Living in Wuhan

Your body is a bio-mechanical machine that has evolved over millions of years to run on certain kinds of fuel. This development took place long before there were "races", "cultures", countries, religions or restaurants; (our species has been evolving distinctively for around 8 million years; our oldest civilizations are only about six thousand years old). That is, your body works best on a balanced mixture of fresh, even raw, fruit and vegetables, nuts, some roots, grain, and a little meat. The vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants in fresh produce are the best protection available against disease and degeneration.

That part of the world's human population which is not suffering from malnutrition (not enough nourishing food), contains a large number of people who are suffering from over-nutrition. The dietary habits of most Americans, Europeans and Australians are unbalanced, and it is fair to say that a high proportion of them die from overeating. They are not alone. Indigenous populations from North & South America to Australia to parts of Africa are fattening up like Christmas turkeys, getting diabetes and dying from clogged up arteries. In every one of these cultures mothers stuff their babies and visitors are gorged to display "our great hospitality", and "our unsurpassed cooking". The traveller who politely refuses this largesse is likely to be pitied at best.

Is the Chinese experience different from all these other cultures? No it isn't. The same famine psychology that shaped our hominid forebears through the long march of evolution, and is so ill-matched to today's conditions of plenty, is on naked, unselfconscious display throughout China. Indeed, it is sharpened by very recent historical memory. In 1949, on the eve of the Communist takeover in mainland China, a person could expect to live to 40 years of age. Today that life expectancy is around 70 years, which is a huge achievement owing much to improved rice cultivation, and advances in public health care. In the intervening decades, through the mad self-mutilations of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" tens of millions of Chinese did die of starvation, and uncounted millions of others were stunted physically and intellectually by malnutrition. With such savage conditioning still fresh in living memory, it is incomprehensible to most Chinese that they could now be overeating. Sickness and mortality statistics are beginning to tell the story, but they are, well, only statistics.

The meat that sells well in China is richly marbled with fat, and often has a thick rind of fat for extra display. Skilled wok cooking does not need much fat (even water will do), but much of the food actually available has obviously been steeped in animal fat or hydrogenated oils (which we now know to be dangerous), while a superb mono-unsaturated medium like olive oil (in China since at least the Tang dynasty) cannot be obtained. In other words, there is massive public ignorance about "modern" killers like circulatory diseases and cancer. The markets contain wonderful vegetables, but they have low status, are often prepared without skill, and take a minor place against meat in most restaurant meals. Fish is widely available, but much of it is inland fish from polluted rivers and fish farms. From time to time horror stories crop up in the media about contaminated fish products, but most of the damage from such ingested chemicals is likely to work more subtly over time on general health. We also have to fit this into the wider environmental context: breathing the air in most large Chinese cities is said (by the World Health Organisation) to be equivalent to smoking two packets of cigarettes a day. People are more aware of this threat than they are of food risks. Air quality may improve in coming decades.

It is a bit risky generalizing about a cooking culture as large and varied as the Han Chinese, but it is fair to say that most restaurant cooking, at least, does NOT start from sound principles of nutrition (although any number of superstitious virtues will be paraded: dog meat is good for colds etc. etc.). Rather, it operates on what we could call "the peasant and aristocrat principle". "Good" restaurant food tends to be seen as what is rare and expensive, not what is nourishing. Further, the cook may well transform perfectly good natural ingredients into something entirely unrecognizable, and to foreign eyes, maybe a bit suspect, although this is a matter of personal taste; (I tend to dislike things that are oily, greasy, soggy or slimy).

If you ask for tiger's testicles or monkey's brains in a prestige establishment, that's fine. If you want a mixed plate of crisp vegetables it probably won't be on the menu, and they'll think you a bit down-market for asking. That is because vegetables are cheap, and therefore little valued. Even rice may be served last, or not at all, so that you can savour the more expensive dishes. If you are a single diner, you may also have to buy several dishes (more than you can eat) to obtain a nutritionally balanced meal. Group dining is usually at the expense of one host ("going dutch" is thought distasteful), and because of the prestige factor this host will order vastly more food than is ever eaten. The waste is incredible.

There are a couple of morals to the preceding story. Firstly, it could be a bit of a long-term health risk to depend entirely on restaurant meals; (this is probably true in most parts of the world). You can cook your own meals too! Since Chinese markets are full of good vegetables and fruits, it is a fair bet that ordinary housewives have more sense than the restaurant owners.

Secondly, when Chinese friends tell you about a "good" restaurant, their criteria are probably different from yours. Even within a single culture, "one man's meat is another man's poison", and each of our bodies is designed a little differently. After 53 years I have learned the hard way what is dangerous for me, but it seems that almost everyone wants to learn these lessons for themselves (when it is often too late!). I certainly don't expect too many folk to agree with the analysis above. Any star rating system below needs to be marked C (for Chinese viewpoint), and W (for a Westerner's viewpoint), but you might disagree with either. .