Chef Ming Tsai & White House Executive Chef Cook Healthy for American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

As you know, the month of May is American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and thus it’s no surprise that the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have joined up to not only celebrate but also educate how to cook traditional AAPI dishes in a healthy yet also tasty way:

“To promote healthy eating among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, White House Executive [Filipino American] Chef Cristeta Comerford and Chef Ming Tsai have teamed up to film a cooking demonstration in the White House kitchen featuring healthy and traditional Asian recipes that follow the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations that support the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) MyPlate food icon. … MyPlate serves as a powerful visual cue to remind all of us to choose healthier foods among the five food groups and build healthier plates at mealtimes. It points consumers to the ChooseMyPlate.gov website where consumers can put the Dietary Guidelines into action. … “There’s no reason to have to sacrifice the foods we love in order to eat a healthy diet,” Comerford said. Chef Ming Tsai agreed, “The key here is that you don’t have to sacrifice flavor, sacrifice culture, to make food that is still actually good for you.””

In general, I think a lot of Chinese food that I eat isn’t necessarily all that healthy – since I like to eat a lot of meat and anything stir fried, etc. But it’s good to see that traditional dishes like fried rice can be cooked more healthily too!