Hot pot is a traditional Chinese dish cooked tabletop over a heat source that consists of flavorful boiling hot broth. Each person at the table selects from various proteins, vegetables, and noodles to cook in the broth and build their own customized meal. But is it safe to cook your own raw ingredients without any risk associated?
Being responsible for cooking your own food to the proper temperatures adds considerable risk to eating hot pot, but this risk can be alleviated by following some rules and ensuring that you do not allow your raw ingredients to cross-contaminate your already cooked components.
Can Hot Pot Make You Sick?
Yes, hot pot can undoubtedly make you sick if you are not careful to be diligent about following food safety rules, proper sanitation, and ensuring that you are not cross-contaminating cooked food with raw food.
Handling raw food can contaminate utensils if you are not careful to sanitize them after contact with ingredients such as raw meat or fish.
Using clean utensils for cooking versus eating, or dipping your chopsticks back in the hot liquid for several seconds will sanitize your utensils and lower your chances of ingesting any dangerous bacteria.
Unhealthy Elements of Hot Pots
Although hot pot can be healthy, it should be consumed with caution as it can contain an excessive amount of sodium and saturated fats. To avoid this, choose your own healthy ingredients and limit the amount of salt in your meal.
Here are some of the unhealthy factors of hot pots
1. High Sodium Level
Hot pot meals typically have a high amount of sodium in them due to the use of processed foods like fish balls, meatballs and cuttlefish balls. They are often eaten within one sitting as well. In total, hot pot meals can contain more than your recommended daily allowance for salt!
2. Lots of Saturated Fats
Hotpot meals, with a soup base and meat ingredients like marinated pork, chicken or beef that contain high levels of saturated fats. Research has shown that excessive consumption of these foods are linked to heart disease, high cholesterol levels, stroke and Type 2 diabetes.
3. High Cholesterol
Beef and pork are among the few types of meat that have a higher calorie content, as well as an excess amount of cholesterol. It’s important to monitor your consumption when choosing these meats.
4. Risk of Overeating
What is the ‘all you can eat’ formula at restaurants? Allowing people to have as much food as they want means that a lot of calories end up getting consumed. This increases your risk for health problems such as obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease.
What Ingredients are Higher Risk than Others?
As a rule, all raw food, but especially meats, seafood, and eggs, are the most potentially harmful ingredients.
You should thoroughly wash your hands for 30 seconds before sitting down to enjoy your meal, and remain conscientious about handling and cooking ingredients thoroughly when consuming hot pot.
Below is a list of the raw ingredients commonly associated with hot pot and the cooking time for each item to ensure that it is safe to consume:
- Beef thinly sliced (tripe and filet) – 30 seconds
- Chicken – 1 minute
- Chicken meatball – 2 minutes
- Shrimp – 30 seconds
- Imitation crab meat – 50 seconds
- Shrimp ball – 1 minute
- Tofu – 2 minutes
- Dumplings – 7-8 minutes
Despite the cooking times above, it is still best to use your instincts if you think the ingredient is not thoroughly cooked before consuming it. Ingredients like raw meat are at a higher risk than vegetables because of disease and bacteria that can come from the animal itself, but that does not mean that raw vegetables or noodles can not become contaminated or dangerous to consume.
How Can You Reduce the Risk of Getting Sick from Hot Pot?
In addition to avoiding cross-contamination of raw and cooked food items, choosing a reputable restaurant that practices good sanitation and food safety will reduce the risk of your food being dangerous before leaving the kitchen.
While you may not be able to know exactly what is going on in the kitchen, pay attention to other clues you may see.
The behavior of your servers regarding good hygiene, overall cleanliness of the restaurant, and the restaurant inspection rating should be visible to the customer upon entering the establishment.
How Do You Avoid an Upset Stomach From Hot Pot?
An upset stomach after eating hot pot is a common problem for many that can include nausea, diarrhea, and even acid reflux but can be avoided if you do not overeat and avoid spicy ingredients that can irritate your stomach and bowels.
Don’t Overeat
Enjoying a bountiful amount of proteins, vegetables, dumplings, and noodles is hard to resist for most. If you are prone to upset stomachs from overeating, try to take your time during the lengthy experience of enjoying hot pot by taking meaningful bites and savoring your food.
Avoid Excessive Spices
Hot and spicy food is problematic for the stomach if you are not accustomed to it or do not have the tolerance to handle it. If you can’t eat spicy foods, opt for the mild broth and do not use spicy dipping sauces or condiments in your hot pot.
Do Not Drink Cold Liquids
You may want to cool down with an ice-cold drink while enjoying hot pot, but doing so may be why your stomach becomes irritated and causes you problems during or after eating hot pot.
Ask for room temperature water without ice, and your stomach is sure to thank you by not hurting after the shock of boiling broth combined with an icy cold beverage.
Don’t Add Too Much Salt or Oil
You’ll want to cook with the natural oils that are already there so that it doesn’t over-cook the food and make it too salty.
the dish. If you overcook your food, you’ll have mush instead of a fully delicious meal.
Be Careful with Raw Meats
Think about what ingredients you’re going to put your hot pot with before adding them all in together! Don’t put raw meat in and scoop up the vegetables next to them right away. Either scoop up cooked ingredients first or cook them at a separate time.
Can You Eat Hot Pot if You Are Pregnant?
Like anything else you eat when you are pregnant, hot pot should be enjoyed with caution while avoiding ingredients such as shellfish and certain raw ingredients that you would not otherwise eat during pregnancy.
If you are pregnant and want to eat hot pot, it is wise to consult with your doctor to make sure that it is a safe option for you.
If your doctor gives you the go-ahead, be sure to thoroughly cook everything and follow the same sanitation and food safety practices as always, to ensure that you do not endanger your child or become sick from cross-contamination.
Can You Drink the Broth From a Hot Pot?
When you’re done cooking all of your components in the hot pot broth, enjoying a ladle or two (if you have room) of your well seasoned hot pot broth is a great way to finish off the meal and get all of the flavors leftover from the cooking process.
Waiting until the end of the meal to enjoy some broth from the hot pot ensures that there is enough liquid for everyone at the table to cook all of their ingredients.
It is unlikely that you will eat enough broth to become sick from residual fat or cholesterol that has leached out of the meat and seafood while cooking, but be sure to avoid spooning out any visible fat that has pooled on top as it will probably not sit very well in your stomach.
Is Hot Pot Unhealthy?
The packaged version of Hot Pot is very unhealthy as it contains an excessive amount of fat. Unfortunately, most restaurants use this type of broth and it can contain over 1,500 calories per packet.
How to Make Your Hot Pot Healthy
For a more healthy meal, choose to lean over fat. For instance, choose seafood, chicken, and lean pork over the internal organs of your body such as the liver, intestines, and beef kidney.
For a healthy hot pot, choose a light soup base. For a more balanced meal, go for a clear and light-flavored soup such as tofu and mushrooms. You can also buy low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock.
If you want to avoid adding refined carbohydrates to your hot pot meal, avoid adding rice or noodles. Doing so will increase your calorie count and risk gaining weight.
You can also add more high-fiber vegetables to your hot pot by filling it with various vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and green peas.
For a more healthy hot pot meal, choose light dipping sauces. Instead of using traditional deep-fried garlic, chili oil, or oil-based dressings, go for fresh-cut chilis, as well as garlic and soy sauce.
You can also avoid processed food products such as fish balls, crab sticks, and cuttlefish balls. These are high in saturated fats, sodium, and chemical preservatives.
If you frequently boil hot pot for over 90 minutes, it can increase the levels of nitrites in the liquid. To prevent this, set a time limit for the cooking of the hot pot.