Bento Breakfasts

Niceties introduced me to the concept of bentos. For various reasons (HFMD, Tin Hang Zai coming home too late, etc) , I've not been making dinners or lunches and have been depending on the Veteran's kindness for lunches and dinners (bless her heart).

Inspired by Niceties and Lunch-In-A-Box and Just Bento, I decided that since I wasn't making decent lunches and dinners for my two charges at home, I might as well focus my efforts on making nice bento-breakfasts that can double up as tea-time snacking and pre-dinner munchies for Tin Hang Zai's frequent late nights at work. (Plus make him feel special and pampered)

Menu for today:
Me - homemade wholemeal bread with NTUC-'s minimal-trans-fat and lactose-free margarine (since I'm allergic to butter now) and organic sausages from NTUC Finest
Little Pixie - Homemade wholemeal bread kosong with a slice of orange and homemade applesauce raisin wholemeal muffin
Tin Hang Zai - Homemade wholemeal bread with margarine and jam, whole orange minus 1 slice and homemade applesauce raisin wholemeal muffin

Artisan Bread Baking Class

I had been blessed with an opportunity to co-facilitate with Paul at a 3-day workshop with an offshore bank.

That paid for this bakery class. I had always wanted to attend some sort of formalised workshop where they teach you properly how to bake bread, instead of reading & fumbling my way through stacks and stacks of bread books at the library. I have been struggling with many bread books for over a year now, and until I attended this workshop, did not know how exactly the "dough window" was supposed to look like.

We focused on ciabatta and baguettes in this workshop - but this is all I need for now! It's a allergenic-person's dream come true - lean dough (no need for dairy stuff like butter or cream or eggs or even bread improvers - which also contain dairy & egg derivatives).

The flavour is ... sensational!! Tin Hang Zai and Little Pixie loved it - and I ended up eating this every day for a week. I'm still making this every week. And, I also learnt that what passes for ciabatta in Delifrance is not the "real thing". Duh.

Nothing beats learning from the professionals. The name of the company is CerealTech, a bio-technology & food ingredients company. Check them out if you are keen.

We've got Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD)!!!

So I had been diagnosed with multiple food allergies, and then I had been spending this hiatus learning how to prepare edible allergy-free food from my mom.

And I had been training for a 10km run. And enjoying life without allergy attacks.

Day 1
I felt I somehow wasn't in top form when running. I shrugged it off. I had a mysterious-looking rash on my arm after jogging, which I blamed on a caterpillar that had fallen onto me whilst jogging. I was nursing a very very slight cough that sounded like Airport's cough after he came back from Spain.

Day 2
Little Pixie came back from her Bible Study Children's Group sniffling. And I still didn't feel well enough to do Pilates, let alone run. Little Pixie developed a fever out of the blue.

Day 3
We panicked when Little Pixie's fever continued. I had a ulcer! And I saw a 1-mm ulcer on her tongue! Tin Hang Zai was convinced the hypochondriac me was seeing things. The doctor told us to go back the next day to confirm either way.

Day 4
Confirmed HFMD!!! Little Pixie's fever hadn't gone down, and the rashes-on-hands-and-feet still hadn't appeared. But she had sores inside her mouth.

Day 5
My cough and mysterious rash still hadn't gone away. I was feeling quite ill all over. I developed a nose-block, and post-nasal drip.... similar to symptoms of an allergy attack.

Day 6 (Today)
Little Pixie has rashes all over her face & tummy & back but nothing on arms & feet! We rushed to the doctor's again. He said it's all part of the HFMD. He found sores in my mouth!! So I have HFMD too!!

I can't help blaming myself for this spate of events. I have always assumed that because I'm a SAHM and Little Pixie doesn't go to childcare yet, we'd be safe from all these........... but....

So now we're resting at home, feasting on bread, ice-cream and sweets (the classic cure).

There's a Big Hero who's now bustling around the house looking after his two angels.

Everybody please stock up on Dettol!!

Food Allergy Attacks!

For the longest of time, I only knew I had serious lactose intolerance. I just didn't think it was anything more than that - a simple intolerance which could be easily rectified by taking lactase enzymes if I so wanted. I continued feasting on my own homemade butter cookies and goodies.

After a lot of reading up over the past few years and months, I came to the realisation that the occasional bout of "allergic rhinitis", respiratory and skin ailments that had plagued me all my life - was not triggered by just my environment, but also (horrors) by my food.

I had settled on two possible tests - the ALCAT test and the ELISA test, as early as last year. My preference was the ELISA test - but the only place I knew which carried this test here was this rather sleazy-looking importer of fish oil, without even a qualified doctor on its premises. So I didn't do anything for almost a year. By a sheer stroke of God's providence, Tin Hang Zai's boss has a super-allergic daughter too, who had once done the same test which I sought - at this place at Gleneagles - the Gilead Ear Nose & Throat Centre. (what an apt name!)

After 2 months, my blood test results came out. Tin Hang Zai and I were overjoyed for a few hours (finally!!! I can stop eating foods that make me sick!) ... and then the reality set in.

Here's the list:

Severely Allergic

• Eggs (think: Char Kway Teow, Carrot Cake, Oyster Omelette, McDonald's Breakfasts, Sunny-side eggs, pandan chiffon cakes, lor mee, egg prata...goodness, all the things I love!)
  
• Milk and all its derivatives - I have to check if prata is cooked in vegetable oil or in ghee !! (ghee is a milk derivative)
  No more chicken-in-a-biskit! Loads of snacks are now out! And no more KFC coleslaw!)
  
• Vanilla (can you believe it?? So even all my homemade biscuits, cookies, muffins, pancakes and cakes which were already egg-free and milk-free had also been poisoning me because of the vanilla essence!!!) - I found out that even commercial versions of all the Chinese kuehs (9-layer cake, wa ko kueh, pak tong ko, fatt kueh) all use vanilla!!
• Banana (ok, I can still live without this)
  
• Asparagus (ok, I can still live without this)

Moderately Allergic

• Cabbage - uh oh, there goes all my favourite dishes like fried bee hoon from the market (which has sesame oil & oyster sauce too), no more KFC coleslaw!
  
• Cucumber (so it wasn't the wheat or yeast in that Subway sandwich that made me sick, it was the cucumber!!)
  
• Pineapple (there goes my Hawaiian pizza, which is already minus-the-cheese-and-milk, or that Wu-Xiang Xia Bing Sauce!)
  
• Oyster
  
• Sesame Can you find a tze-char dish that doesn't have either oyster sauce or sesame oil!?!?! Or any other Chinese food for that matter? If it's not in the gravy (think Char Siew Rice, Duck rice, Bak Chor Mee, Lor Mee), it's in the marinade (chicken rice), or in the soup (pig trotters vinegar) or in the sauce (Wu Xiang Xia Bing, Rojak)
  

Have you fainted yet? Help! I'm losing weight much faster than I'm eating!

Health is really wealth...

Goodness me, I've been sick for more than a month!

A seemingly innocent trip with Little Pixie to the Botanic Gardens did me in. I came down with what I thought was flu - but the doc said it was an allergy.

I had it bad. Cough, post-nasal drip, couldn't breath!

I was almost getting better - and then had a 'relapse' after eating homemade sandwiches!!

I'd forgotten that when you have an allergic reaction - you have to stay away from ALL possible allergens - even if you're not usually sensitive to them in the first place! For me, this turned out to be bread.

It turned out that my relapse was due to the HUGE amounts of wheat and yeast I was eating - because I'd been in a bread-baking frenzy after getting to know Happy Homebaker.

Indeed, health is really wealth. I don't think I want to stinge on food anymore - the amount of money I saved from buying cheap, lousy food in an effort to be a better household budgeter was pittance compared to what the 5 doctor visits cost me this time round!

Thankfully, I also found another blogger who has experience in all these food intolerances etc!
Check out Main Main Masak Masak for all these fantastic healthy ideas!

Canola is not all that good!

Every other day, you read that something you've been using in your food for ages is toxic.

There are plants that give oil - coconut, palm, peanut, sunflower, what have you.

Have you ever wondered if there is such a plant called canola? There isn't. This thing is a GMO product!!

Please check out this article.

Supermarket Stress

I must say I find supermarket shopping quite stressful nowadays.

I was at Market Place, and only wanted to buy less-unhealthy snacks.

Read: Trans-fat-free, preservative-free, artificial flavouring/colouring-free, yeast-free, soy-free, lactose-free, MSG-free.

Result: I spent 1 hour searching and this is all I bought:

1. Kettle's Brand Organic Corn Chips (Sesame-Blue Corn)
2. Mountain Bread flat bread (more worth it than destroying my wok trying to make torteeyahs.
3. St Dalfour Jam (ok, just found out that NTUC sells the same thing at $1 per jar less than Shop N Save and Market Place!!)

Earth Rain

I seldom recommend stuff, but I bought this Earth Rain CD out of desperation for Tin Hang Zai's insomnia.

And, I'm now addicted! It's SGD30.00, and I must say, it's worth every cent I paid for it! It makes us both feel relaxed, I DO sleep better and so does he!

And sometimes I just 'sun' myself with the Gnome's expensive sunning machine, listen to the CD and drift off to bliss...

You can get it here at Ben Kim's Website.

Night-time Coughs

To stop nighttime coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks Vaporub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime then cover with socks. Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief.

Not sure if it works, but I thought it's interesting to put it up here.

P/S Cosmo, it's from Merilyn!

Tarzan Chicken!

I just HAVE to post this.

This is a brand of hormone-free chicken available from NTUC. And guess what their URL is? It's so funny!!

http://www.OEO.com.sg

P/S The company name is Thye San or something like that - Chinese for Tarzan.

Chew On This

I grabbed this after reading a review here. Now I know how important and powerful those last few items on the products' ingredient list are.

Did you know that fast foods (and other processed foods) are frozen & processed so badly that they have usually lost their taste and colour? And that what you so relish - is actually the result of carefully concocted cocktails of artificial flavours and colours?

• A single drop of flavour can cause an entire swimming pool to taste like freshly cut grass.
• Hotdogs are naturally grey in colour.
• Margarine is naturally grey in colour.
• There aren't enough strawberries in the world to give you that strawberry flavour in everything you eat - most of it is artificial.
• One of the most common red food colourings around is extracted from the skin of a bug found in Africa or something.
  

I'm no longer such a big fast food fan. And Tin Hang Zai has strict orders to eat only the Pixie Milkshake where possible.

I suspect allergies...

Being sick was (and still is) a nightmare. The cough and running nose has plagued both the Ethiopian Pixies for close to a month now. And the usually robust Tin Hang Zai has also been down with mysterious sore throats and coughs. No more fried foods or trans-fats for the entire Pixie Family. :(

As a Patrick Holford fan, I read this and suspect that my years of erratic sub-optimal health could be due to allergies!!!

I'm still wondering which test I should take....

I have been eating trans-fats!!!

I'm getting really nervous, and started to stop eating those nasty chips and crackers..

ST Online Forum, 20 Jan 07
THE World Health Organisation recommends that the intake of saturated fat should not exceed 10 per cent of total calories, while that of trans fat should not exceed 1 per cent.

There is an important difference between these two numbers. Ten per cent saturated fat is the healthy level - because saturated fat is needed for many body functions.

By contrast, 1 per cent trans fat is a compromise level. Trans fats are extremely harmful and not needed at all. The healthy level for trans fat is essentially zero.

If we compare like with like - which is more meaningful - we will realise that all Singaporeans exceed the healthy level of zero trans fat. And we all exceed that level infinitely.

Both saturated and trans fats are believed to cause heart disease. But, historically, heart disease sky-rocketed whenever saturated fat consumption fell and trans fat consumption rose.

In many other ways, the two are exact opposites.

Saturated fat raises HDL or 'good' cholesterol, whereas trans fat lowers it.

Saturated fat enhances immunity. Trans fat weakens immunity.

Saturated fat does not inhibit insulin binding. Trans fat inhibits insulin binding, leading to diabetes.

Probably the biggest difference is this: Saturated fats are widely perceived to be harmful, while many people still do not know about trans fats - and think that products like margarine, which contains trans fat, are healthy.

When strong scientific evidence emerged during the 1990s to show that margarine was harmful, the industry came up with soft margarine, which contains less trans fat.

This detracts from the fact that margarine is produced by a highly unnatural industrial process.

In its original state, margarine is grey and smelly. It needs to be bleached, deodorised, artificially coloured and artificially flavoured before we eat it.

How can such a product be healthier than natural butter? Just because it has less total trans fat and saturated fat?

It ignores, among many things, the fact that butter contains CLA, or conjugated linoleic acid - a natural trans fat which protects against cancer, whereas margarine contributes to cancer.

Lawyer Stephen Joseph started the BanTransFats campaign in America because his stepfather, who was considered health conscious, had diabetes and died from a heart attack. Mr Joseph's stepfather 'ate margarine by the tonne'.

Readers who wish to understand trans fat at a deeper level are invited to visit my website, www.stop-trans-fat.com

Richard Seah Siew Sai