Nutrition Information for Chinese Food

Many individuals choose Chinese food because they think that it is healthier than fast food. This preconception of Chinese food stems from the fact that Asian cultures historically have some of the healthiest food in the world. However, in the United States (in particular), the food has lost some of its nutritional value in an attempt to adjust to westernized taste buds. An examination illustrates that nutritional information for Chinese food is a mixture of good and bad.

Vegetables

• A positive aspect of Chinese foods, even at fast-food establishments, is that many of the dishes are loaded with a lot of healthy vegetables like broccoli, peas and cabbage.

Soups

• A positive when eating Chinese food is that it is a soup-based diet. Starting a meal with a bowl of egg drop soup is filling, and only contains 73 calories and three grams of fat.

Starch

• Talking about nutritional information for Chinese food would not be complete without talking about starches like fried rice and noodles. Almost every dish comes with a side of one of these two items, but they are filled with starch and contain 300 calories and 11 grams of fat.

Sodium

• Many Chinese food establishments make it a point to avoid MSG in their menu items. However, sodium can still creep up in many of the dishes. Fried rice contains 600 milligrams of sodium. Soy sauce also contains sodium.

Fat

• Even when individuals order dishes with a lot of vegetables, they can still be consuming a lot of fat in their Chinese food. In order to appeal to American eaters, many of the items include fried chicken or fried shrimp that have been breaded heavily. An order of six fried shrimp has 15 grams of fat.

Calories

• Because many dishes combine starch, sodium and fat, it is not surprising that, when looking at the nutritional information for Chinese food, they are high in calories. For example, Chicken Teriyaki contains 500 calories.