Vietnamese-Australian chef Luke Nguyen.

Chi: Welcome to another edition of VOV24/7’s Food Delight where you can get lots of recipes, tips and the inside story from chefs.

Joining us on today’s show is Luke Nguyen, a Vietnamese-Australian chef and restaurateur, best known as the host of the television series, Luke Nguyen's Vietnam and Luke Nguyen's France. He is a judge on the television series Master Chef Vietnam. Luke Nguyen is also known as an ambassador of Vietnamese cuisine to the world, promoting Vietnamese cuisine as the healthiest in the world.

Chi: Hi Mr. Nguyen. Can you share an example of a recipe that is good for health?

Luke Nguyen: I was cooking a dish just recently. I teach this dish to a lot of people as well. It’s basically fish, like a white  fish; we make a marinade or a paste with this. All of these are roots or aromats, for example we use turmeric, we use a galangal, we use lemongrass and then garlic together with red shallots, and we cut them and make a paste, and then we wrap it around the piece of fish, and then we close that fish up in banana leaves, and  steam it. There’s no oil. All those ingredients, like turmeric, are antioxidants. It has disease-fighting properties as well as being an anti-inflammatory. Galangal, lemongrass and the other ingredients all have medicinal qualities.

Chi: So, all the ingredients you choose are good for health. What about the cooking method? Is that something you also need to consider?

Luke Nguyen: I try to use the ingredients that are good for our health, and taste good and also have great color. So we wrap it up in banana leaves and we steam which I think is the most healthy way of cooking.  There’s no pan, no oil, no deep-frying, no grill. It’s steamed for 10 minutes. While it is steaming, you can make a little of salad, with green mango,  shaved green mango zest, Vietnamese perilla mint leaves, basil, and then we also use goji berries, also known as wolfberries, which is a super food that has lots of great medicinal qualities as well. That dish has all the ingredients to make it taste delicious. They combine well together, have a nice balance of flavor but is good for you as well.

Chi: What do you think about people’s eating habits nowadays?

Luke Nguyen: We spend a lot of time looking after our bodies externally, making sure we look after our skin, making sure we look after hair, however we forget to look after the inside. We need to think more about what we’re eating. Of course with children we’re looking at what they’re eating and where does this produce come from, how clean it is, how sustainable and ethical and how healthy of course. So, this recipe is a great recipe to feature. Very simple to make and good to look at, and it is extremely good for you with all of the aromats and root vegetables and super foods in one dish.

Chi: Can you give some advice for people to prevent non-communicable diseases like diabetes, obesity and heart conditions?

Luke Nguyen: That’s a very good question and I think it is a very easy question to answer. I love to always first of all buy the best produce, know where it comes from, know who raised the cattle, or know where that vegetable was grown, if pesticide were used or not, how organic it is or how sustainable. Eat well, don’t eat for the sake of eating, but eat healthy, and don’t overeat.

Now in this world we eat too much and there’s obesity. I think we just need to control our proportions better. We don’t need to eat a lot. We don’t need 3 big meals a day; we can have five small meals or three small meals. For children, we should not let our younger generation eat bad fast food and  too much sugar. We’re feeding them liquids that are bad for them, too much soft drinks, and too many energy drinks that are full of caffeine and sugar, and more sugar.

We should feed our children cereal in the morning but make sure there’s no sugar in it. All the little things that we buy at the supermarket that we think are good snacks are not very good for them, because they are full of preservatives and sugar and are often fried. Of course, we don’t ban them from it but we limit it to small amounts. So, always make sure yourself and your children are eating well, eating healthy, and not eating bad food.

Chi: What kind of Vietnamese food do you cook and want to promote to the world?

Luke Nguyen: I believe that Vietnamese cuisine is the most healthy cuisine in the world because we love to eat lots of bun, we eat lots of rau, we love to eat lots of goi, and salads. This is what I serve in the restaurants in Australia and also in Vietnam. Vietnamese cuisine is known to be a very light cuisine. You eat a lot of it but you feel good, you feel light. That’s why I think Vietnamese cuisine is becoming very very popular in the world because it’s easy to eat, it’s not too spicy, and it’s not too heavy or too sweet, it’s very well-balanced. So these are the dishes I like to serve in  restaurants, lots of  fresh vibrant salads and also lots of grilled dishes as well because in Australia we love to grill we love barbeques. You don’t have to make too many changes to Vietnamese food for the Western world.

Chi: We’ve just had a wonderful time talking to chef Luke Nguyen about how to eat healthily. Thanks for joining us today. Hope to see you next time.  Good bye.