these ethnic foods can be okay or they can be awful for you
an example is i ate at a cajun party where they cooked all kinds of cajun food. the bad news? the sausage was from walmart and had HFCS in it. the crawfish were farm raised.. frankly they tasted like chemicals.
see what i am talking about?
if you drench your paella in oils and garbage and use inferior ingredients it won't be healthy.. use good ingredients it is perfectly fine as a meal.
and rice isn't bad. chinese people ate rice for centuries in large amounts and never got fat. in the past 20 years they only started getting fat because they were eating rice AND sugar started being introduced in their country. it is the COMBINATION
so if you eat the paella have some fruit for dessert. you won't get fat
if you eat it and then have chocolate cake after, then you will get fat