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Healthy Traditions

~Blog post #4~

April 20, 2015

By: Nathan Reid

            When discussing health implications in the Philippines, it varies.  The traditional diet in the Philippines offer white rice in almost every meal, and an assortment of foods that have sodium.  This is the implication most people may have. Some Filipino foods more than others have a high source of sodium.  While most continue to eat some Filipino food which is high in sodium, this can result in high blood pressure and may result in heart problems.  More food that is traditional in the Filipino diet is fish.  You will find an array of sea food in the Filipino diet that usually are high in sodium also.  Filipinos all like there food to be very flavorful and enjoying, so they make sure to do so by adding ingredients that may not be good for us in excess.  There are many Filipino dishes that are healthy however.  For example I talked about Nilaga in my most recent Blog post.  This is a soupy based food that has a lot of vegetables, beef, and bone marrow.  This is very healthy being that people can control how much salt they want to be put in.  A food that may not be as healthy in Filipino diet is longanisa.  This is basically a sausage that is mixed with many types of different meat.  It is flavorful with a lot of sugar, salt, and fat.  All the things that make your food taste good, but may not be the best thing for you.  Although this is an extremely well known food in the Filipino diet, it may not be the healthiest option.  Comparing the diet of the Philippines to American style diet is much different.  Unlike America everything in the Philippines is made by hand, and it will be rare to find something processed.