Can anyone tell me if standard Chinese restraunt food is low carb, high carb, or somewhere inbetween? I wasn't able to find in sources for good information, anyone know of any?

most chinese places put sugar in all of their sauces..you can either get it steamed or ask them not to put the sugar/thickener in..my chinese place does this for me without a problem

Any deep fried meat such as General Tso Chicken is usually coated with sugar, and the sauce is very high in sugar as well. Most veggie dishes are going to have sauces thickened with corn starch or flour, so those are out as well.

Thanks, Tell me, are there any good "lower" carb choices at standard Chinese restraunts. My office manager likes to have lunch office meeting at various Chinese restraunts and we are all expected to eat chinese during these meetings? Help!?

I usually opt for sauteed chicken or shrimp with garlic and broccoli or pea pods, no sauce, no rice.

Egg drop soup is a good choice too.

How much cornstarch is in these dishes, really?

I mean, when I've made stir-fries at home, I've used maybe a teaspoon of cornstarch to thicken a recipe that feeds two amply. That's 2g of carb, from what I've read. A teaspoon of sugar is 4g of carb; maybe I used a teaspoon of sugar in a recipe like that too (now I use Splenda, of course, but we're talking restaurants here...). Divided by 2 people, that's 3g worth of sugar and starch. You wouldn't want that in induction, but as an occasional meal in OWL or maintenance, it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

I'd just avoid the breaded items, rice, noodles, and sweet-and-sour sauce...

I eat at a specific Chinese restaurant because they will make my food to order. The waiters know me so I don't even have to specify anymore. Like written above, I always avoid noodles and breaded stuff, and like to start with an egg drop soup. Otherwise, I order almost anything on the menu (I do notice which vegies are in it and avoid eatiing chestnuts) and ask that it be made without sugar, cornstarch or flour in the entre. The sauce is more fluid, but frankly it tastes better than the original. One example is szechuan style tofu or Chinese eggplant in garlic sauce. Now I don't have to worry about them making it too sweet, which was often the case in my old, carbed up days. I just had sczechuan pork last night. Pork, celery, peanuts and green pepper. Very Atkins. The one high carb thiing I often get is chicken wings as an appetizer. They do taste sweet, but I need some finger food to start and they are good to dip into the mustard sauce.

It might seem like only a little bit of cornstarch or sugar, but I have a recipe for General Tso's chicken that uses a CUP of cornstarch in the batter, and then more to thicken the sauce. Not to mention the apple cider, wine, 1/2 c. sugar etc that goes into the sauce.
I have gotten Chinese food once in almost 4 yrs of doing this off and on, and it's tough.
Dr. Atkins specifies some dishes in DANDR but I can't remember what they are besides crispy duck.

Centikel, why are the wings high-carb? Are they breaded/battered?

Rosie: agreed, General Tso's chicken is absolutely not an OK choice for low-carb. The chicken has that cornstarch batter all over it. What I'm referring to, though, is the type of stir-fry entrees with non-battered slices of chicken/beef or shrimp with veggies in a sauce thickened with a small amount of cornstarch.

A couple times in the last 2 weeks I went to a Chinese buffet when I was too busy to go home and cook. I found:

• snow crab with melted butter
• mussels with black bean sauce (not much sauce, and these beans are few and tiny)
• pepper steak (go easy on the onions & peppers)
• chicken with black pepper
• peel-and-eat cold shrimp
• salt-and-pepper shrimp (might have been a slight amount of starch coating the shrimp)
• egg drop soup
• shrimp in lobster sauce
• "Mongolian barbecue" (pick your own meats & veg and have them seared on a big flat grill before your eyes)
• roast chicken pieces

Of course, I had to avoid the egg rolls, batter-fried butterfly shrimp (~whimper~), General Tso's chicken, rice, noodles, and other carby things... and I probably overindulged a little in terms of sheer volume of food but it's not hard to avoid the excess carbage.

Egg drop soup--ask them to hold the cornstarch. That's what I always get