Eight Chinatown restaurant owners gathered at Grant Place restaurant in San Francisco on Mar. 22 to voice their outrage over a new consumer report claiming that Chinese food contains too much sodium.
“We’re concerned that this report may have a negative impact on Chinese restaurants and businesses in Chinatown,” said Wilma Pang, founder of A Better Chinatown for Tomorrow and organizer of the event. “As a major tourist destination in the city, the food quality in Chinatown is very high. The report was too broad a generalization. I wanted to gather the restaurant owners today to give them a voice.”
The analysis by the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest said: “Chinese restaurant food is loaded with salt and, if you’re not careful, delivers a load of calories, thanks to its oil, noodles, and deep-fried batter or breading.”
The report offers a look at the calorie and sodium count for popular dinner dishes and concludes that these dishes contain an entire day’s worth of sodium, some even two days’ worth.
Grant Place restaurant owner Albert Chang said Chinese food was being unfairly targeted.
“Chinese food is usually eaten family style, so it is not accurate to say the sodium count for one dish is too much for one person,” Chang said.
“Let’s give credit where credit is due. Many Chinese entrées are loaded with healthy vegetables and lean shrimp or chicken,” conceded CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “However, when it comes to sodium, there’s no real safe harbor on the Chinese restaurant menu.”
“Sodium is relatively high in some Chinese food, which increases the risk of hypertension and stroke,” said Dr. Jiang He, chair of the department of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “I urge Chinese restaurants to cook with less salt and to offer reduced-sodium soy sauce.’
“I usually see people adding salt and soy sauce in their food because its not salty enough,” said Andrew Poon, assistant manager of Far East Café. “There’s so many different kinds and types of Chinese food, its unfair to say all Chinese food is salty.”