Lunch in China

There are a few more videos that I will post from my trip to Wuhan, China in June. This is a quick one from the canteen at our factory. Meals are provided to the workers as a part of their compensation. I ate all of my lunches at the canteen, and sometimes dinner depending on how long our day was at work. I must say that the food was delicious. We ate well. Not much calorie restriction occurred.

A few observations about my food experiences:

• All of our meals were served family style. Everyone used their chopsticks to pick at the food from common plates and into their bowls. Luckily, I'm not a germ-o-phobe.
• Rice is most definitely the staple food in China. No doubt.
• Soda was not commonly served, but orange juice could be found at every meal.
• At least in Wuhan, they like their food spicy. Plenty of red peppers could be found in most dishes.
• If you are a visiting American, your food is "Americanized". This means that you are served an unusually large portion of meat with your meals. As I looked around at other tables, the Chinese workers had just a little bit of meat, as if it were a flavoring for the rice and vegetables. As I am trying to transition to a whole plant based diet, I only sampled dishes with meat in order to be polite to my hosts. But I would have much rather preferred to eat the un-Americanized food that the Chinese folks were eating.
• When Chinese eat meat, it seems that any meat will do. One Chinese worker told me that they will eat anything that has legs, except for the dining table. The Chinese are not vegetarians, but maybe not too far from it. Having said that, I think as the Chinese middle class grows, more Chinese will be able to afford to eat more meat.
• Watermelon is a common desert.

There are pros and cons to visiting China. The food was a huge pro for me.

Check out the video below from one of our lunches.