I added just a bit of dehydrated raw wheat grass powder in my plain water today. My almost 5 (so he says) year old rugrat took a sip and said, “Hmmm, this is good tea Mummy”. This is excellent because it means his taste buds are starting to appreciate more complex flavors.

ften times, we don’t know what they like. So it’s always good to keep introducing new food to them every once in a while.

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More on healing raw food

• Malaysian raw food product
• How virgin coconut oil is made
• Guava As Medicine

I brought out my very accurate weighing machine an hour earlier to weigh myself, which I haven’t done in two months. And guess what? I gained 7 pounds! That’s 3 kilos more for you guys who read metric.

7 pounds! That’s a lot.

I’ll tell you why I gained that much. I stopped breastfeeding 4 months ago. To tell you the truth, I’ve been breastfeeding almost a total of 4 years. I stopped each child when he was almost 2.

John at 6 months

Ethan, almost 2

And when I breastfed, weight just peeled off me. Just like that.

I never thought I’d be breastfeeding so long. Really. I thought, 4 months tops per kid. But I found that once I went past the nipple pain (too much info?), mastitis and the need to sleep 24/7, I found it such a relaxing moment to breast feed. Just me and the baby, and some peace and quiet.

If you ever want an almost fool proof diet program to get rid of your baby fat. Try this. And don’t do what I do know, which is still eating for two despite not doing so. Fast track to being over weight.

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More about babies

• Adrian’s Baby Full Moon Celebration
• Mine is bigger than yours

A study conducted by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Group found that 17 of the top fragrances contained 38 secret chemicals!

Here are the list of the fragrances that has the most chemicals:

American Eagle Seventy-Seven – 24
Chanel Coco – 18
Britney Spears Curious – 17
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio – 17
Old Spice After Hours Body Spray – 16
Quicksilver – 16
Calvin Klein Eternity for Men – 15
Bath & Body Works Japanese Cherry-Blossom – 14
Calvin Klein Eternity for Women – 14
Halle by Halle Berry – 13
Hannah Montana Secret Celebrity – 13
Victoria’s Secret Dream Angels Wish – 13
Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce – 11
Jennifer Lopez J. Lo Glow – 11
AXE Body Spray for Men: Shock – 10
Clinque Happy – 9
Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue – 7

See the problem is, studies have shown that our skin do absorb chemicals that we put on our body.

Frankly, I have not been using any chemical perfumes ever since I got pregnant with my first kid. I didn’t want anything to be absorbed into my baby’s body. Luckily for me, Asians have been using fragrances for hundreds of years. Traditionally, we soak flowers and nice smelling herbs in a warm  bath water, hmmm, about an hour before we take our bath. The wonderful fragrance from the bath water is what would lightly perfume our body.

Image taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/30471084@N07/2937326324

Bathing with fragrant flower water is something most brides-to-be in Southeast Asia will undergo

Asian women also use fresh flowers, like the tiny, pure white fragrant Jasmine flower,  on our hair.

I myself love perfumes, and when I decided to ditch my bottles of perfume, I did feel a twitch of sadness. Only the thought of doing something for the greater good spurred me on.

Ok, speaking of flowers being good for the hair, I’d like to share a natural hair shampoo that you can make at home using the hibiscus flower and leaves.

Hibiscus or Bunga Raya (Joyous Flower) is Malaysia’s national flower. And let me tell you, these plants can be found just about anywhere in Malaysia.

All Natural Bunga Raya Shampoo

• Firstly, you’ll need to collect a handful of leaves and flowers (remove the stems and stamen from the flowers).
• Wash and soak the flowers and leaves for about 15 mins.
• Then, cramp the entire thing into a blender. I like my Magic Bullet for this sort of thing.
• Blend the leaves and flower petal, adding a little bit of water to get the whole thing moving.
• The brown paste is ready for you to use as a shampoo.
• When you are washing your hair, first, be sure to wet your hair.
• Then, massage the brown paste  into your hair (yes, it can be used as a body scrub as well). You will get a mild foam when you do so.
• Wash and rinse really, really well to get everything out of your hair.

This cleanser is very gentle and totally safe for kids as well…  unless they are allergic to hibiscus.

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More info on how to heal your body

• Should we drink chlorinated tap water?
• Lots of great raw or almost raw food here!
• “This plant healed my sister!” said hubby
• Gotu Kola heals the world!
• Iodine Tincture Heals Cancer Lesions?

This is how some of the UHT milk packets look like

I was thinking of how schools were given UHT packets of spoilt milk last year, thinking why was this happening. Milk is truly expensive in a country mainly exports it’s dairy products from Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The act of packing the milk in pricey UHT packages. The cost of transporting milk from packing factories to schools.

There are food just as good or better than dairy milk, and cheaper to boot too.

Why not make soy bean milk, barley water or red bean drinks instead for kids from poor families? Low cost, easy-to-make, full of protein and other minerals, filling, FRESHly made. Pay the canteen operator and skip the middle men who makes all the profit from distributing milk.

Just soak the beans overnight, dunk the beans into soy milk machine with water, sugar N pandan leaf. Fresh food in 1/2 hour.

While we are on the subject of healthy school food, why not ban sugary soda drinks like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and all those artificial drinks, hook up a water cooler machine and sell healthy drinks instead to kids and teens.

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More on school and food

• Mothers Cook Healthy Meals For Students
• Edible food colors for kiddo finger painting sessions
• Beautiful home made Bento box meals for school kids
• Regular bread is full of additives
• Is food making school kids crazy?
• Raw anise seeds, full of iron. Good for kids
• School shoes stink to high heaven?

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I love writing about food, so let me tell you about this cute festivities we have in Malaysia where Mandarin oranges play a huge role in getting masses of single men and women hooked up.

Yesterday, the Malaysian Hokkien Chinese celebrated the 15th day of the Chinese New Year festivities with what is considered their version of the Valentine’s Day. More than 50,000 people headed towards the Penang Island Esplanade, where the Chap Goh Mei (15th day) celebration was held last night to mark the end of the Chinese New Year festivities.

Telephone numbers, names and even email are written on the oranges

What the women singletons do on this particular day is to grab a couple of fresh Mandarin oranges, write down their names in ink on the oranges and throw them into the sea or a lake, hoping some young handsome, and we hope, single men (not dirty minded lecherous guys) will get hold of the oranges and give them a call.

Young people in yellow selling oranges for charity

Women throwing oranges

More women getting ready to throw oranges

No sex discrimination here as you can see because lots of men are throwing oranges as well into the lake

I’ve been told that this was a form of flirting in the old days as eligible young women were usually not allowed outside their homes. This is the only day throughout the whole year where the young maidens would be allowed to walk the streets but they must be accompanied by a chaperon. The young men would also go out and in hopes of catching a glimpse of the young maiden and taking their hand in marriage. Obviously this does not happen anymore but the concept of match-making still lives on.

Modern style Nonya outfit

This is how the chaperons would have dressed

Old fashion marriage costumes

Can you believe this is really good looking reusable sandwich bag was once an old shirt, a piece of scrap cloth and a clean Ziplock bag?

How cute. I love it when old stuff are brought back to live as a new and so reusable item.

So gorgeous, you’d want to bring it to work Every. Single. Day.

The bag just folds up and snaps shut with a piece of velcro

The inside of the bag is a gallon size Ziploc bag (cut apart)

It’s a breeze to make, doesn’t take much time at all. Best thing is, you can just drop it in the washing machine, and then hang it up to dry in time for the next use.

Check out the tutorial at Salt Water Kids