Have you ever noticed how, on average, the Thai are remarkably slim? This is because their diet is extremely healthy, being afflicted with very little butter, cream, and dairy products, and high on vegetables, fruits, and herbs with excellent nutritional values. Try these foods, either cooked at home or ordered at a restaurant in Thailand, and you will very quickly feel the difference in your health and general feeling of well-being! Within two weeks you will, provided you stay strictly within these suggestions, start shedding pounds or kilograms even if you do very little to no exercise (though of course a good dietary program must always be boosted by exercise, particular exercises that emphasize raising heart rate).
Thai salads
These are not the salads you are used to. The sad fact of matters is that, while many Americans and Britons assume salads are the answer to reducing weight, salads in general are not as healthy as you would like: often the greens are of low quality but more to the point, the dressings used tend to be full of saturated fats and the dreaded carbohydrates. Worse yet, look at the bits of bacon (!) and cheese in your Caesar salad. There's mayonnaise in your thousand island, corn syrup in your Italian dressing, mayonnaise again in your ranch dressing, and so on. Not exactly slimming.
With Thai salads, however, the name "salad" is something of a misnomer and only marginally related to the western counterpart: Thai salads is made of fresh vegetables, fruits, and cooked meat flavored not with dressings but with a number of condiments. What makes them special is that these condiments tend to be fairly low-key on the "forbidden food" scale: they include fish sauce, soy sauce, a good helping of lime or lemon juice, a bit of sugar and some chili powder. But beyond that it's pure health, as ingredients run to cucumbers, onions, garlics, and diced chili peppers. No mayonnaise, no dairy products, no bacon or cheese. There is a vast variety to pick from, too, starting from the better-known "som tum" (mango with dried shrimp, tomato, and peanuts plus the aforementioned condiments) to the more exotic. The worst you will have to fear from is sugar, but real sugar is generally used over horrors like corn syrup.
Main dishes
Soups? Tom-yam gung is a good choice, as it is mostly heavy on tomato, shrimps, and lime more than anything else (and the shrimp can be replaced with either minced pork, chicken, or meat substitute of your choice). Gang jeud is likewise a fine choice as it is simply a soup with seaweed, carrots, white cabbage, tofu and minced pork lightly flavored.
There are also several fish dishes that you might want to consider, as well as what is known to the Thais as "nam prik": extremely flavorful pastes eaten with rice, boiled egg, and boiled vegetables. There are a multitude of recipes, most of which are vegetarian-friendly. They also tend to be incredibly spicy, however. If you aren't up for that, then maybe a stuffed omelet will do just as well (stuffing is usually several types of vegetable and mushrooms and minced pork but, again, the pork is entirely optional). As long as you skip the rice, the meal is going to be mostly free of bad fats and carbs. Finally, there are various delicious stir-fry vegetable dishes, such as spicy morning glory stir fry or glass cabbage stir fry in oyster sauce.
Drinks
Sit down at a Thai restaurant and, if it's a proper one (for preference, one that's actually located in Thailand would be a good start), you are going to find on the beverages menu a variety of herbal drinks that-unlike what you are used to-tend toward fruity and tasty rather than bland or bitter. Examples are lemongrass juice, red roselle juice, chrysanthemum juice, and more. Fruit beverages will include guava, lime, passionfruit, tamarind, Chinese apricot, and more: all of these are not only nutritious but delicious, and perfectly complements your low-carb diet plan. Red roselle, for example, has a good portion of protein; lemongrass is an excellent source of magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, potassium and manganese; tamarind offers non-starch polysaccharides, dietary fibers, tartaric acid, and several minerals; passionfruit juice reduces cancer cell growth, contains huge amounts of Vitamin C and Vitamin A, and finally chrysanthemum brings various minerals and vitamins.
Visiting Chiang Mai, Thailand and looking for healthy dining options? Visit our authentic Thai restaurant and check out our Chiang Mai accommodation choices.
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