Is it possible to eat a Keto-Friendly Chinese Food on a Budget in London
Guest post by Arthur Brown
A ketogenic diet is a high fat, moderate protein and low carbohydrate diet, you can take if you are cautious about your health. This diet has been around since the 20s and 30s. The Chinese are some of the people in the world that have practiced ketogenic diet and this is why customers in London go to the Chinese restaurants to have a bite of the diet.
With that said, this diet doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Assuming you are not the wealthiest person in London, can you still afford a Chinese ketogenic diet? Yes, you can. And since every cent matters, you will want to eat a healthy diet on a low budget. Here is how you can successfully choose a low carb Chinese food and still save some money.
Keep off the sauce
This is not the best news you can tell someone who enjoys a sumptuous meal. But the bad news is that sauces used in Chinese restaurants in London are full of sugar. So you should avoid them if you are following a low carb diet. Some of the sauces to avoid include the following:
• Duck sauce
• Sweet and sour sauce
• Hoisin sauce
• Plum sauce
• Char Siu sauce
Keep off cornstarch
Although this may not greatly cut off your budget, but it’s just important to ask if your dish was made with cornstarch. It is frequently used to thicken sauces and soups. It can also crisp veggies and meat. Although a little starch may not mess up your keto Chinese food, but one tablespoon of this pure starch made from finely ground corn flour contains 7 grams of carbohydrates.
Keep off breaded or deep fried dishes
Deep fried and breaded dishes are the most delicious and this is why they are known to be quiet expensive. But it is important to keep them off your Chinese ketogenic diet. So as much as the Tso chicken or sweet and sour shrimp may look delicious, it is advisable not to include them in your order.
But with all the most delicious dishes ruled out from your ketogenic diet, does it mean that you can’t enjoy a sumptuous meal on a low budget in a Chinese restaurant? Of course you can. Here are some of the Chinese cuisine you can enjoy while keeping your carb count and budget as low as possible.
Clear Soups
A good alternative to egg rolls, dim sum, prawn toast or fried wontons are a clear soup such as the egg drop soup. As mentioned above, thick soups rely on carbohydrate-rich cornstarch as a thickener and this adds more carbs to the dish. So you can ask one of the servers to identify the soups in the menu that don’t contain cornstarch.
Stir fries
Some of the low carb Chinese entrée choices include stir fried vegetables, chicken, lean beef or a combination such as beef with mushrooms. But they will only stay that way as long as they are not served with rice or noodles. Most of the stir fry dishes are seasoned with orange, plum, sweet and sour sauce. So you should request the restaurant to omit the sauces.
You can head to one of London’s best Chinese restaurants and get the best of keto diet. Some of the top restaurants, include:
• Hutong
• Grand Imperial
• Baozi Inn
• Ping Pong
• Min Jiang
• Imperial China
With that in mind, you now have an idea of what to order when you walk into a Chinese restaurant in London. Although this may mean skipping the most delicious meals on the menu, you can still enjoy different variations of the above mentioned meals.
