Ching-He Huang - Eat Clean - Wok Yourself to Health

Why Asian cuisine?

Asian cuisine offers a diverse range of recipes. Not only does it deliver on taste, freshness and speed, but the ingredients used in many classic dishes are also healthy. I won’t only be sharing classic dishes, but some fusion recipes too, making the very best combinations of Asian ingredients with up-to-date research on their health and nutritional benefits. The recipes are wide ranging and varied, so rest assured that there are plenty of delicious dishes to choose from.

De-clutter your mind

I also offer tips that I personally believe in, to strengthen and calm the mind. These nuggets of advice come from many sources – people I have met, stories I have heard, things I have read – and I hope they will help to strengthen, enlighten and enrich your spirit. They also make for fun reading. These words of wisdom were important to me in achieving a healthier version of myself. I believe you are not just what you eat, but what you think, too. The mind controls our eating habits and it is important to consciously eat for optimal health.

My personal motivation and beliefs

As a cook promoting food on TV, I always felt inclined to make nutritious dishes for taste, health and well-being, but I admit that health was not always the priority! However, seeing widespread health issues, and having experienced my own bout of bad health, I had an awakening. I felt I could no longer justify creating recipes to entice people simply to fall in love with Chinese cuisine and culture. My cooking has never been over-indulgent and I don’t use a lot of butter or sugar – but it could be cleaner and healthier. In general we could all eat better and be leaner, cleaner and kinder to our environment, and this book is my first step to reminding myself and sharing with others the importance of eating well.

Today people are suffering from more diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, and from allergies, than ever before. I was always taught that prevention is better than cure, that our diet determines the health of our bodies. With this in mind, I wanted to create a book that would be useful and practical every day, in every season, knowing that the quantities have been measured for salt, sugar, fat and calories. However, food and its health benefits don’t just come down to conventional nutritional analysis. There are many things we don’t know and we shouldn’t discount alternative, unconventional healing efficacies.

Traditional Chinese dietary advice, for example, follows the age-old principle of yin and yang. Thousands of years of Chinese medical research point to eating and living in harmony with nature. Based on this philosophy, a healthy diet relies on a balance of fresh seasonal ingredients – raw and cooked, hot and cold. Raw foods are deemed ‘cleansing’, cooked foods are considered ‘nourishing’, with some ingredients being more ‘healing’ than others. In traditional Chinese cuisine, few foods were eaten raw because they were deemed too hard for the body to digest. However, having experienced the health benefits of the Western culture of eating raw salads, I have combined the best of Eastern and Western ways of eating. Also vital for good health is knowing how to prepare and cook food to maximise its nutritional benefits, so I have tried to incorporate some of these Eastern principles into my recipes. Combining these with conventional Western nutritional research, I have taken an integrated East–West approach to nutrition, too.

This book is designed to help you eat clean and fresh every day. The basic tools you need to get started are a carbon-steel wok, an all-purpose chef’s knife or a cleaver, which I prefer, and a chopping board. With spices and Asian storecupboard ingredients that you can build up, eating nutritiously and healthily is at your fingertips.

By eating a diet made up of 80% plant-based foods and 20% organic meat, fish, dairy and eggs, you will be well on your way to good health. Again, the quality of those ingredients will determine the quality of your health. Clean air and water are perhaps the most important of those, aside from food. We cannot control our water and air quality on a daily basis, but we can control our food choices. Don’t get me wrong: I am no saint, as I succumb to the occasional slice of cake, but consistent efforts make the odd slip-up inconsequential.

I wish you clean eating and happy, healthy wokking!

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