New Year, no news

Don't you just know there is no real news when the year is started off with all the newspapers and reporters talking about diets - how many New Years have started off this way?  I don't know about you, but I'm just getting a bit bored with it all.  And why now?  Why not lecture us all before we embark on the enormous Christmas blow-out to save us having even more to worry about?

How many times do 'they' need to tell us that we shouldn't eat so much sugar, fat, salt, junk-food?  How about instead they focus their efforts on the people who are making the disgustingly bad for us foods, selling them at huge profits - if the bad foods were not there, we wouldn't be tempted to eat them.  And I know that from experience, having just returned from a trip around Vietnam where for two weeks I didn't eat any stodge, dairy or chocolate (because there wasn't any on offer), and didn't see one overweight person (until I spotted a couple of obese Europeans at the airport).

The traditional Vietnamese diet is very healthy, based on rice, vegetables and fish, and using steaming and stir-frying as a gentle way to cook foods, therefore ensuring less nutrients are lost through harsh cooking methods.  Their idea of fast food is a big bowl of noodle soup, with ginger, spring onions, garlic, rice noodles, beansprouts, herbs and chicken or prawns - a little different from our fast food delights.  How pleased was I to be in a country where there is no McDonalds, I was very tempted to move there permanently for that reason alone!

The Vietnamese way of eating is so natural - if they grow it or can catch it, they eat it - it makes a mockery of all our promoting of eating local and seasonal - for them there is no other way.  Unfortunately times will change and with the onslaught of overseas visitors comes our unhealthy foods - McD may not have made it there, but KFC has -  and in the last  4 years the prevalence of diabetes has increased, and with that the threat of cardiovascular disease.

One thing that was a surprise is that Vietnam is the World's largest coffee exporter, surpassing Brazil by selling 800,000 kilgrams of coffee in the first 6 months of 2012.  I'm not a coffee drinker, but those that were said it was good coffee, although the way it is served may not be to everyone's taste - very strong small cup, with condensed milk.

Of course the other way they remain healthy is that they still work in a physical job - they are working the land so are constantly on the go, and not sitting at a desk - no trips to the gym needed for them.  And hardly anybody owns a car - bikes or scooters cover the roads (quite a scary view when you are trying to cross them!) in numbers it is hard to imagine - there are reportedly 5 million scooters in Ho Chi Minh City alone!