Why the Chinese Don't Count Calories (22 page)

The vegetarian movement is not big in China, except among Buddhist monks; meat consumption has never been sufficiently significant to warrant giving it up. In
The China
Study
, Dr Campbell recommends a vegetarian diet as a result of his findings about the link between excessive consumption of animal protein and the prevalent diseases of the Western world.

In America, about 15 per cent of total calorie intake comes from proteins and 80 per cent of that is from animal-based products, whereas in rural China less than 10 per cent of total calories come from protein, only 10 per cent of which is from animal-based foods.
¹¹
Two observations from
The China Study
are sufficient to illustrate that the lack of animal protein in the Chinese diet is not detrimental to health. On the contrary:

At the time of our study, the death rate from coronary heart disease was seventeen times higher among American men than rural Chinese men.

(
The China Study
, p. 79)

The American death rate from breast cancer was five times higher than the rural Chinese rate.

(
The China Study
, p. 79)

Dr Campbell’s study shows that the environment created in the body by a diet high in animal protein is conducive to the spread of cancerous cells. Protein from soya beans, on the other hand,brings the protection of no less than six compounds believed to protect against cancer,
¹²
including isoflavones, which have had a lot of publicity for their ability to block the type of oestrogen hormone implicated in increased breast cancer levels.

Soya – the vegetable plus

I have heard it said that if China had not cultivated soya beans – which are not only a complete protein source containing all of the eight essential amino acids but also of benefit to other crops – it would never have been able to feed its people. (Though the flip-side of this argument is that if China had focused on animal protein, the population would never have grown so large in the first place. ) Chinese peasant-farmers were not only clever to grow what has now been recognized as one of the most nutritious foods in the world, but they also found a way to make it into a product which was more easily digestible than the bean itself and capable of infinite variety of uses – beancurd.

The Chinese name for soya bean is
huang dou
, meaning yellow bean, but the generic word
dou
(bean) is often used to describe soya beans. Beancurd, or
dou fu
, (which literally means fermented beans) originated in China, although it is better known in the West by its Japanese name,
tofu
. When I first started working with it I had a tendency to use both
dou
fu
and
tofu
interchangeably, which confused many a student, so, for the sake of clarity, I have taken to using the literal English name, beancurd.

Unlike many foreigners, I never had a problem with beancurd’s soft and slightly slimy texture. Sometimes I wonder if I was born on the wrong side of the world: my mother had to force-feed me custard as a child, and I still have bad dreams about the time I found skin in my grandmother’s milk jelly. Indoctrinated as I was by the idea that the calcium in dairy products was essential for healthy bones, I persevered and grew to enjoy cheese even though I never felt completely comfortable after eating it. Only after I arrived in China and discovered a nation that appeared to be thriving on a dairy-free diet did I entertain the idea that there might be an alternative.

It is now known that calcium can be absorbed to build bones only if other factors are also present, including many vitamins (especially vitamin K) and minerals (especially magnesium).
¹³
So drinking quantities of milk will not benefit the body in the same way as, say, using small amounts of cheese or yoghurt in a vegetable dish. Even better, you could create a dish out of beancurd, a natural source of both vitamin K and magnesium, and serve it with a host of other vegetables.

In China, beancurd is usually made by cottage industries that work through the night to be ready for the early morning markets. The process involves soaking the soya beans, grinding them to a pulp with water, extracting the liquid soya milk, boiling it, then using a setting agent, either salt, lemon juice or, now more commonly, gypsum.

Most beancurd is sold in blocks, varing in texture according to how much water has been pressed out during the setting process. There are two main types: firm, which is often lightly smoked, and soft, which is also known as ‘silken’ beancurd. Soft or silken beancurd is generally used for cold dishes, often simply topped with minced spring onion, coriander, salt and sesame oil, or diced in soups. The firm varieties lend themselves better to deep or shallow frying. Most chefs prepare a
jiachang
(‘home-taste’) dish, which varies according to the local ingredients available but is always rich and flavoursome. Then there are a host of other types to choose from too: pressed shapes, sheets, shreds and beancurd skin, to name but a few. These might be flavoured with five-spice or even pig’s blood, or sold plain, ready to absorb whatever seasonings are used in a recipe.

Most Western supermarkets and many speciality stores now offer a firm and a soft variety. Unfortunately, unfamiliarity with the product sometimes leads to incorrect labelling: I have found some of the long-life ‘firm’ types still too soft to use for frying or stews. A firm beancurd will not crumble when cut or fall apart when simmered, so it is perfect for use in stews or stir-fries or even roasted; when mashed it can be used in terrine-type dishes. Soft or silken beancurd, on the other hand, is not very suitable for cooking.

If you are not convinced about beancurd, don’t close this book with a sigh and conclude that this way of eating is not for you. It took me ten years to reach the stage when I am excited to have a slab in my fridge, and I did not have to overcome an initial dislike. My own family’s experience shows me that preference for one food over another is more to do with situation and habit than with genetic predisposition. In my cooking classes, many of my female students blamed their reluctance to experiment on their husbands’ ‘real-men-don’t-eat-tofu’ mentality; but I was pretty certain that those same students had no idea how to cook it and that the recalcitrant men in their lives had not tried it tossed in mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper sauce or lightly dusted in cornflour and deep fried, served up with a spicy dip. The first dish I learned to cook with confidence was
Guo ta dou fu
(pan-fried beancurd, see recipe p. 144), which I jokingly describe as Chinese ‘eggy bread’. It is delicious served with a sweet chilli sauce:

Pan-fried beancurd

Guo ta dou fu

There are many versions of this simple dish: sometimes the pieces are bound together in an egg pancake, sometimes they are served with a light sauce. I prefer to serve them as individual pieces, which we eat for breakfast dipped in sweet chilli sauce.

300 g/10 oz/2 cups block of firm beancurd
1 tsp Chinese cooking wine
small dish of cornflour (for dipping)
1 beaten egg
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 tsp finely chopped spring onion

This recipe is best made in a large flat-bottomed frying pan rather than a wok. Slice the beancurd block into pieces of about ½ cm thick. Sprinkle the pieces with the Chinese cooking wine, and then dip them first in the cornflour and then in the egg.

Heat the frying pan to a medium heat and sprinkle the salt over the bottom (this stops the pieces sticking as well as seasoning the dish); add the oil. When the oil is hot, place the beancurd squares in the frying pan, fry for about a minute, until the pieces can be easily lifted, then flip them over.

Sprinkle the cooked side of the beancurd with a little chopped ginger and spring onion and flip over again. Add the rest of the ginger and spring onion to the other side, then fry both sides until they are golden brown.

Serve immediately.

Having had the opportunity to observe the Chinese diet first hand over a ten-year period, I believe that Chinese food culture is so nutritious and healthy not only because of the minor role played by meat, but also because of what Chinese people eat instead of meat. There is no point in going vegetarian if the alternative is living on processed bread and potatoes, or even cheese, eggs, bread and potatoes. Instead, the gaping hole that appears when we take meat out of our Western diet, or even minimize it, needs to be filled with plant-based foods. They are all out there in nature: in the soil, on the ground, in bushes and trees, even in the water, and there are plenty of seasonings available to make them into tasty nutritious meals.

The Chinese have managed to find a middle road, which is their way. But if you have been at one extreme it may be necessary to go to the other before finding the centre. Teenagers, in the
fire
stage of their lives, are quick to make decisions and to embrace change. One hot Friday night in 2004, my son Christian, then aged thirteen, arrived home from his school trip to Mongolia. He had had the time of his life in the Gobi Desert, riding on a camel singing ‘I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby’ at the top of his voice. After dancing on the Shrine of the Great Sheep and climbing the Sand-dune of the Singing Sand Gorge, the group had visited a Buddhist temple and shared the monks’ vegetarian lunch. Whether it was the monks who influenced him ultimately or the new good-looking redhead from Scotland, I never found out, but he announced firmly that he had given up eating meat.

Some teenagers wear black from head to toe, others pierce their tongues; I reckoned a bout of vegetarianism was pretty harmless. And it wasn’t as if I needed to revise my style of cooking completely, since our diet had been based for some time on the idea that ‘the vegetables are the dishes’. In fact I found that having to prepare meals without any meat at all made me far more adventurous as a cook. Vegetarians can eat amazingly well on a selection of Chinese
cai
, though I also started to look to other culinary traditions, particularly from India and the Middle East for more substantial ‘one pot’ dishes. I experimented with curries and kormas, tagines and tabboulehs, and noticed how I could still manage to achieve a balance of flavours and a range of cooking methods with different cuisines and, of course, round off the meal with a large bowl of a staple food, such as rice, couscous, barley or bulgur wheat.

Those countries with the strongest culinary traditions are those that have not lost touch with their peasant origins. And there is no way that the homely dishes eaten in country homes feature large chunks of animal protein. Indian food is an example. No doubt your local take-away will offer vindaloos, madras and kormas, made with beef, lamb or chicken, and then list a few vegetable ‘side dishes’ at the end of the menu. Yet Indian vegetarian cuisine is one of the most substantial and creative. Think about it: when you enjoy a Chicken Madras, is it the spices and seasonings that make the dish, or the lumps of flesh? Influenced by China, I have managed to adopt a ‘middle way’ approach in our household and my cooking,continuing to use small amounts of organic or free-range meat from time to time for those who prefer a carnivorous option, simmering an organic chicken occasionally and using the stock for noodles. More and more, though, I find that the vegetable option is the one preferred.

As ever, I urge you to consider alternatives and expand your view of food rather than to embark on a rigorous programme of restriction and denial. Try to incorporate
qi
in your diet at every opportunity. Primary
qi
or secondary
qi
, the choice is yours. Where you may have directed your efforts to reducing your intake of energy in the form of calories you should now consider increasing your intake of real energy or life-force, in the form of
qi
. As this
qi
begins to circulate freely in your system you will no longer feel the need to pander to the demands of the mouth and stomach but will want to eat a diet comprising fresh natural foods.

ten
Respect the body’s climate