What Makes A Food As Healthy Food

Description: There isn’t really one traditional Asian diet, but a group of international nutritionist collaborated together in the 90s to come up with an Asian Food Pyramid. It prioritizes rice, noodles and whole grains, as well as fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds and nuts as the most-eaten food groups. Fish and shellfish are optional daily choices, while eggs and poultry should be eaten weekly. Note that recommended servings of red meat are smaller and less frequent (monthly) than even sweets (weekly)!

Signature foods: There are many different countries whose traditional ways of eating follow this model, but they all seem to have white rice as a staple.

What the research says: Asian countries have less incidences of obesity, cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases like diabetes than Western countries, although that seems to be slowly changing thanks to rising economies and urbanization. One Harvard nutrition researcher notes that high-carb, high-glycemic aspects of a traditional Chinese diet are colliding with an increasingly urbanized, inactive lifestyle to create an “emerging public health dilemma.”