Here are some bread statistics you may not know.

• Most bread makers add calcium propionate into their bread to inhibit the growth of mould. Recent studies in Australia has shown that this additive can cause aberrant behavior  in children. To find out more go to Is your bread bad for you and your family?
• The biggest bread purchasers are Malays. Presumably because bread is cheap and can feed large families at a go. Doesn’t this make you worry for the little kids who eat bread that has the additive calcium propionate has in it?
• 2 out of 10 bread are not sold. The costs of the unsold breads are transferred to the consumers by the bread makers by charging more per bread. (Why can’t they make less and thus charge us less for bread?)
• Unsold old bread (yes, those with calcium propionate  as well) are sold to animal farmers as cheap feed.

Info from an employee who works with Gardenia Bread Malaysia and from www.crimetimes.org/03a/w03ap9.htm

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Additional reading about additives

Is food making people around you crazy?

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I thought I’d show you what my favorite juice is, which is fresh raw sugar cane juice. Because sugar cane is extremely high in sugar

• I can’t drink too much of it
• it must be juiced and drunk immediately or else it will ferment if it’s not kept in an extremely cold temperature.
• some people like to add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to cut the extremely high sugar taste

Do buy the juice from a clean juice store, and not those that keeps the sugar cane on the ground. Years back, there was an email circulating that said the cane is highly porous and can absorb all manner of liquids. So if the cane is stored upright in a puddle of water, it will absorb the water. Makes sense to me.

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More on sugar cane

• Lots of great raw or almost raw food here!
• More raw food at the night markets
• Use tooth powder instead of toothpaste
• What would you bring to a pot luck party?
• McDonalds Used To Serve Sugar Cane Juice

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Here’s a fun fact you may not have known about me. When I got out of school, I took a job at McDonalds at Subang Parade to supplement my Inti College tuition fees (I worked at two jobs but more on that later) . Part of my McD job entitlement was food. However, I’m not a great fan of burgers and for years later, I still don’t eat french fries because I HATED the smell of cooking oil stuck on my shirt, body and hair. It went on for months, and the only reason why I stuck on that miserable AND miserably low paying job was because I could have lots and lots of sugar cane juice. Call me weird, but it’s true. Sadly, today, they have replaced fresh sugar cane juice with Minute Maid orange juice which, by the way, despite what they claim, IS NOT freshly squeezed, nor is it fresh orange juice.

Australian study: common bread additive causes behavior problems in many children

A common bread preservative, calcium propionate, can cause aberrant behavior in children, according to a recent study in Australia.

Sue Dengate and Alan Ruben identified 27 children whose behavior improved when they were placed on the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital diet, which eliminates food additives, natural salicylates, amines, and glutamates. In a double-blind crossover study, the researchers measured each child’s response to bread containing either a placebo or calcium propionate.

The researchers say, “A statistically significant difference existed in the proportion of children whose behaviors worsened with challenge (52 percent), compared to the proportion whose behavior improved with challenge (19 percent).” The adverse behavioral effects in the children receiving the bread containing calcium propionate occurred within days, and appear to be cumulative.

Dengate told ABC News in Perth, “What we found when we did this study is that [the effect] is not hyperactivity, which is what people think of when they think of children’s behavior and food additives. It’s irritability. So these kids will appear to be fine when they’re enjoying themselves, but if they’re asked to do something they don’t like… then they will over-react.” In addition, she says, “There is also restlessness and inattention, so they don’t want to do their homework, they can’t read properly, and there are also sleep disturbances.”

http://www.crimetimes.org/03a/w03ap9.htm

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“Controlled trial of cumulative behavioural effects of a common bread preservative,” S. Dengate and A. Ruben, Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, Vol. 38, No. 4, August 2002, 373-6. Address: Sue Dengate, P.O. Box 85, Parap, Northern Territory 0804, Australia.

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“Bread causes bad behaviour in children,” ABC Perth, August 14, 2002.

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Jasmin says,

If your child often irritable, and exhibit all sorts of symptoms as listed above, AND eats bread (and some types of cheese) everyday, you might want to investigate if this additive is causing it. Apparently, this additive can cause reactions in adults too, and people are surprised to hear this because many do not equate bread with this additive with irritability. So, if you or your husband or whoever in your family is always irritable, and don’t know why, check to see what is eaten daily. Try to abstain from bread that have this additive to see if it helps.

The problem with the name calcium propionate is that it is so misleading. When I told my mother-in-law about this, she got a bit confused because she thought I was telling her that calcium in bread was bad for her. You see? If she got confused, I bet tons of other people do too. Moral of the story? Not all calcium is good for you.

The picture above was taken from a Malaysian Gardenia bread.

Check out the Gardenia bread from Singapore below.

This bread looks like the perfect bread to eat, right?
Look again

Isn’t it important to keep our bread fresh?

Contrary to what the food industry would like you to believe, this additive is not to keep your bread fresh. Calcium propionate (282) is added to inhibit the growth of mould. There is no mould on a freshly baked loaf of bread, so why use a mould inhibitor? Bakers who keep their work benches and slicer blades clean and mould-free, by wiping with vinegar every day, do not need this additive. However, bakers in large factories prefer the less time-consuming method of “fogging” their equipment with a chemical spray. Putting hot loaves in plastic bags makes the problem worse. Preservative 282 allows for sloppy hygiene. It is for the convenience of the manufacturer not the consumer.

http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/factsheets/Fact282.htm

So what can we eat? Home made bread would be a good start. Also, check out local bakeries (but ask them if they add this additive in). I checked out the Malaysian Giant supermarket, and they do add calcium propionate in their bread. I could not tell if the Singaporean Giant supermarket have this additive because they do not list the ingredients down on the bread bag. The fact of the matter is, most commercial breads have additives in them.  

Try this Singaporean bread.

And the ingredients are as below

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More on additives and bread that you eat

• Malaysian Bread Statistics You May Not Know
• Is food making people around you crazy?

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My favorite picture

One of our friends and former Internet Marketing student of my husband took us to this amazing National Geographic store at Vivocity Singapore last Sunday. It’s like being in a museum. Or at a Indiana Jones movie set. This non profit organization store offers a wide range of shopping experience, ranging from clothes to books to artifacts. Vincent, our friend bought a huge, huge map!

There’s a climate control chamber that you can step into to see how long you can withstand the cold. It’s like a simulator where you can test to see how long you can stay at the North Pole or something. Frankly, I don’t like the cold, don’t like the feeling of my ears and fingers feeling frozen, so I didn’t try out this cold room chamber. I’ve lived in Kansas where it snowed every single year, and every winter, I just look forward to snuggling in my toasty electric blanket in my bed room with cable tv turned on to some cooking channel.

They have got great stuff for the outdoorsy adventures and the armchair adventurers.  The stuff so cool, my dad would have salivated at every Big Boy toy there is at the store, and promptly buy everything in there as well! They’ve got all sorts of super duper gadgets for kids as well. Stuff even Einstein will be proud of.

I like the National Geographic organization because they continue to inspire people all around the world to do better for our planet, while in the process, educate people on what needs to be done. I’m passionate about environmental issues and this organization cares too, so I luv em.

If you happen to drop by Singapore, go visit this wonderful place. If you want to know more about this shop, there’s an excellent write-up on this at http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/5848/national-geographic-store-at-vivo-city-in-singapore.html

I’ll stop here and let the pictures do the talking.

ps Vivocity is a crazy cold place. It’s tropical weather outside, but be sure to bring a sweater to the shopping mall as it’s freezing inside. You’ve been warned!

PomGrapes Smoothie

I was at VicoCity Singapore yesterday (THE largest mall in Singapore), and I came across this juice stand called the Tracy Juice Culture at Basement 2 that serves up really tasty juices. Normally, when I’m on a go, I’m not really fussy, and will do great with just simple orange juice, guava juice and so on. But occasionally, I love to try concoctions and I have two winners here.

My cup of PomGrapes Juice

The first image, as shown above is called the PomGrape juice. Basically, it’s nothing more than pomegranate and grapes. The lady who made the juice added what looked like at least 4 pomegranate worth of fruits there, plus a generous handful of grapes. The combination is really yummy.

The lady making another PomGrapes Juice for a very
pregnant woman standing beside me.

For the preggy lady, it was a toss between Creamy Beetroot and Pomgrapes. But she settled for PomGrapes in the end. Personally, I have not tasted a great beetroot drink yet, so if anyone has a wonderful recipe, please pass it over as I would Luvvvv to try. The shop didn’t have a the Creamy Beetroot drink  sample, and because beetroot is not my favorite root vegetable, I gave it a miss.

Avo Smoothie

My husband loves a good smoothie so I got him the Avo Smoothie. I would have to say, it’s one of the best avocado smoothies I had in a long time. It has a very distinct honey fragrance, which reminded me of the Longan Flower honey I bought a few months back. The smoothie is made out of golden kiwi, avocado, green apple, organic honey and oat milk. The oat milk is not raw, but that’s ok. It’s almost raw, and pretty yummy.  It’s definitely something I would try to recreate at home for my kids back in Kuala Lumpur, but instead oat milk, I would probably use raw cashew milk instead. They need all the good fats they can consume and avocados are good for children.

What I like about this shop is that the owners are committed to using premium quality organic foods in diets without the usage of preservatives, artificial flavors and colors.

If you are in VivoCity, drop by this shop.

ps this place is HUGE! I am very good in directions, and even then, I got lost while shopping and ended up in some random carpark on Basement 2. If you want to try the juices at this Tracy’s, then look out for the Giant Hypermarket at Basement 2. The shop is just outside of the entrance of this hypermarket, facing a japanese restaurant.