I'm not home where I have my South Beach Dining Guide but I can tell you that you will need to stay away from rice, noodles, any sauces made with sugar and any sauces that are thickened. I make Chinese at home all the time but it is harder to know in a restaurant what you are getting (especially if they don't understand your questions). At home I can also use reduce sodium soy sauce.
I would ask for something with lots of vegetables (no corn at all and no carrots in phase 1). No pineapple either. You could ask for the food to either have no sauce or just a soy sauce. You WILL show a gain from the sodium but it will just be water retention if you stick to lean meat/seafood and vegetables.
Sometimes there's a large meal soup on the menu that can work. One of our local restaurants serves a broth based "War Wonton Soup" that is very SB friendly, except for the wonton noodle. There are tons of vegetables, chicken, seafood in the broth, and even the inside of the wonton is good. So it would be easy to use a fork or chopstick to push the outer wrapper off the wonton.
Satays are often good too (as long as the marinade isn't too sweet).
Mongolian beef would be a good choice, if you could ask for no corn starch and wothout the bed of fried noodles underneath.
Another good choice would probably be mushu (pork, chicken, beef, shrimp) and simply eat the filling and ignore the pancakes.
The mushu filling in most restaurants I've noticed is the least sweetened/thickened of the stir fries.
Thanks! I am wondering if a chicken curry would work. The sauce isn't abundant, and I know when I make curries, starch isn't necessary. Mushu sounds good too.
Chinese is tough. My family loves the Chinese buffet, and we go occasionally but I hate to go because there is nothing there that is really on plan for me. I usually have some egg drop soup (probably has corn starch), a big plate of the garlic and hot pepper green beans (which have too much oil, so I blot as much as possible, and a couple of chicken teriyaki skewers (I'm sure the marinade has sugar). It's always too much salt and I always bloat. Would DH object if you ordered Chinese for everyone and made yourself a quick stir fry? If, that is, you are ordering takeout and eating at home.
The SB dining guide says to look for clear soups, steamed fresh vegs prepared with small amts of meat, avoid noodle based entrees, steamed white rice, fried rice, pot stickers, anything called crispy or sweet and sour,. Request food be prepared without MSG and cornstarch. Not much help really, good luck.
That reminds me that there is a steamed fish dish I've seen on chinese buffets (don't know what it's called to help you order it from menu), but it's simply fish steamed with green onion and seasonings. Awesome, and completely SB friendly, but as I said, I have no idea what it's called.
Many Chinese restaurants in my area offer most of their dishes made "weight-watcher style", which means they don't thicken the sauce or sweeten it. I can also order steamed vegetables and chicken or shrimp, with no sauce at all. Now if only they would all offer the option of brown rice, we'd really have it made.
Chinese Food Options?
