Chinese invented tofu.  Americans are reinventing it. I was introduced to Chocolate Tofu Pie at Mother’s Market in Costa Mesa, California. Then I figured out how to make it at home by experimenting.

Ingredients:

  • Two 10-ounce containers of soft or silken organic tofu
  • Two four-ounce packages of baker’s, unsweetened chocolate—but use only six of the ounces. This chocolate has no milk or sweeteners added.  Use six ounces of the eight.
  • One bag of malt-sweetened chocolate bits. There are no dairy or refined sugars in this chocolate. Use half of this bag. If you skip this ingredient, add more of the baker’s, unsweetened chocolate.
  • Agave nectar. This low absorbing sweetener is absorbed into the body slowly.
  • One package of readymade whole-wheat piecrust (recommended for fiber).
  • Use one tablespoon of arrowroot for a thickener

 

Directions:

  • Mix the tofu in a blender with the arrowroot or another natural thickener.
  • Heat the chocolate in a pan (double boiler hopefully) until melted and pour into blended tofu and mix.
  • Add the Agave nectar.
  • Taste to make sure it is sweet enough and that the bitterness from the baker’s chocolate is gone. Add more Agave if desired. Our daughter enjoys this step the most, since she is the taster.
  • Blend until it is all one smooth color.
  • Pour equally into the pie pans.
  • Put pies in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
  • Let pies cool after cooking; put in refrigerator after they are cool.
  • The pies will be ready the next day.

I shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s
See more about Tofu

4 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, education, food | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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