Compared with the "taste"-oriented China diet, the western diet is a rational concept of diet. Westerners like to be small and refined. For cooking food, nutrition and delicacy are their starting point and destination. They try their best to develop and study the nutritional differences of food in different States. Even if it tastes the same, they must eat it-because it is nutritious. In China's food culture, the pursuit of "taste" is often greater than the pursuit of "nutrition", and the pursuit of food beauty obviously overwhelms rationality-it is not difficult to see from the types of dishes on the table. This difference in values leads Chinese food to pay too much attention to the characteristics of color, aroma and taste of food, while westerners insist on starting from the nutritional point of view and despise other functions of food from beginning to end.
Second, the differences in dietary patterns.
There are great differences between Chinese and western food styles, and this difference also has an impact on national character. In China, any banquet, no matter for what purpose, has only one form, that is, everyone sits together and enjoys a seat. Banquets should use round tables to create a United, polite and interesting atmosphere in form. Food is placed in the center of a table, which is not only the object of appreciation and tasting, but also the medium of emotional communication. People toast each other, offer food to each other and exhort each other, which embodies the virtue of mutual respect and courtesy between people in the face of beautiful things. Although from the perspective of hygiene, this kind of diet has obvious shortcomings, but it conforms to the universal mentality of "happy reunion" of our nation, embodies the influence of the category of "harmony" in China's classical philosophy on later generations' thoughts, and is conducive to collective emotional exchange, so it is difficult to reform so far.
In western-style banquets, although food and wine are very important, they are actually used as foil. The core of the banquet is friendship, which is realized by talking to the guests next door. If the sociality of banquets is compared to dancing, it can be said that Chinese banquets are like group dances, while western banquets are like ballroom dancing for men and women. It can be seen that the purpose of friendship between Chinese banquet and western banquet is obvious, but Chinese banquet is more about the friendship of the whole banquet, while western banquet is more about the friendship between neighboring guests. The more obvious difference from China's diet is the buffet which is popular in the west. This method is: all the food is displayed one by one, and everyone needs what they want, so they can move freely without being fixed in their seats. This way facilitates the emotional communication between individuals, without putting all the words on the table, and also reflects the respect of westerners for individuality and self. But each eats his own food, does not interfere with each other, and lacks some China people's mood of chatting and having fun.
Third, the difference of eating objects.
Because westerners generally believe that dishes are to satisfy hunger, they specialize in "hard dishes" such as large pieces of meat and whole chicken. China's food is "delicious", so China's cooking also shows great randomness in the materials used-many things that westerners regard as discarded things are excellent raw materials in China, and things that foreign chefs can't handle can also be turned into magic in the hands of China chefs. It shows that China's diet has a wide range of randomness in materials. According to the survey of western botanists, people in China eat more than 600 kinds of vegetables, six times more than those in the west. In fact, in Chinese cuisine, vegetarian dishes are ordinary foods, and meat dishes only enter the ordinary diet structure when the living standard is high, so there has been a saying of "vegetable food" since ancient times, and vegetable food plays a dominant role in the ordinary diet structure. China people's plant cooking is closely related to the advocacy of Buddhists. They regard animals as "living things" and plants as "lifeless things", so they advocate vegetarianism.
When introducing the dietary characteristics of their own countries, westerners think that they pay more attention to the reasonable collocation of nutrition than China. There are developed food industries, such as canned food and fast food, which are time-saving and nutritious, so people in their country are generally stronger than people in China: tall, with long legs, wide shoulders and muscular; China people, on the other hand, are thin, with narrow shoulders and short legs and light yellow color. According to the obvious differences between Chinese and western food objects, some people call China a plant word, while westerners call it an animal word. In addition, Westerners like to eat more meals a day, which is more scientific than China's eating only two or three meals a day.
Fourth, differences in eating habits.
Judging from the cooking process, China people like to add seasonings such as vinegar, ginger, garlic, onion and pepper, which can sterilize, reduce fat, stimulate appetite and help digestion. Although westerners are monotonous in seasoning, they also have many advantages. They don't like to put monosodium glutamate when cooking, because monosodium glutamate contains sodium, and excessive intake is harmful to health. Many people in China are used to buying fresh food to cook every day; Westerners often buy food for a week at a time and store it in the refrigerator. They eat frozen food every day, and eat 8 times and 6 times as much canned food and pickled products as people in China. You should know that they contain more preservatives, pigments and other chemicals, which are harmful to the body and deserve the attention of urban white-collar workers whose lives are getting simpler and simpler. People in China often use fire for cooking, so there are more lampblack, and they pay more attention to the ventilation equipment in the kitchen. Westerners, on the other hand, don't like to use big fires and pay attention to the ventilation conditions in the kitchen. Therefore, the incidence of lung cancer among chefs and housewives in China is significantly higher than that in the west.
From the perspective of dietary structure, China people eat much more vegetables than westerners, while westerners consume a lot of protein every day, but they eat too little fiber, which affects gastrointestinal function, so the prevalence rate and cancer rate of digestive system are much higher than that of China. China people like coarse grains, while westerners prefer flour and rice, such as refined white powder. In fact, coarse grains contain more nutrients than flour and rice; People in China love vegetable oil, while westerners like to use animal oil with high cholesterol when cooking, and they also consume a lot of butter every day. No wonder the incidence of cardiovascular diseases in Americans is particularly high: China urban and rural residents like to eat soy milk, tofu, bean sprouts and other soy products, while westerners often "stay at a respectful distance"; People in China, especially in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta, love to eat pig liver, pig intestines, pig lungs and other internal organs, while westerners do not have this hobby. Animal viscera contains a lot of cholesterol and should not be eaten more; Steamed food has less damage to nutrients. Westerners like steamed food (less nutritional damage), while China people like hot frying (more nutritional damage); Westerners have realized that beef, horse meat and mutton called "red meat" are one of the causes of colon cancer and prostate cancer, and the fat in red meat is also one of the pathogenic factors of prostate cancer and heart disease. They have noticed that eating red meat once a week. Many domestic newspapers and periodicals have reported the problem of red meat many times, but at present, domestic people have not paid enough attention to it.
Fifth, the differences in the cultural characteristics of food.