I think it is important to evaluate food based on its nutritional value rather than our own on-board gut-feel of whether it is healthy or not. Some things that seem okay, are actually quite bad. For example, whether you're following a low-calorie, low-fat or low-carb diet, fried rice is especially bad, perhaps without seeming so. It just goes to show how little we can rely on our personal impressions.
And we don't need to. There are wondeful tools available online and even in handheld devices, now, to help us understand what is the nutritional value of any specific food we choose.
Here's a link to a great tool for demonstrating the issues with Chinese Food:
http://www.hmrprogram.com/cafe4.html
I entered a typical Chinese meal: Egg rolls, fried rice, and General Tso's Chicken: 2950 calories -- almost 50% more calories than I should eat in an entire day!
I then entered what one might typically consider a healthy Chinese meal: Wonton Soup, Dim Sum, Moo Shi Pork with steamed rice:
Still 2875 calories!
Any reasonable combination I tried, that had less than 1000 calories, had practically no protein! Protein is essential for building lean-body mass that helps you maintain weight-loss long-term.
That begs the question, "How do Chinese people manage to survive eating like this?" They don't. Chinese food is not what Chinese people eat. My intern is from China, and while he does have steamed rice each day, it's serving merely as a bed for some lean
protein source (as well as some steamed,
not fried, vegetables).