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Comment by generaltsos | Hacker News Reader

> He cannot speak Chinese. He adheres strictly to a lifelong low-sugar, low-cholesterol diet.

I'm no expert on cholesterol, but does fried Chinese food not have the same cholesterol level as other fried food?

Cholesterol is not really a diet ingredient, but a substance that is created and maintained by your body. It's vital to functions such as learning, memory, and repairing blood vessels. Almost all cells in your body can make cholesterol.

Eating foods with cholesterol does not directly correlate to your body's own level of cholesterol. If someone has high cholesterol, it's likely a symptom of a different problem.

Chinese food can be verryyyy oily, but cantonese food tend to be healthier I find. It's possible that he sticks to vegetable dishes or steamed food.

Cantonese invented sweet and sour pork, which is very much fried. I think you’ll find healthy and unhealthy options in most Chinese styles fairly equally. Now the stuff they sell at restaurants in the states is another story, but that is more about clientele.

> but that is more about clientele.

Yeah, absolutely agreed. Most 'traditional cuisines' tend to be fairly healthy. My pet theory on this is along the lines of an evolutionary standpoint.. if it wasn't healthy, the people eating it would have been more likely to die off.

Unfortunately North American's got all the delicious foods from all the cultures that immigrated :)

Traditional food for the average person is very healthy. Of course, the average Cantonese person was very poor until decades ago. Most of the dishes that have made it abroad usually consists of tastier fare for a more wealthy population.

We know a wealthy Chinese woman as far back as 600BCE had high cholesterol and a heart attack. https://allthatsinteresting.com/xin-zhui-lady-dai

I've never seen sweet and sour pork in hk (and people there refer to it as western cuisine)

Cholesterol is added via animal fat (e.g. frying in lard, tallow, or butter), not by the process of frying. Plants do not contain cholesterol.

> Plants do not contain cholesterol.

Yes, they do. Source: Cholesterol and Plants by Behrman et al.

Isn't this a bit pendantic? I think cholesterol occurs in plants, but at levels that are probably insignificant to human diet.

I'd be much more worried about how well rice and "low-sugar" play together.

Strictly by the definitions of nutrients, "white" carbs and sugar are not synonymous.

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