Korean Job Discussion Forums

[corinthian]

Back home, I ate pretty healthy - fruit, lots of chicken and tuna, protein bars/shakes, oatmeal, and so on. So now that I'm in Korea, I'd like to be on as much of a Korean diet as possible, but the problem is I don't know what's healthy and what's not. Are there any resources available to teach me how to put together a healthy Korean diet?

I could also use a good place to buy protein powder and protein bars. I heard they have protein powder at Costco, but I'm not sure what the quality is like.

[stevieg4ever]

Most healthy foods can be found in Korean supermarkets. Tuna, lean meats, chicken, seafood, fish are here in abundance. Personally I cook almost all of my foods at home. The problem with eating out all the time is that you are never really sure of what goes into the foods. I follow a strict training diet so pretty much have to but find grocery shopping cheap and easy enough.

There are plenty of places to get supplements on line so I recommend you bring some pressies for your co workers, give them the cash for what you want and ask them to buy on line for you. Failing that bodybuilding.com will deliver to Korea. Korean supplements are ridiculously expensive.

Gyms tend to differ a lot for my liking. I find I pay less [than the UK] but proportionately get less in return. But they have them and they do thier job.

[corinthian]

[Daniel_D]

It's not that bad if you ship a bunch at one time.

[redaxe]

You can buy fresh fruit, chicken, seafood, green vegetables and whole grain products at the grocery store here. Cook them yourself at home. You can also choose to cook brown or multi-grain rice instead of white rice.

The sodium levels in Korean restaurant food are incredibly high. Most of the soups and banchan dishes are very, very salty. And a lot of things they cook are sweetened with corn syrup, too. Avoid eating out as much as you can, and if you must, try to choose things that are not fried, salty, oily, or starchy. Unfortunately that rules out every Korean food I can think of right now.

[Cerberus]

I have the same issues you seem to have.

I'm not sure I'd label a Korean diet as "unhealthy" as many others make it out to be. I don't like it for reasons of taste, overreliance on rice as your basic meal with everything else as a sidedish and a noticeable lack of sufficient protein (at least for my purposes) which is what happens when rice is your main food with fermented veggies as sidedishes.

My advice to you would be to RUN and get yourself a Foreman Grill (versions of which are now supposedly available in Korea). Chicken breast is readily available at E-marts or G-Market and other places.
Tuna is also available though you may have trouble finding it in water rather than oil and you'll get price sticker shock.

Fruit and veggies are available here, just be prepared to pay double plus to what you're used to (sticker shock is a constant in Korea with basically any consumer item)

if you like seafood (which I don't), on that front you should be in luck since Koreans consider it a delicacy and eat it as much as possible (at least the ones in my school do). The problem is they haven't figured out the art of making a nice big deboned fish fillet, so what you will find instead is many small fish with bones all over the place, trying to get out whatever meat/fillet you can, while dealing with the bones and fish guts and other disgusting stuff which Koreans don't seem to mind.

of course if you like squid and octopus you may find yourself in heaven

Figure out a way to start making your dinners at home. Regularly. and soon.

[Steelrails]

I said this in another post- Korean food is no more healthier than anything else back home. The Korean diet is healthier than typical diets back home. No giant cups of cola, bar fare is fresh fruit, not fries. Portions are smaller. Pizza is a once every couple of weeks item, not every couple of days.

It can be just as salty, over-sweetened, greasy, and generally unhealthy as any food, but it's all about how you eat it, not what you eat.

[corinthian]

Too much salt and not enough protein is the main problem I seem to be having so far, plus i haven't figured out what the lean-meat options are when I do go out to eat. Thanks for the help, I'll have to hit the store tomorrow and see what I can figure out.

[placeshifter]

Try switching to brown rice (instead of white rice). Banchan sidedishes that are veggie-based are healthy. Switch to fish instead of kalbi/bulgogi/daejibulgogi and that's a pretty healthy diet right there.

Oh, and it would also help to eat only half the portions given. Koreans give way too much food.

[curiousaboutkorea]

[jiberish]

I get my supps from speedns.co.kr they sell the optimum bags so cheap. There are other sites too but speedns has 10 dollar delivery from the usa which is mega cheap. Other things I would suggest using gmarket, just because it so much cheaper. I get chicken breast for 6 dollars a kilo and oatmeal for for I think it was 2.50 for 500 grams. I get my water, brown rice, peanut butter...everything on gmarket

[corinthian]

[Cerberus]

Op, if you're not a gym guy as you say, but want to take protein supplements you are wasting your time and money. Protein supplements are for lifters because their protein needs vastly outweigh a normal (aka couchpotato) person's.

your main protein sources here will be
1) chicken (breast) - easily available in supermarkets like E-mart
2) beef - very expensive in Korea but quite good when grilled in a Korean restaurant
3) eggs - readily available
4) tuna - readily available (with caveats I mentioned b4)
5) tofu - not quite as good as the others but will do. Actually tastes ok to me when in red pepper paste, Korean style, otherwise it tastes like paper.

I'm sure there are other sources, but these are the ones that come to mind.

curiousaboutkorea if you know where I can get nice and big deboned fish fillets that are grilled, I am ALL ears.

[corinthian]

[curiousaboutkorea]