There's a myth about food in Asia that it's really healthy. Let me put that myth to rest about Taiwan. A friend of mine warned me that it might be difficult getting my hands on healthy, non-oil-fried food here in Taiwan, and boy was she right. I didn't notice this until Amelia pointed it out to me tonight at dinner, but it's really hard to find food in a "fresh" form here. You can't even find cachews, pecans, or pisachios in a un-salted, un-sugar-coated form. Most everything has an additive, be it sugar, salt, spices, or oil.
Take, for example, the meat. At first glace it looks delicious, golden brown and crsipy. Then you start eating and realize it's dripping grease a bit. And there's bits of fat. And it's really oily. Most of the meat here is like that, either oily or greasy or fatty. As I described it to Amelia, it's like "They couldn't tell which parts were fat and which were meat, so they left it all on, and then when they were cooking it they forgot it in the frier."
It's not PRECISELY like that EVERYWHERE, but the gist is the same. Amelia and I hypothesized that it's due to a culture of eating out. There are a lot of street vendors, many of whom cook the food in oil because it's sure to kill any germs. People develop a taste for that, plus the weather is so warm that it's best to kill all germs with oil anyway. So it's nearly impossible to eat food, meat or vegetable, that hasn't been cooked in some kind of oil. Rice may be one of the few things that is steamed rather than fried or boiled in oil.
It's a weird thought, that America might be more health-conscious than someplace else. We don't always choose the right options, but there are so many "non-fat/unsalted/steamed/baked/sugar-free/whatever" options in the US that if you really want to avoid extra oil, sugar, or fats in general, you can. It takes some effort and sometimes some money, but you can do it, often because so many of us cook for ourselves so we have control over what, exactly, goes into our food.
There isn't so much of that here, at least in the parts of Taiwan where I've been. Apartments are so small that there's no room for a stove or oven, and the food you can buy in stores doesn't have the same variety as it does in many Western societies. I'm just glad I have my gym membership and a friend (Amelia) to tell me all these things so I can be careful and, as Amelia said, not make the assumption of, "If that skinny (Taiwanese) girl over there can eat that whole bowl of greasy food and still be thin, so can I."
Because no, you really can't. Amelia runs 5ks at the gym and works out and is health-conscious, so if she's having difficulty doing the health thing here, I'm taking a page out of her book.
I'm going to buy Amelia's toaster oven when she leaves (in August! So soon!) and cook as much of my food at home as financially possible, plus take advantage of all the fresh fruits available around here. There are fruit stands on almost every corner, many of them selling stuff you'd pay through the nose for in the States, like mangoes, dragonfruit, papaya, and guava, the latter of which you can buy pre-sliced in boxes at 7-Eleven for about NT$30. (Aka it's cheap.) The fruit is also really big, so you wonder if it's on steroids or something, but no, it's just really close to the source.
Vegetables at a stand in Taipei.
Dragonfruit at a stand in Taipei. There are places like this all over Hsin Jhuang, too.
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