Tag Archives: Nutrition

Top 5 Healthy Restaurants and Eateries in Bangkok

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been chatting with Chawadee this week about restaurants and eateries in Bangkok that serve up quality, tasty and healthy food. Chawadee writes an awesome food blog called Bangkok Glutton and what she doesn’t know about street food in Bangkok isn’t worth knowing. Her book, Bangkok Street Food Top 50, is available through Amazon or at Asia Books.

As Chawadee quite rightly pointed out to me, ‘healthy’ food means different things to different people. She defines it as “a lot (if not all) vegetables and cooking techniques that aren’t all about the deep fryer”.

Mahachai Road street food and market – home to numerous culinary delights

So basically natural ingredients that aren’t drowning in oil and fat – sounds good to me!

So onto her recommendations for healthy eating in central Bangkok, in no particular order. I haven’t been to these places yet but will make sure I do in the coming months!

All these restaurants can be found on our Bangkok Fitness Map

Anothai Tel: 02-6415366

An organic restaurant that’s hidden away near Rama 4. Chawadee says it’s one of the best in Bangkok, so worth checking out. This review gives good directions and some more information.

Sustaina 2/F, 1/40 Sukhumvit Soi 39, Bangkok, Thailand, BTS Phrom Phong

Another top-notch organic grocer and restaurant that offers a lot of Japanese and international dishes.

Sustaina website

Rasayana Sukhumvit soi 39 and Emporium

Organic raw food specialists Rasayana offer treatments and detoxes, as well as a restaurant. They are based in Sukhumvit soi 39 and have a recently opened branch in Emporium as well. Chawadee tells me she “quite enjoys” the food here, so perhaps what they gain in raw health they sacrifice a little in taste? I’ll go and find out soon.

Jay Fai Street food stall on Mahachai Road

Nice to get a street food stall in this list. I’m reliably told their pla luak is great – boiled fish poached in a broth and served with steamed veggies. When many people think Thai cuisine, they think tom yum, and their delicious spicy lemongrass soup with seafood is one of the best in the city. Both dishes use a mix of herbs that Thais consider very healthy. Yum!

Lemon Farm Sukhumvit soi 39 with 4 other branches in Bangkok

The last one on our list is more of a takeaway spot than restaurant, so we’ve pretty much got all culinary angles covered in this top 5! They have 5 branches throughout Bangkok, creating dishes with all natural, organic ingredients. Chawadee tells me their nam prik jai (vegetarian chilli dip) is outrageous.

Lemon Farm website.

So there we have our top 5 healthy eateries in Bangkok. Exploring Bangkok’s huge array of restaurants and food stalls is one of the great ways to get the most out of this awesome city, so give yourself a guilt-free treat at one of these places.

Thanks again Chawadee from BangkokGlutton.com for the recommendations… All this writing about food has made me hungry, so I’m off to eat!

Intermittent Fasting

Posted on by
Reply

UPDATE: The BBC documentary has now been uploaded to YouTube. I reckon you owe it to yourself to check it out here

When I bring up the topic of intermittent fasting with friends or clients, people usually look at me like I’m criminally insane. In a nutshell, intermittent fasting is practicing controlled periods of zero- or low-calorie food and drink intake. I go into it in more detail in my post on intermittent fasting. There is still a negative stigma attached to the idea of fasting, so it was refreshing to log onto the BBC this morning and see an article and accompanying TV documentary about the various health and weight loss/maintenance benefits that IF (Intermittent Fasting’s abbreviation) brings.

It’s refreshing to see one of the world’s most trusted news organisations featuring something like this and hopefully it will help people to take the idea more seriously and try something new when it comes to their diet and health.

You can find the BBC article here.

My post on intermittent fasting.

Or watch the program, tonight on BBC 2 at 9.00pm BST

Fast food in Bangkok

Posted on by
Reply

One of the first things people notice about Thai people is that they are generally far smaller than westerners, although with the amount of fast food outlets opening in Bangkok this might not hold true in a generation’s time.

Junk food is breeding a generation of Michelin babies

Let’s take a look at the calorific impact of the most popular food chains that you find here. It may shock you out of eating it.

Krispy Kreme

A donut so trendy that to order any less than five dozen would be just plain embarrassing. One of their famous glazed ring donuts contains 200 calories, which is 2,400kcal per dozen (a day’s worth of energy), with a trolley-load coming in at 28,800 calories. Their donuts contain trans fat, the worst kind for clogging up the arteries.

McDonalds

You don’t need a feature-length movie to show you that McDonalds is bad – finishing a burger and fries and experiencing the post-meal remorse and regret is usually enough proof. A Big Mac is a neat, processed package of 540kcal and 29g of fat, add another 500kcal for the large fries and 300kcal for the large Coke (most of the Coke’s calories are from about a day’s worth of sugar).

Starbucks

Coffee should be safe, right? Well, a lot depends on the type of milk used in the drink (skimmed milk has 0g fat but tastes awful). Watch out for the some of the Frappucinos which can be packed with cream and sugar and can contain upwards of 600 calories.

Auntie Annes

I was a bit upset to discover that my beloved cinnamon pretzel has about as much nutritional value as a bowl of toxic waste. It comes in at 470 calories with a whopping 84g of sugar. Not all that surprising when you consider that they are covered in sugar.

KFC

A piece of chicken contains between 300-500 pieces depending on size and type, so a bucket should contain enough calories to last a few days, with enough saturated fat for a week. Large fries and Coke add 800 odd calories.

Pizza Hut

All of Pizza Huts 14 inch pizzas contain about a whole day’s worth of calories, with one slice coming in at between 330 a slice (Veggie Lover’s) to 480 calories (Meat Lovers), with lashings of saturated fat and processed ingredients. Yummy!

Rotiboy

Sometimes we must show more restraint than our role models

Yes, I know it was a fad that no longer exists, but those buttery, sugary bun things had 600 calories each! It’s a well-known made-up fact that they suddenly went bust because all their customers died of heart attacks.

Of course, I’m not so patronizing that I don’t realize that you were fully aware that fast food in Bangkok is bad for you, but sometimes it’s good to have an idea of just how bad it is.

Any food can be consumed in moderation; as a treat. I follow this: when you do treat yourself, make sure it’s f***ing tasty! I think it’s utterly pointless eating something that’s bad for you unless it’s absolutely delicious – so when you do treat yourself, treat yourself well (and use it as inspiration to work that little bit harder next time you train, too).