Writer Plans to Eat Chinese Takeout Every Day This Year

Chinese takeout

Experiment in Eating: Chinese Takeout Daily for a Year

With every new year, one of my goals is to eat healthier -- more fruits and vegetables, more water.

But for one New York City writer, she has a much different nutritional goal -- eating Chinese takeout every day for a year.

My blood pressure is rising just thinking about the MSG intake.

Still, New York City journalist Victoria Bekiempis is up for the challenge.

She explains to MSNBC, "I wanted to cover something that gets ignored. Chinese takeout is a culinary institution that needs to be discussed -- it gets pushed aside because attention is given to ritzier places and food that seems more out of the ordinary."

No one is arguing that Chinese takeout doesn't have its place on the culinary spectrum ... but eating it every day seems a touch extreme, right?

Bekiempis started her challenge on January 1 -- she eats Chinese takeout for one meal a day, every day for the year.

To keep a diary of her experiment, she is writing a Village Voice series called "Year of the Takeout."

Bekiempis also plans to get takeout from 365 New York City Chinese establishments in the year's span.

Read: 5 Things You Should Never Feed Your Kids

She relays that so far, "It's had its ups and downs, however, there are definitely more ups than down," adding, "There were a few days when I kept getting exceedingly mediocre plates, and it was difficult to power through that. Sometimes you get a particular dish and all you want is cheeseburger. My expectation is that I'm going to get a lot of run-of-the-mill stuff, but it's the diamonds in the rough make this project worthwhile."

She can keep telling herself that, but something tells me she's going to reach takeout burnout pretty quickly.

Bekiempis is using her experiment to study cuisine from both high end and more affordable Chinese takeout restaurants, reporting that some of the more expensive dishes "are not that different from the $4.99 pint that you can get anywhere in the country."

Read: Don't Eat These Foods! 7 Foods to Stay Away From

Overall, her goal is to take in what the city has to offer, sharing, "It's just about understanding my culinary surroundings as much as possible. As cheesy as it sounds, I sincerely mean it. I'm going to see a side of New York that perhaps I wouldn't have been able to see had I not engaged in this project."

Could you eat Chinese takeout every day for a year?