Chinese food covers a broad range of cuisines. Some common dishes across China include steamed rice, beef and chicken dishes, plenty of stir-fried vegetables, and different types of soup and noodle dishes.
Common Chinese flavours include soy sauce, rice wine, oyster sauce, sesame, and five-spice powder. Different cooking styles are also used for Chinese food, such as Szechwan, Cantonese, and Hunan.
The current balanced plate model used in China has slightly different proportions, as recommended here at Second Nature.
Chinese culture uses a pagoda and plate shape to represent balanced meals, and here is how you can adapt this advice to comply with the Second Nature nutrition guidelines.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are the main source of dietary energy in the Chinese models but Second Nature recommends limiting carbohydrates to 25% of each meal.
This creates a more balanced meal, with room for other important nutrients on your plate, such as protein, fats, and vegetables. A balance of nutrients in one meal can help stabilise blood glucose levels after eating.
Reducing high portions of carbohydrates has also been shown to improve insulin resistance. Read our guide here on the rationale behind a lower-carb diet approach.
Grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans are the primary sources of carbohydrates in Chinese culture.
Grains include wheat, rice, corn, and sorghum, and their products include steamed rice, steamed bread, noodles and vermicelli, pancakes, and bread.
Mixed beans include red beans, mung beans, and kidney beans.
Switch to wholegrain and less processed sources of carbohydrates to keep you full, satisfied, and energised without a glucose spike after eating.
Vegetables and fruit
Chinese guidance is to simply ‘eat enough’ vegetables, but half should be dark-coloured.
Second Nature sets a more specific and helpful guide on eating enough vegetables, aiming for ½ plate of vegetables with each meal.
Common vegetables used in Chinese dishes include:
Tender stems
Bok choy
Peppers
Broccoli
Carrot
Cabbage
Mushrooms
Leaves
Cauliflower
Root vegetables
Aubergines
Onions, spring onions
Garlic
Aquatic vegetables (e.g seaweed, water chestnut, lotus)
Dark-coloured vegetables refer to the ones that are dark green, dark yellow, purple, red and similar colours.
Second Nature advises to eat a rainbow of different coloured vegetables to ensure a range of nutrients from them.
A traditional Chinese diet has many kinds of fruits, such as apples, pears, berries, citrus, melons and tropical fruits, particularly pineapple.
Second Nature suggests having 1-2 portions of fruit a day, which you can read more about here.
Protein
This food group includes meat, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, tofu, tempeh, seitan, soya, bean curd, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Mainly, pork is consumed as meat in Chinese dishes. Daily meats also include beef, mutton, chicken, duck, and pigeon.
A lot of fish, shrimp, crab and shellfish are consumed, which offer a great source of omega-3 fatty acids too.
Eggs include chicken, duck, goose, quail, and pigeon eggs. Chinese diets typically aim to have one egg per day, including its yolk, as per the traditional Chinese balanced plate.
Egg yolk is rich in nutrients, and while Second Nature doesn’t recommend eating a specific amount a day, it’s a great source of protein to include regularly in your diet.
Soybeans include soya beans, black beans and green beans, and their common products include tofu, soybean milk and dried tofu.
Condiments and sauces
Cooking oil and table salt are major cooking condiments in Chinese diets.
Cooking oil includes various vegetable oils, such as peanut oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, and animal oils, such as lard, beef tallow and butter.
Salt consumption is high in China, whether added to meals or processed foods.
Second Nature recommends seasoning meals to taste by adding a pinch of salt to your cooking and vegetable oil in moderation or switching to coconut oil, olive oil, or butter when cooking.
Alcohol and added sugar are not a basic part of a daily Chinese diet. Some sauces, such as sweet and sour and hoisin, contain sugar, which can be reduced or substituted, for example, with fruit, cinnamon, crushed nuts, or coconut.
Some ideas to adapt common Chinese foods
Meat Dumplings - Fill with plenty of minced meat, green onion, ginger, carrot, garlic, salt and black pepper, whilst keeping the dumpling layer thin. This provides you with more protein and fibre. You could also try boiling dumplings instead of frying which is a healthier cooking method.
Rice with egg - Add some vegetables such as carrot, peas, and sweetcorn, and stick to ¼ plate as a portion. Using wholegrain rice will provide more fibre and nutrients, for a slower release of energy.
Tso’s chicken - This chicken is coated in a spicy sauce made up of sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, tomato sauce, dried chilli peppers, corn starch, oil, sesame seeds, garlic and ginger. Reduce the sugar content by adding spiced honey or chilli jam to the recipe instead.
Chinese spring rolls - Keep the pastry thin and stuff with plenty of vegetables such as grated carrot, leek, cabbage leaves. To make the rolls more balanced, also add a protein source such as scrambled egg, minced tofu or chicken chunks. Bake instead of deep-frying to avoid trans-fats with this snack.
Below you can find this information in a Second Nature Chinese Balanced Plate:
Here are also some Second Nature Chinese recipes:
Other balanced Chinese recipes you may be interested in are:
For further help or guidance, reach out to your health coach.
Other guides you may be interested in: