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.
Friday, 29 July 2016
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Tomato Plant
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-thick soy sauce
E200(Preservative)
E621(Monosodium Glutamate or Ajinomoto)
Camel brand-light soy sauce
Sodium Benzoate E211(Preservative)
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!
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,
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!
Friday, 18 December 2015
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.
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.
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.
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