There was this one work trip some years ago where I came to realise that my body had an opinion as to what I ate.
I was in Spain for 10 days, and in the beginning, things were good. The weather was lovely, people were hospitable and the hosts served me the best food they could find. Except that, for an Asian stomach accustomed to consuming a lot of vegetables everyday, the Spanish diet turned out to be disagreeable to my system. Mentally I thought nothing of it – I’m an adventurous eater, and love cheese, ham and tapas – and at the beginning of the trip, I felt perfectly fine. Until one evening, I suddenly found myself experiencing something that had never happened before: It was dinnertime and I was fairly hungry, but I had to force myself to eat what was on the plate.
The quality of the food was not the problem – I was served a very lovely slab of steak – it was just that I couldn’t stop wishing that I was eating a salad after days of protein-rich feasting. Wanting to be polite, I managed to finish a decent amount of my main course but every bite I took came with a slight heartburn sensation. I had also lost interest in the very fine Rioja in front of me – an unusual occurrence.
Stranger things happened at breakfast the next day. I met my travel group at the buffet and found that we were all feeling the same way: we were dying for fruit and vegetables, in an intensity that was beyond the usual craving. Browsing around, we noticed that, above plates of cheeses, cold cuts and olives, there was a fruit display. We were convinced that it was for decoration only but we didn’t care – we pillaged it. That was how our bodies responded to 10 days of a high-fat and low-fibre diet.
Most of us know the basics of a healthy diet. The food pyramid – which is called many different names including Healthy Diet Pyramid by Singapore’s Health Promotion Board (HPB) and Healthy Living Pyramid by NGO Nutrition Australia – can be found on websites by health authorities of many countries, with clear recommendations on what constitutes a balanced and healthy diet. The difficulty comes down to keeping yourself aware of what you’re actually eating and making the right choice. It’s generally recommended that we should consume at least five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, but according to last year’s statistics from the Centre of Health Protection of the Department of Health (DOH) in Hong Kong, only 17.1 per cent of those interviewed said they maintained that habit.
Asian cuisines in general tend to contain less meat and more vegetables and cereals, so they are believed to be a healthier choice. The South Korean government even went out of its way to promote the country’s cuisine and its supposed benefits. The Korean Food Foundation, established in 2010 by the Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, points to a 2008 clinical trial by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the medical school of Chonbuk National University as evidence of Korean food’s health value. In the experiment, subjects were divided into two groups, with one consuming Korean food and the other a western diet. The former, the report continues, “showed increase in sperm activity, and male hormones.”
Very few details of that study are available online, so it’s unclear exactly what dishes the subjects, presumably all male, were given, and how long they had to go through the designated diets before their vitality was tested. But what is clear is that not all Asian dishes are healthy.
Sally Shi Po Poon, a registered dietitian from Hong Kong-based Personal Dietitian, points out that stir-fried dishes prevalent in Asia are full of oil while the likes of kimchi, fish sauce, soy sauce and miso soup are high in sodium, too much of which can cause high blood pressure and is bad for the heart. “Travellers need to know what’s in their food, the ingredients and how it is cooked. Go for low-fat cooking methods such as boiling, baking and grilling, which are much better than deep-fried [dishes],” she says.
And don’t judge a dish by its appearance. The Centre for Food Safety in Hong Kong, also under the city’s DOH, released a report under its [email protected] project, which looks at dishes popular among office workers such as fried rice and fried noodles. It compared a serving of fried rice Yangzhou style (with egg and shrimp) with steamed rice, stir-fried egg and shrimp, and found that the former contained 10 teaspoons of oil and was packed with 1,200 calories, while the figures for the latter were 2.5 teaspoons and 750 calories respectively.
“This is because in local restaurants, fried rice and fried noodles are cooked in large steel woks which require a lot of oil for cooking. While the dish might not seem greasy, most of the oil is actually absorbed into the grains during cooking,” the report states.
Challenges increase when you’re on the road. “When you’re travelling to a foreign country, the diet is totally different and you are eating unfamiliar things; you might not know what is the healthier option,” Poon says.
Not being home most of the time also means you eat out a lot, and in restaurants, food tends to be oilier and more heavily seasoned. In major Asian cities, even locals tend to dine out more often due to various reasons, from the hectic pace of life to small living spaces with limited kitchen equipment. So it’s much less likely that your overseas colleagues here will invite you to have dinner at their places.
The 2010 National Nutrition Survey in Singapore showed that six in 10 Singaporeans eat out at least once a day, and the number keeps rising. Many of them frequent hawker centres, where dishes tend to be stir-fried with a lot of oil and finished with fattening sauces and plenty of seasoning. As a preventive measure, the government launched the Healthier Hawker Food Programme in April 2011, encouraging food stalls to use healthier ingredients, such as cooking oils lower in saturated fat, wholegrain noodles, brown rice and salt with reduced sodium, and post pledges on their shop fronts to let customers know. Meals with less than 500 calories are also highlighted on the menu.
Short of a menu that lists calorie counts, the best way for you to maintain a healthy diet on the road is to avoid dishes that are fried, deep-fried or feature a lot of sauce. Still, with little control of what you might be served at work lunches and dinners, it’s hard to make sure that you are getting all the needed vitamins and minerals.
Would vitamin supplements be the answer? Poon says that while having a general vitamin tablet or two does no harm, it can’t replace a healthy diet. “A vitamin C tablet gives you vitamin C, but it won’t give you other things an orange would give you, such as antioxidants and dietary fibre.” Lack of fibre in your diet, coupled with stress and irregular sleep, can cause constipation, Poon points out.
She also notes that some fat-soluble vitamins, if taken to excess, will be stored in the body and have harmful effects. These include vitamins A, D, E and K. Depending on the vitamin, excessive intakes might be harmful to your organs, especially the liver and kidneys. In short, Poon says, having a balanced diet is the only answer, and supplements should only be considered if you have allergies or medical conditions that prevent you from consuming a certain important food group.
It’s not impossible to take the matter into your own hands. Poon encourages employers to consider requesting a fruit plate to be included when booking a hotel room for their travelling employees. She also recommends that corporate travellers order a side of salad or boiled vegetables with meals whenever possible. At airport lounges, there is always a salad bar and fresh fruit at your disposal, so dig in while you can.
With business entertainment, you are often put in unhealthy situations. “If you travel to China, drinking is a huge issue. You may have to drink alcohol to socialise,” says Poon. While it’s not as much of an issue with the younger generation, some business circles in China still consider it rude when someone refuses a drink. Business people, especially men, in Japan and South Korea are also fond of a tipple, and going out to nightclubs is often part of relationship building.
But it’s not like everyone needs to be persuaded to have a drink – business travellers must also resist complimentary alcoholic beverages at airport lounges and club lounges, which is doubly difficult after a long day of meetings. Some may also drink wine or spirits onboard to help them sleep through the flight. After a while, your drinking might add up to a health-damaging level. Singapore’s HPB recommends no more than two alcoholic drinks per day for women and three for men. A standard drink is a 220 ml can of beer, one 100 ml glass of wine or one 30 ml shot of spirits.
What’s more, any medical expert would tell you that using alcohol to help you sleep is not healthy. You might fall asleep because of the drink’s immediate sedative effect, but once the alcohol starts to wear off, your sleep becomes fitful, prompting you to keep waking up periodically. And as your body develops a tolerance for alcohol, you will need to drink more to get to sleep, while the disruption to your sleep pattern worsens.
Ultimately, it’s about paying attention to what you eat and how you feel. If you’re constantly feeling tired, or having discomfort, it’s likely that your body is telling you something. Sit back and think what may be causing it – the answer may not be far away.
