Secondly, ingredients used in American food and Chinese are different. Chinese diet involves rice, flour, beans, and vegetables. American diet is relatively straightforward and mainly includes meat, bread and vegetables. First of all, rice is one of the most important main foods that people eats, because it is widely grown in many Asian countries, it is one of the main food sources for people from in southern rice farming areas of China and it can be used in almost every capacity. Rice not only can be steamed, but can also be made in to rice noodles and rice puddings. Chinese people always use rice to produce by-products like vinegars and wines. Noodles are necessary to Chinese people too. It can be served either in hot or cold dishes with different toppings as sides. They usually are made fresh in restaurants in a variety of sizes length and shapes. There are also one Chinese tradition noodle called “Chang Shou Mian” are the same sound in Chinese for good health and long life. Secondly, tofu is very popular in Chinese family’s diet options. Because it contains high protein, it is also often used in vegetarian meals. Tofu is treated as the “meat” among all vegetables because it has all the nutrition that meat should have. It is the “meat” without those materials that might harm people’s body from meat. Third, sauces made from soy beans are important in Chinese people’s daily life too. It is used to add flavor to all kind things Chinese people eat; it can be made into black bean sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauces. On the other hand, a part of the American food is based on traditional German dishes such as hot dogs and hamburgers. Pre-packaged American meals lean towards to have a great amount in fat, carbohydrates, sodium, and various preservatives. Even so, they are also tending to contain a lot of vitamins too.
Also for Chinese diet, it cannot be done without vegetables. In China, people take vegetables very seriously. According to a study from an American scholar, there are over 700 varieties of vegetables in the Chinese diet, which is about seven times more than Americans consume. In fact, in the Chinese diet, vegetables are usually concerned the most important food source of nutrition, and they consider the vegetables as their main dish, whereas Americans do not seem to have such a good habit, which they have more meat dishes in their lives. When the United States announced their diet food products to China, they were advertising that their food is more effective on the combination of nutrition than Chinese diet. The food industry is more developed, their cans, fast food are much better than what Chinese people usually eat. Although the taste of American food is not that good, but it has good nutrition, and it also saves time. Therefore, in the United States people are generally taller and healthier than Chinese, and the people have developed muscles, six packs and strong shoulders and; but comparing to Americans, Chinese people usually look short and weak, with narrow shoulders and thin legs.
About the desserts in these two countries, Chinese desserts are served along with meals or at the end of meals in the Chinese diet. Chinese desserts mostly tastes sweet, they are mostly served with tea. Chinese candies and sweets are called “tang” which is mostly made with nuts, malt sugar, cane sugar, honey, and fruit. There are also rice puddings called Gao or Guo that are mostly steamed and are made from normal or sticky rice. Ice cream is also a common dessert in China. One of the cold desserts is called “bingbao”, which is crunched ice with fruit juice or honey syrup. For the American desserts, there are a wide variety of choices like cakes, cookies, biscuits, gelatins and pastries and most of them are considered as sweet and greasy. Famous ones like apple pies, cupcakes, caramels and chocolate brownies is customary desserts in the American diet compared to Chinese as they believe it as a part of their meal.
One of the biggest issues today around the world is people’s health and how to eat health. When comparing China to the Americans, they have a much healthier living style than Chinese people do. In China, there are kinds of cuisines for each parts of China. Different cuisines made by different places show their strong regional characteristics because of their geographical and climatic factors, they have large differences in their tastes of which kind of food they enjoy. In west China, people love sour food because where they live contains a lot of calcium in the soil and water to the surrounding areas. They eat sour food to reduce the chance of diseases and gall-stone. For those in the east part of China, they prefer spicy food because of the geographical environment of the damp climate they live in. And those from south and east part of China most like to eat sweet food because in the south. The weather is wet with a lot of rain and sunshine, sugar cane was produced a lot, therefore, Chinese people think southerners are sugars "surrounded". People in the north part of China mainly eat flour made food, such as bread, bun, cake dumplings and noodles; and the people in from the south part China consumes rice as their staple food.
Chinese people have much longer lives in these days. It is shown by the statistics that the average life length in China is going up from 70 to 72.27. A healthy life is expected to live of 63.1 years old for men and 65.2years old for women in China. Although this number is 8 years shorter than developed countries such as the United States, but still is 10 years longer than underdeveloped countries. It is scientifically validated that eating more animal-based foods could have a higher chance to get the chronic disease, but people who eat vegetables more were always healthier and have a better chance to avoid chronic disease. But when looking at the United States’ data, it is shown that Americans has a life expectancy of 77.71 years old and a healthy life expectancy to live 67.2 years old for men and live 71.3 years old for women. These data is a good prove that American has a better living standard than Chinese people.
This living standard could be shown from the diet pyramid we have. Chinese diet pyramid is significantly different from the United States diet pyramid. Chinese people have a wide eating base of noodles, rice, grains and breads. The following level is formed by vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts. Chinese people also eat a lot of fat and other dairy products and protein foods. In the US, the base food is about the same, pasta, bread, cereals and grains. The only differences are that Americans eat more vegetables and fruits and fewer fats and sweets.
In now days, Chinese diet is very different to a normal American diet. It contains at most 20% animal based foods while the United States diet will have at least 60% animal based foods. From the diet pyramid, people can tell that Chinese diet is much lower in fat but much higher in fiber and calories. Americans diet consumers more protein than the Chinese because they consume more meat in total. Even though, the Chinese eat three times more fiber from vegetables and fruits everyday comparing to the American diet, and rice is a main part of a daily food, which is high in glycemic. There is still less diabetes or over weight patients in China than in America. The dietary differences are huge. The Americans are trended to consume more animal fat, high glycemic food, and a lot of sugary desserts and snacks which Chinese do not. Chinese people trend to eat more vegetables and rice that Americans do not. American diet is a logical idea that irrespective of the flavor, shape, incense, and color of food, nutrition is what must be guaranteed. American diet cares most about the daily consumption of vitamins, calories, protein and so on. If only comparing on the flavor point of view, American diet tastes stereotyped comparing to Chinese diet.
Although from the results that Chinese do seems to eat healthier than Americans do, we can still conclude that the American diet is better in the nutrition part than the Chinese diet because it consumes less carbohydrate uses less oil, American people eats more dairy products in their meal too. Comparing to Americans, I believe Chinese people are less concerned about exercising activities and their health problems. The standard living style in China is also not as good as American has and there are more health problems than people in the United States. Lastly, from the perspective of the Chinese food culture, people consider the importance of the food itself extremely high and pay extraordinary awareness to the diet culture. It is deeply accustomed in China's history, whereas the United States’ diet prefers to have their food to be convenient, fast, and less expensive and the characteristics of the United States’ primary diet culture are convenience, cost, and appearance.
To draw a conclusion, there are many differences between Chinese and American diet culture. It is very entertaining for everyone to know the food that people would like to eat, cooking method and also ingredients between two countries. Even if, there are some differences between Chinese diet and American diet, they can still get along harmoniously. For example, the Chinese food in the United States is suitable for Americans’ taste, this assimilation is made because of localization and customization; similarly, the American food in China is more suitable for Chinese’ taste too, because through the Chinese’ local improvement. The development between China and the United States of cultural communication, China had imported many kinds of American food such as KFC and McDonald. I believe this is a mark of exchange and assimilation. This globalization had brought economic growth global wide, but also implant their primary culture into other countries using strong economic and penetrated all around the world. Therefore, the communication around diet cultural should be focused on absorbing the advantages from other countries’ diet culture, withdraw their disadvantage, and make it localized. So the dietary cultural question between China and the United States, a research on developed country’s advantages and common advantages that China can learn from the United States diet culture to improve Chinese diet culture. This is a great opportunity to learn from the advanced cultures from the United States, to improve and create a new diet culture in China.
Works Cited
An Jing, On Differences Between Chinese and Western Dietary Cultures. China Tourist Publisher, 2007.
He Hong, Chinese and foreign Dietetic Culture. Peking University Press, 2006.
Helen Wang. Cooking Methods in Chinese Cuisine." Chinese Cooking Tips. Chinese Food DIY. Fall 2009. Web. Nov. 17 2012
J Lyne Browwn, Lv, Nan. Chinese and American Family Food Systems: Western Influences’ Impact. Journal of Education Nutrition And Behavior
Knoblauch, Marker. A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. Chop Suey: Booklist 106.1 22, 2009. Print
Peter Zickler. Askives. “What is common Chinese desserts” Web, Nov. 16, 2012
Pillsbury Richard. The American Diet in Time and Place, No Foreign Food.
Westview Press, 1999.
by
fengyuan416 (student)
