News of the severe shortage of vegetables in the Vietnamese daily diet, as reported by some major media outlets, came as a shock to us Vietnamese.
As an agricultural country, green produce has always been part of the food scene. The only diet without green vegetables one could possibly think of is made up of pressed steamed rice, peanut and sesame salt. It’s the traditional Vietnamese food to go – the kind you bring on a journey in the past, or provide as quick relief for people stranded in flooded areas at present.
Today, a daily meal heavy on meat but light on vegetables has become more popular, with international fast food just a tap away on your phone. This seems to be pushing traditional ways aside.
Ordering a seafood hotpot and some roasted goodies for the adults, but spaghetti and pizza for the children, is a common sight at many gatherings. Since when did people narrow their children’s food choices to pasta and pizza? Many adults say that the youngsters just won’t eat their food, and prefer to make life easier by giving in to what they want.
I, for one, believe if you raise your kids in Việt Nam and let them grow up on pasta and pizza, it’s a shame. Don’t get me wrong, I love pasta and pizza myself. I would only object if you allow your kids to depend on ready-made pasta and pizza, without learning to appreciate the wide variety and health benefits that traditional Vietnamese way of eating can bring about.
These days, children eat less and less at home. As they grow up, they mostly eat what they are given at school or at family dining time. When they start to hang out with friends in secondary school, they develop a taste for street food, which can be both delicious and dangerously tempting.
School snacks sold outside the gates, like pork skewers, roasted sausages, or other unregulated snacks, can make your children develop a demand for fast food at that time of day, which leaves less room for real food at the family dinner table.
Our generation grew up mostly on our mother’s cooking, then we started to eat out in the late 1990s, but deep down, we still have a traditional taste for food.
But our children’s generation is growing up eating breakfast at school and having pizza, pasta or, on special occasions, grilled meat or mixed rice Korean style. In some ways it’s varied, but where are the vegetables?
It is not always this way, granted. Children’s picnic parties may have three or four dishes that are meat, with only one veggie dish and a soup containing a few vegetables. It’s mostly the case in cities and urban centres.