What is the best cooking oil?

I am getting particular about my food nowadays. Solely because age really adds chronic illnesses into my life. By paying extra attention to nutrition, physical activities and lifestyle, I wish these can prolong my functional independence.

In Malaysia, the popular cooking oil would be palm oil. It is the cheapest and easily found in all stores that sell cooking oil. Of course, this is due to the fact that Malaysia produces the most palm oil globally, together with Indonesia.

When I was young, I remember my mother would cook with peanut oil. I could still remember the smell of peanut oil lingering in the air. However, nobody is selling peanut oil nowadays.

A google search shows that palm oil is quite an inferior oil as compared to other oil such as soy bean oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, olive oil, etc. Well, I don't really bother about the comments. Palm oil is cheap as compared to other oil, and as a result, market competitors are many out there to discredit it.

Anyway, here are some general rules for me
1. Use refined oil for cooking as smoke point is higher.  Due to its lower smoke point, unrefined oil becomes unstable at lower temperature.
2. Do not recycle oil. After frying fish, deep fried chicken etc, discard the oil. Oil that has been used will have lower smoke point due to the impurity in it.
3. Extra virgin oil has low smoke point. Use it for dressing only.
4. Use as little oil as possible as. A person's diet should only get about 6% of calorie from fat. Basing on my daily calorie of 1800, 6% is 108 cal. Convert to fat is 12g, this is about 2 tbsp. Calorie from oil must be less than that amount because meat consumed also contains fat.

What is the smoke that comes out of my wok?

I have always wondered what is the smoke when the oil in the wok gets heated up.

Little have I known that it follows the same vaporisation principle that applies to water molecules when heated will have high enough energy to break the bonds of H2O molecules.

As for cooking oil, the much more complicated tryglyceride compounds of oil that made up of 1 molecule of glycerol and 3 molecules of fatty acid when heated will have high enough energy to break down into individual molecules, releasing toxic fumes and free radicals which are harmful to your body.

Thus, if you always cook in a bad-ventilated kitchen, you may want to look into the type of wok and oil used to reduce the kitchen hazard.

I have always been using cast iron Chinese wok. For Chinese wok fried dishes, it is a standard practice (at least for me) to heat the wok until it dries up, then pour oil into the wok, wait for it to smoke before putting in ingredients. I dislike the smoke released from the wok in my small enclosed kitchen with poor functioning cooker hood. Adding to the heat released from the gas stove, I really hate cooking time.

A few months ago, I bought for myself a Buffalo stainless steel wok and an induction cooker.

Stainless steel wok does not release much smoke, and the induction cooker does not release unnecessary heat to the kitchen. I can even turn on the table fan to blow at myself while coloking. This has definitely solve my problems of the smoke emitted from the wok and to reduce kitchen heast.

Myth about losing teeth for older people

I used to believe that as a person gets old, his gum will be like his body muscle that loses its firmness, and causes teeth to losen and eventually, dentures are unavoidable.

I am lucky to have my dentist explaining to me that gum does not behave like body muscle. Provided I maintain my oral hygiene, my gum will continue to be healthy, and I am not going to lose my teeth.

It is a shame that I was not aware of the proper way to maintain oral hygiene until I am half a century old. Thanks to my dentist, who patiently pointed out to me where I always miss in teeth brushing, and taught me how to floss my teeth.

To sum up:

1. Brush teeth after food. Just as food left in the open, food caught in between teeth, etc, will cause cavities as bacteria also finds its ways into our mouths.
2. While brushing teeth, use soft toothbrush and do not forget to brush the gum as well
3. Avoid sweet drinks, avoid soury drinks, avoid carbonated drink especially coke which is equivalent to vinegar + sugar,
4. As we age, our saliva becomes less. Saliva helps to protect our teeth against decay. And thus, drink plain water regularly
5. Visit dentist regularly to have routine checkup and preventive dental treatment like scaling

Without healthy teeth, a person's eating habit will change. It will be harder to chew on solid food. Not having enough sold food intake like meat, vegetable, bean, nuts, a person's health will deteriorate due to insufficient nutrition. Supplements can never replace natural food.

To many, losing teeth is losing of one's dignity. Having dentures is never to be the same as real teeth. Thus, maintaining oral hygiene is an important way of upkeeping our health.

Planting Ladies Fingers/Okra at my backyard

I have recently grown Ladies' Fingers on two pots at my backyard.  It is really easy. Just get a pot, some good soil, and good seeds, sunlight and water

With two plants, I get to harvest everyday, just after one month of growing from seeds.

Sometimes I harvest one, sometimes two, and yesterday three. They can grow long very fast. During the day time, they can grow about one inch!

Because Ladies' Fingers grow very fast, when it is about 5 inches long, just harvest it, or else it will get old, and the fibre becomes too hard to bite on.

Last week I steamed stuffed Ladies' Fingers with minced meat, made some gravy to go with it. 

A few days later, I cooked curried chicken rice with Ladies' Fingers.

Today, I shall steam Ladies' Fingers tops with oyster sauce and fried scallot.

Conventional Mother

I am a conventional mother. I chose to be a conventional mother when my elder son was in Primary 3, and my younger son was in Primary one. Before that I worked 8am to 5:30pm, and was always in a rush. I looked forward to weekends and public holidays when I could slow down to take things easy for the children and for myself. My husband was especially busy during weekends and public holidays with many church and NGO activities. Looking back, it was really a sacrifice because we did not have much holiday times as a family together when the children were young. Anyway, my decision to quit the job was right, but with single income, it was a trade-off.

Even until today, I believe that it is a blessing to growing children when they can come home to see mother in the house. I study recipes and prepare lunch and dinner so that my children always look forward to having meals at home. It is also a blessing to see them enjoying my cooking. 

Well, now that they have grown up, I guess I have to let them learn to be independent to prepare for their own families in the near future. 

I am still working out how I want to live my life for the coming years while preparing for old age.

May the Lord leads my path.

Spending behaviour

It was interesting to read Dan Ariely's book on Predictably Irrational. How he introduced psychology terms 'anchor' and 'imprint' with his experiments and stories.

Dan began with Konrad Lorenz, the Nobel prized naturalist who discovered that goslings, upon breaking out of their eggs, become attached to the first moving object they encounter (which is generally their mother). This reminded me of one of the story of Tom and Jerry which I watched together with my children when they were young. Once, Jerry happened to be the first moving object that a chick saw when it came out of the cracked egg. From that moment onward, the chick would follow Jerry everywhere it went, and that really annoyed Jerry.. This natural phenomenon is called imprinting.

As for anchor. for instant, would be the price that you first purchase for an item.

Looking back, yes, I paid RM100 for a pair of white leather shoes to go with my white wedding gown 25 years ago. It was a nice pair of shoes, and the most expensive shoes I had ever paid for, then. 5 years and 10 years down the road, I just couldn't pay more than RM100 for a normal wear shoes, not until two years ago that my plantar fascitiis condition required me to buy a good pair of shoes. I was anchoring RM100 to pay for a good pair of shoes, regardless of how many times inflation have gone up over the two decades!

Raising hens for eggs

These were my last two chickens which I raised for meat at backyard.

A hen and a cock. I had 15 of them for this batch. These 2 chickens were about 4 months old. 

When I opened the cavity of the hen, these dropped out!

Lots of eggs! Perhaps I should have kept the hen for another week, then I would continue to keep the hen so that I have organic egg everyday!

Shepherd's Pie

I made this Shepherd's Pie for lunch just now.  My son and I love it so much!  The recipe was from

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_shepherds_pie/

with some variation .

I used topside, added chopped garlic to onion, rosemary to minced beef just before I transferred to the casserole to bake, and topped the mashed potatoes with sliced cheese. 

My son wants to sell this to his friends for breakfast.  I can think about this.  

Daily Meal - 2015 Apr 05 Sunday

Breakfast:

1. Mee noodle mixed with gravy

2. one fried egg

3. one cup oats

4. Nescafe

5. two banana

Lunch:
1. Roast pork
2. Stir fried cabbage
3. Stir fried bitter gourd with sliced pork

Daily Meal - 2015 Apr 04 Sat

Breakfast
1. 干捞面 mee mixed with gravy
2. simple soup with sliced pork and choy sum
3. one small cup of oats soak in hot water
4. nescafe wihout sugar

Lunch
1. Left over stewed pig trotter from last night
2. Stir fried cabbage
3. Stir fried sliced pork with onion

Dinner
1. Boiled pork with soy sauce+oyster sauce+ spring onion gravy
2. Stir fried carrot with capcicum
3. Boiled then stir fried 大白菜

Daily Meals - 2015 Apr 3 Friday

I thought it would be interesting to record the food I eat everyday.  Every meal comes with the effort I put in. It is not difficult to cook, but sometimes I just feel lazy. Anyway, I manage to serve 3 meals on the dining table everyday.

Dinner on Friday night:

1. Stewed pig trotter

2. Stir Fried Choy Sum

3. Stir fried celery, carrot and capcicum

Growing Papaya

This papaya tree grows by itself next to my chicken coop.  I attempted to grow papaya trees a few times but never succeeded. I think the easiest way to grow papaya tree is to throw the seeds around at my backyard and wait for it to grow by itself if the seeds find the right soil. This is the second papaya tree that grows fruits at my backyard. I had a few papaya trees before but they always die reaching about 5 feet tall.

I have had 3 papaya from this tree. The skin doesn't look very nice but the flesh is good. The feeling of eating own grown fruits and vegetables are really good.

Growing Vegetables Choy Sam

I am growing Choy Sam using planter's pot at my backyard. This is the second time I successfully grow them. The first batch was in November when I decided to invest in planter's pot and buying soil from the fertilizer shop in November. I tried planting the vegetable on raised floor bed before but it was really difficult with the weeds and snails. Furthermore, I can't squat for too long to weed the grass and the snails just kept coming.

A few advantages with planter's pots:

1. portable. I bring one pot indoor to wait for the seedlings to grow big enough to transplant them. I can place the pots on table so that I don't have to squat. After transplant, I leave the pots indoor with sufficient sunlight for 2 to 3 days before I slowly expose them in full sunlight.

2. reduce weeds. Controllable weeds in the pots. If I grow on raised floor, the weeds just come out from everywhere.

3. avoid snails. I can move the pots away from areas where the snails are plenty. I can also put snails poisons around the pots so that the snails don't have a chance to come into the pots.