Eating Light Thai Style

We read that 60% of Americans are overweight. Where do these people live? Not on Vashon, surely. According to author Dr. David Brownstein, if you get enough iodine in your diet, your thyroid will be well nourished and you will be inspired to sufficient activity to get or stay slim. It seems that when bakers started using bromine instead of iodine to encourage their yeast to make fluffy breads, people began getting fatter. Bromine actually blocks iodine from metabolizing.
 
Okay, that means making your own bread and/or eating more seafood, both as fish and shellfish and as sea vegetables. I never saw a fat native Okinawan or Japanese. They eat lots of seafood. Okinawa now owns the honor of having more people a hundred or more years old than any other country in the world. They attribute their longevity, slender figures, and vigor to eating kelp. I’ll deal with recipes employing sea vegetables in another column. First, fish and shellfish.
 
Thai people are slim. Thailand eats shrimps of many sizes and supplies them to the rest of the world. In a rivershore restaurant we ate "shrimp" the size of one-pound lobsters. Also, being in a hot country, Thais eat lots of raw vegetables and fruits. It takes more calories to digest raw foods than cooked foods. Fewer calories ingested than spent than equals slenderness.
 
We could celebrate the summer solstice, and get through the warmest part of our year with protein-rich, low-carb salads as main dishes. Here’s a Thai shrimp salad for a start:
 
Pla Gungsod Gup Som Keo Wan - Shrimp and Orange Chili Salad
3 to 4 servings
6 ounces cooked, peeled small shrimp
3 oranges, Mandarins preferred
¼ to ½ teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
½ teaspoon salt
6 to 8 fresh mint leaves, shredded
Juice of 1 lime, heated in microwave before cutting
½ Tablespoon Nam Pla (fish sauce)
 
Peel and slice or dice the oranges. Place them in a bowl. Add the shrimp. (Canned shrimp, drained, works okay.) Add the red pepper flakes, garlic, salt and mint leaves. Toss well. Mix the lime juice and fish sauce. Pour on. Toss again. Chill. Serve on lettuce leaves.
 
I’d like to be able to say "Bon appetite" in Thai, but all I remember are the words for hello, goodbye, and thank you. So I’ll just end with: Sawat-dii ka! That’s a dual purpose word for both hello and good-bye. If you eat at a Thai restaurant and wish to say, Thank you," you can tell the server, "Kawp khun." Or more politely, if you are female, say,"Kawp khun ka," with rising tone on ‘ka’ as if asking a question. Say, "Kawp khun krahb," with descending tone if male.