Approaching noon, delivery workers with food delivery boxes can be seen delivering meals between office buildings. The advantage of takeout box meals is their convenience and speed, with relatively low prices. For busy white-collar workers, a single call can get everything sorted out. However, their health issues cannot be overlooked.
Some Chinese-style box meal operators lack awareness of food hygiene and nutritional knowledge. They tend to cook with excessive oil, salt, and MSG, and often use stir-frying, pan-frying, and deep-frying methods. As a result, Chinese-style box meals are often greasy, heavily seasoned, offer little variety, have unbalanced combinations of dishes, and an imbalance of meat and vegetables. The staple food is often just plain rice. To save costs, some small box meal workshops do not provide fresh seasonal vegetables.
Western Fast Food: High in Calories, Low in Nutrition
Western fast food is tasty and its hygiene is guaranteed, making it popular among many young white-collar workers. However, it is extremely high in calories. Studies have shown that a single meal of Western fast food can contain nearly the minimum daily energy requirement for an adult. To make the food more palatable, Western fast food often uses large amounts of salt, saccharin, and MSG. Long-term consumption can lead to a deficiency of Vitamin B1 and may also trigger chronic diseases like hypertension.
Solution: To control calorie intake, try to avoid ordering high-calorie Western fast food and pay attention to the selection and combination of foods. Taking a Big Mac meal as an example, a Big Mac has 570 kcal, fries have 220 kcal, and a Coke has 150 kcal. Consuming all of these in one meal adds up to nearly 940 kcal. It is better to order items individually. When choosing a Big Mac, opt for a low-calorie beverage or a side salad to supplement any nutritional deficiencies.
Chinese Fast Food: Unsanitary and Unhealthy
Chinese fast food is affordable, costing only 5 to 10 yuan, and saves time. However, the hygiene of Chinese fast food is concerning. The dishes are often not fresh, lack sufficient nutritional value, and have little variety, making them easy to get tired of. Secondly, the salt and fat content in box meals can easily exceed recommended levels, and there is often a lack of green leafy vegetables. Most importantly, some fast food restaurants may use "gutter oil," which is extremely detrimental to health.
Solution: When ordering Chinese fast food, choose catering companies with guaranteed quality or restaurants that are licensed for delivery to ensure food is fresh and safe. Order more green vegetables and try to choose lighter-flavored meat dishes. For dinner, supplement with more green leafy vegetables. For those who prefer noodles among the "box meal crowd," you can bring your own marinated eggs, ready-to-eat soy products, and fresh vegetables like radishes, tomatoes, and cucumbers to make up for any nutritional deficiencies.
So, how should we correctly choose and eat takeout nutritionally? Let's see what the experts suggest.
Choosing the Type of Takeout
For office workers choosing the type of fast food, it is recommended to select dishes cooked using healthy methods and avoid fried foods. First, it is advisable to order steamed rice. Fast food where dishes are steamed on top of the rice is not only highly nutritious but also helps retain the food's original nutritional value. Secondly, office workers can also choose noodle dishes like boiled noodles, rice noodles, dumplings, or steamed dumplings. Types of takeout not recommended for office workers include: fast food restaurant box meals, fried foods from Western fast food chains, instant noodles, and cookies.