Our Choice: Fresh Meats Over the Balls

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1 Amidst all the festive rooster decorations, jingles and decadent treats, the most wonderful thing about CNY that Team MyFatPocket loves is definitely the countless steamboat sessions! (yay, we re a foodie squad!) As the saying goes, one gets wiser as they get older welcome a new year, we decided to get wise and make our steamboat a healthy fare. Join us too! Our Choice: Fresh Meats Over the Balls We are ditching the balls, and yes, this includes the fishcakes, crabmeat, bacon, luncheon meat, hotdog and dumplings too! These highly processed steamboat favourites are loaded with sodium, and it s really easy to gulp down a dozen of them in just one sitting. 1 / 9

2 Credit: Misstaichiak In fact, just 5 servings each of the fish balls, and prawn dumplings can choke up to 50% of the daily allowances for sodium (2000 mg). And this does not include the sodium from the soup! Excessive consumption of these processed foods can elevate the risk of methaemoglobinaemia, a blood disorder with symptoms including headache and shortness of breath due to lack of oxygen. Make the moment count by: Choosing thinly sliced lean pork, striploin, skinless chicken breast, white fish or tofu to fill up the 2 / 9

3 protein. Our Choice: Stems Over Leaves If you think this doesn t matter to you, and that all vegetables are supposed to be healthy, then we have to say you re only partially right. By adding a huge amount of leafy vegetables into your steamboat, you re actually shoving down all the oils and fats. The leaves of the vegetables can easily absorb oil from the soup, thus turning them into unhealthy food! You would experience the same problem with mushroom too, as they are porous and can absorb the fats quickly. 3 / 9

4 Credit: Heartawarenessforall Make the moment count by: Moving over the leaves and going for stem type greens like asparagus, celery, lotus, carrot, radish, potato, bamboo and yam. These vegetables soak up less oil in the soup as compared to their leafy friends. Our Choice: Cooling It Down Over Slurping It Hot Though steamboat is also known as hotpot, you don t need to slurp down the scalding hot soup or food. You re in fact doing yourself a favour when you wait for the food to cool down. Our oral cavity, oesophagus and gastric can only withstand temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, and temperature higher (steamboat can reach 120) than this can injure the mucosa. In fact, a study published in the International Journal of Cancer shown that consuming foods that are scalding hot can elevate risk of oesophageal cancer. 4 / 9

5 Credit: Greentree Make the moment count by: Catching up with your relatives or upload a wefie on instagram while you wait for your food to cool down. Our Choice: Stop Heating the Soup Once the Food is Cooked We understand that it s really nice to just enjoy the steamboat and leave it to boil for hours while chatting with our relatives. However, this usual habit might be doing more harm than good for 5 / 9

6 us. Credit: Sethlui It turns out that the nitrite level in the steamboat soup can increase drastically once it is cooked beyond 90 minutes, and this isn t a good thing (imagine methaemoglobinaemia). In fact, an article from ShanghaiJournal of Preventive Medicine, found that after 90 minutes of boiling, nitrite level of pickled cabbage steamboat spiked almost 10 fold, while that of seafood steamboat and bone-based steamboat increased 7 times and 2.8 times respectively. Make the moment count by: 6 / 9

7 Limiting your steamboat eating session to no more than 90 minutes, or stop heating the soup once all the food is cooked. In case you need a calorie check, here s something for you: 7 / 9

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