Is Thai Food HEALTHY or UNHEALTHY?

is Thai food healthy or unhealthy and how did I personally actually lose weight while being surrounded by cheap delicious fattening foods we got to talk about this Reddit post from the Thailand tourism Reddit this guy said my honest take on Thai food after 5 weeks not as healthy as I expected so this guy's comparing Tai Fu to what he knows in America and he's saying his hot take is that after 5 weeks he noticed there's an overuse of poor quality oils sugar and everything lack of variety and heavily processed ingredients guys this sparked a ton of debate make sure you like subscribe turn on your notifications listen guys what's more important facts or feelings facts right so let's take a look at overweight populations in Southeast Asia Malaysia coming in at number one by far but number two not too far behind Thailand then Singapore uh then we've got Philippines Indonesia all the way at the bottom Vietnam Vietnamese people are very skinny in Vietnam um but let's take a look at analyzing the difference between Thai food and Vietnamese food guys so first off Thai food has got a very wide variety but it's true that a lot of the street food is going to be centered on fried chicken fried crispy pork a lot of things that are fried if you look at a lot of the street food stalls in Bangkok a lot of the food is fried absolutely um there is sugar in the sausage sugar in the drinks super rice heavy like I mean e even noodle heavy but I would say a lot of rice particularly sticky rice you know the glycemic values are very high um there's a lot of Americanized options much much more than Vietnam listen guys Tom uh Burger King has Tom Yum fried chicken with rice for 69 bot that's less than $2 right now that's like competing with street food prices so basically long story short it is true that on a street food culture level which is especially what most of the lower income people are eating in Thailand it's high calorie on A Street Food level there's sugar-loaded drinks and snacks there's less walking and uh there's a lot of eating out in junk food and then there's a lot of Western influence okay so let's compare this with Vietnam Vietnam having the lowest obesity ratings in Asia there's a ton of vegetables and herbs what do they cook with and how do they cook a lot of broths a lot of soups fur very little frying a lot of steam stuff not a lot of sugar fish sauce instead of sugar even though there might be a little bit of sugar in the fish sauce obviously a ton of portion control there's a lot of lean proteins and then your carb and then there's they walk everywhere and there's not a lot of access to McDonald's there's not even a lot of access to 7-Elevens in Vietnam so here's the truth guys when you are in Thailand you cannot just eat street food I know a lot of grab drivers some of them are super portly you can't even wrap your legs around and one time I felt like I almost tore my glutes stretched out my hamstring trying to get my body wrapped around a fat you know grab driver but yeah that's what they're probably eating right you have choices to make there are healthy choices in Thailand but most people don't make them right but let's be honest there is a socioeconomic and education element to the choices you make in your life Point number two there's a ton of options on grab and food Panda for ordering like keto you know healthy based dishes there often times ghost kitchens you can get them for like a 100 bot even on sale if you stack some vouchers and some coupon codes um that's only $3 us very very they're going to write even your their the macros on everything uh you could obviously cook your own food in air fryer I do think that it depends like if you're cooking a lot of beef it's still expensive in Thailand just because their access to beef is not that high I think they only mostly have the beef and C Yi and then uh imported from Australia but like um I would say eggs eggs are really cheap to cook on your own eggs are super cheap compared to the West here maybe like a 8 tenth of the price and then uh it's true if you go to a western healthy chain like a poke chain or a salad stop a salad Factory they have those here in Thailand but the prices are are almost the same as the West maybe at most 15% cheaper so it is true I I guess that you know the healthy like sweet greens digging type option I mean digging is not even that healthy but like sweet greens is like they have it but it's quite pricey right uh Thai food could be like 80% cheaper here here it's only like 10% cheaper for the healthy stuff so yeah I mean I do think listen guys if you eat a lot of street food in Thailand like the cheaper food they're probably cooking with a lot of seed oils or palm oils they're probably putting in palm sugar which even has like a different I mean already white Western refined sugar is already bad enough and they're going to use a lot of MSG but that's just like all across Asia like we said Japanese invented MSG the Chinese are famous for using MSG but everybody uses MSG so here's the truth guys anywhere you go the world when you eat out particularly street food I don't care if you're at a street fair in Wisconsin or you're in Bangkok Thailand the cooks they're not concerned with your Macros and your micronutrients so that's why you got to either be super selective of where you order from makes hyper selective choices at spots that are considered unhealthy or cook your own food right so here are a few tricks they apply in Thailand outside of Thailand when you wake up try to have like a dark coffee whether it's cold brew or like whatever your coffee of choice is try to have a coffee with some supplements and some vitamins in replacement for one meal or at least half a meal um yeah you could use protein powder if you want but I think some people abuse it and they like go over their caloric maintenance by abusing protein powder and they kind of justify it because I need the protein really depends on how much you're lifting um listen guys I prefer to use diet sodas I mixed like a Diet Pepsi uh like a Pepsi zero even or like you know Coke Zero in with a with a cold brood and that really satiates me I know some people have something about aspartame or you know different sweeteners but listen guys everybody makes their compromises somewhere I happen to use diet SoDo a lot um grilled foods Ean food Northeastern Thai food in particular gives you a lot of healthy and unhealthy options I stay away from the fried beef and the fried pork I just stick with the grilled Meats grilled catfish you know grilled beef grilled chicken and then uh suum you know I I if for some people they can't handle the amount of like a fermented crab juice fermented fish juice juice I would say get the corn suum s tum they can drench it it depends on where you go and you can ask them to you know for the versions that are are vegan samum or something like that um when you do get a rice or a noodle option CU they do give you the optionality a lot in Bangkok guys do not substitute the regular noodle for fried Mama's noodles because fried Mama's noodles is always an option here that's 4X the amount of calories obviously only at the high-end spots do they give you the and the healthful spots do they give you the kjack noodles which are like literally like 140th like a mama's noodle packet might be 400 calories kjack noodles might be like 20 calories guys that's 5% and yes I get it the Mama's noodles are going to taste better um I would say if you do get a choice to pick rice Berry which is the purple rice here in Thailand with the multi-grain over the white rice I think it's going to be about 10 to 15% more satiating but it's not going to be there's not going to be like a huge difference and I know people are always arguing brown rice white rice uh rice Berry you know like purple rice there's almost like so much there's so many experts in the health space that even argue which one you should pick and with all these different scientific justifications um like we said it even varies like which region of Thailand you're eating the but in Bangkok the two types of food that you see the most often are Central Thai food which is a heavily Chinese influenced and um then like I would say the healthiest thing that are heavily Chinese influenced is just make sure that you're eating like a stir fried uh tii basil chicken and even without the walnuts because walnuts can be very calorically dense and then I would say like I said the Ean food more just the samam and the grilled Meats um but yeah ultimately for me you you just got to oh you got to get away used to throwing away the rice even those like you know the little count cow you know the sticky rice I just give it to the orange vest people um you know you just you got to get over that whole Asian thinking of that you you got to eat all your rice because there's some kid in a you know far far off province that like doesn't even have rice first of all I do think food food sources are more stabilized globally in 2025 but also like you kind of got to look at your caloric budget like a money budget every day like let's say I get 2,000 calories every day 1,800 1, 1600 2200 whatever my target is and you got to like spend down from that point um listen guys I would say if you're cooking yourself just get sweet potatoes and fruit you know what I mean I think a lot of times you know fruit and sweet potatoes they are pretty cheap depending on the the where you Source them from but a lot of people don't realize that those could give you all the same benefits of a protein bar or like you need a little bit of energy before workout or you need a you know sometimes you do need to raise your blood sugar levels to just feel a little bit more boost or whatever get it from mango from a watermelon Apple guava etc etc so basically long story short here's how I've been able to lose weight in a very risky food environment like Thailand I mean I don't have my cooking tools with me but I realized now that actually maybe I was cooking in the air fryer too much because I was just loving it so much and then I don't have access to protein powder so it actually forced me to lift less because I had less protein to feed the muscle anyway and then not only that I Sav the calories from not having the access to the protein powder and some of my collagen peptides and stuff like that even though that stuff like I said I still do recommend mixing that into to a morning coffee and having it as a real replacement if you can not take like the the appetite Spike from like your vanilla wayy or your chocolate we or whatever you're using pea protein almond protein Etc so listen guys here's the thing the it doesn't matter where you are in the world all the macro Concepts around nutrition and eating and seeo and calories in and calories out and maintenance and output and input they all stay the same right if you cut out carbs sugar fried foods anything dried that came in a bag that's like even dried jack fruit chips the potato chips and you can figure out a way to lessen at least one meal a day to like Max like 300 calories that's usually breakfast if you can limit breakfast to 300 calories it gives you more leeway to like go out with your friends or like actually order something at a restaurant that you like later in the day and that's actually what keeps things sustainable so ultimately guys like I said there's so many snacks in Thailand I've tried them all I've tried them all in videos I love ponko ponko is their version of like the ya yo and it's uh it's really great and maybe in a way it even tastes better the shape is more fun to eat but listen guys everybody makes their choices and uh the fundamentals always stay the same regardless of the environment you're in but yes the details do matter let me know do you guys think Thai food is healthy did it live up to your expectations why are Vietnamese so thin and you know leave it in the comment section below until next time hop hop boys from Bangkok I'm out peace