I know this might sound slightly heretical for somebody with a physical connection to Thailand, but I do not actually eat Thai food very often. Before anybody accuses me of rejecting Thai culture or disrespecting one of the world’s great cuisines, that is not really the issue. I think a lot of Thai food tastes fantastic. My only request is that the chilli content remains below the threshold where my tongue becomes a crime scene and I can still identify at least some of the other ingredients. The real issue is nutritional value. Over the years I have become far more interested in macros than flavor alone. These days I tend to build most of my meals around protein, followed by healthy fats, fibre, and nutrient density. I generally avoid simple carbohydrates and pure starches with empty calories, whenever possible. That is where my relationship with a lot of Thai food starts becoming complicated. Take a typical meal. You might get a mountain of rice or noodles, a relatively modest amount of vegetables, and a surprisingly small portion of meat. Quite often the meat itself is also a fatty cut of pork rather than something particularly protein rich. It tastes great. That is not the problem. The problem is that I can easily look at the plate and see a huge carb load, modest protein, and not much else that fits particularly well with how I prefer to eat. I am not somebody who counts calories obsessively. I am more interested in what those calories consist of. Two very different meals can contain exactly the same number of calories and leave me feeling completely different about what I just put into my body. As a result, most of my day to day meals are fairly boring by comparison. Lots of eggs. Chicken. Vegetables. Nuts. Some fruit. The sort of food that nutritionists applaud and food photographers might immediately lose interest in. So I am curious what others choose to eat, and are you mainly thinking about taste and enjoyment, or do you also pay strong attention to the nutritional value of what is on the plate?
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