Malaysia Coffee

I develop coffee drinking habit from my father.  When I was young, my mother used to make one pot of coffee and one smaller pot of Chinese tea every morning. As like most mothers, one of the first thing to do in the morning is to boil a pot of water.  The hot water was poured over the local coffee powder in the pot and over the Chinese Tea（ 铁观音）. Then a few spoonfuls of sugar were stirred into the coffee. 10 of us in the family would either drink coffee, tea or plain water. This is my memory of local coffee. And thus naturally deem morning drink with breakfast.

Then, came instant coffee and coffeemate. Seemed to taste very well to replace local coffee. A cup of Nescafe+coffeemate+sugar became a finale for every meal. The clever selling skill of Nestle introduced 3 in 1 small packages. I couldn't part with it. I don't know how many years I drank Nestle 3-in-1. Over 20+ years! Oh! Gosh! How much sugar and hydrogenated oil had I unknowingly consumed to raise the cholesterol and sugar level in my body?! How much fat have I developed due to that?

When my husband started taking metformin, I started to take an interest in nutrition. I observed the food he ate, and I ate. And to work out what to omit, and how to balance our food intake. My husband used to be constantly drinking coffee, so much so that I thought he has made a habit of drinking coffee, like naturally forcing himself down with coffee, instead of enjoying it.

Tomato Plant

I decided to grow cherry tomato, and here is my tomato plant. I don't put much effort. Just plotted with two seeds, and kept the stronger seedling. The fruits are plenty. They are so heavy until they pull the stem down and some tomatoes are touching the ground.

The fruits have started to get ripe. The weather has been very hot. I water twice a day, and perhaps the soil was not wet enough, the tomato skin is quite thick. They don't taste very good, but I just eat them raw.

Soy Sauce-traditional and Instant version

All these while I have been wondering how the soy sauce factories are able to produce so much soy sauce because my understanding about soy sauce production is through slow fermentation processes. It takes months, and you need many big urns for soy sauce fermentation. I think I got my assumption from the old Chinese movies, where households put the urns at their backyard.

In fact, there are traditional method of producing soy sauce in China and Taiwan. I am not so certain about Malaysia. I have been naive. Now, I can only jump into conclusion that for any soy sauce that I can easily buy from the stores be it in sundry shops or supermarket or hypermarket, they must be instant version so that mass production is possible.

Time to make a change in my choice for soy sauce as it is one of the main ingredient in my kitchen, and it is not supposed to cause any harm to my health, because it is fermented.

Chinese Soy Sauce-Flavor Enhancer & Preservatives

I did not expect to see so much additives in the soy sauce I am using!

Camel brand-thick soy sauce
E200(Preservative)
E621(Monosodium Glutamate or Ajinomoto)

Camel brand-light soy sauce
Sodium Benzoate E211(Preservative)

Lee Kum Kee-first draw soy sauce
Disodium 5-Inosinate(Flavor Enhancer), 
Disodium 5-Guanylate(Flavor Enhancer)

汾阳桥-Superior Light soy sauce
Color(E150a)
E621,E631,E627(Flavor Enhancer), 
E202, E211(Preservative)

Maggi-Seasoning
Don't even list the ingredients used!

Soy Sauce and Salt in Chinese Cooking

How much salt am I consuming everyday? 

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council has set a stringent recommended intake of 460-920mg of sodium per day. This corresponds to 1.15-2.3g of salt.

For easier mental calculation,

• 1/4 teaspoon salt = 575 mg sodium
• 1/2 teaspoon salt = 1,150 mg sodium
• 3/4 teaspoon salt = 1,725 mg sodium
• 1 teaspoon salt = 2,300 mg sodium

Based on the recommendation, we should not take more than 1/2 teaspoon of salt daily.

If I only eat 3 meals per day, each meal should not be more than a pinch of salt!

However, I may not touched the salt shaker, but in my cooking, I am using a lot of soy sauce! 

Altogether I have 6 bottles of soy sauce for different purposes. Light soy sauce for marinating meat, a few shake of thick soy sauce to add nice brown colour to the dishes before serving, maggi soy sauce for soft boiled eggs, light and thick soy sauce for fried noodles, first draw soy sauce for stewing chicken, and in fact, every stewed meat calls for soy sauce. 

What are the main ingredients of soy sauce? soy bean, salt, sugar, wheat flour and flavor enhancer and preservatives!

A sodium check on 5g (1 teaspoon) soy sauce

Camel brand-thick soy sauce-187mg

Camel brand-light soy sauce-264 mg

Lee Kum Kee-first draw soy sauce-not available in nutrition fact

汾阳桥-Superior Light soy sauce-393mg

Maggi-Seasoning-Don't even have a label for nutrition fact!

Lea & Perrins-Worcestershire-No nutrition fact label!

No doubt I consume more sodium than I should everyday. How to reduce? This is difficult!