I’m all for unusual marketing concepts for restaurants but  seriously who wants to eat in a restaurant that has toilet seats instead of chairs? Show of hands please?

This restaurant is at one of the higher floors of the Queensbay Mall in Penang, Malaysia.

A few years back, I bought a really powerful Taiwanese blender called Shelina.

The blender came with a cook book. It didn’t state the author’s name, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

The recipe is as below.

6 water chestnuts
40 grams celery
100 grams pineapple chunks
1 orange peeled and seeded
300 cc cold water
2 cups ice cube
1 tablespoon honey

Blend it all in a power blender until everything is pulp. Serve in a beautiful glass.

<notes from Jasmin. If you don’t have a power blender, sieve out the ingredients after blending to get a smoother drink>

Water chestnuts are “cold” food, it detox the body and relief it of heat and irritation.

From the Chinese medicine point of view, water chestnuts are good for treatments of jaundice, hepatitis and constipation.

Do not eat it if you have a stomach illness and diarrhea.

<I had to edit it a bit because it wasn’t written properly in English. Water chestnuts can also be sub with jicamas or seng kuangs as both have similar taste>

More on raw food

- Peanuts and liver cancer

-  Japanese “vending machine” green house

- How virgin coconut oil is made

- Not Raw Juice For Sale

This is called pearl corn because of the white kernels..

Pearl Corn is different from the normal corn because it is so sweet, have bigger kernels and can be eaten fresh. It is more expensive than regular corn but it is worth the money.

Corn can be eaten raw, and it tastes best when it’s just ripen and freshly picked. The husks by the way makes excellent organic plate scrubber at the sink. My mother-in-law gathers the husks, fold it and ties it together with a thin rubber band (there’s thin and there’s the thick rubber bands). She then scrubs the plates with a bit of water and dishwashing liquid. Such an environmentally friendly tool.

More on our health and the environment

• Chemicals we put on our body
  
• Yeasty homemade ginger ale (devoid of preservatives and additives)
• Using food to make natural and safe eyeliner!
• Daily dose of baking soda could stop kidney patients needing dialysis
• Is food making people around you crazy?

I saw this bottles of juice at the cold section at a Coles supermarket in Sydney and just had to take a picture of it. I was actually disappointed because it wasn’t raw juice. It’s misleading because it’s really mainly constituted juice. If it’s not raw, it means that most of the enzymes have been destroyed.

I brought my mini blender with me for my one month trip there, but oh my, the fruits are so pricey. Apparently, the devastating floods near Brisbane had a major impact on the food industry. If it wasn’t for the flood, I was told, I could get a whole box of mangos for $10.

My thoughts are with those who suffered during the massive flooding.

Here’s a video of how bad it was.

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More on raw food

- Peanuts and liver cancer

-  Japanese “vending machine” green house

- How virgin coconut oil is made

The ancient Hebrew scholars taught parents to bake cakes in the form of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet which the child has to identify before he was allowed to eat the cake.

<Glenn Doman on teaching really small children to read at an early age>

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More on kids

• Kids, peanuts and liver cancer
• Getting kids to appreciate more complex flavors
• Homemade soy milk: Schools to feed the kids something else rather than milk?
• Beautiful home made Bento box meals

A few years back, Christien Meindertsma did a 3 year study on what happens to a 228-pound (104-kilogram) pig, known only as number 05049 when it’s finally sent to the slaughter house.

The results were startling.

Among the uses of pig 05049, according to Meindertsma, are certain varieties of the following products:

• Soap, shampoo, conditioner, cosmetics and toothpaste;

• Dough improver, which uses proteins from pig hair;

• Gelatin, which is used in low-fat foods as well as in cheesecake, vanilla pudding, chocolate mousse and tiramisu;

• Beer, wine and fruit juice, which can be filtered by using a gelatin sieve to clear out impurities;

• Bone china and paint, paintbrushes and sandpaper;

• Collagen to remove wrinkles and pig heart valves to replace defective human valves.

“What I learned from doing it is that the product world is more complicated then you can imagine and that we have no clue of what is in the products that surround us,” she told CNN. “Even if you are genuinely interested in what is in your products, it is extremely difficult and often impossible to find out.”

“The reason that I find this important is because I think we have a responsibility in what we consume, but it is hard to make a good choice when you have no idea of what is in a product.

“But, even without this knowledge, consumers could have a lot of power to change these systems if they wanted to. Companies just want to make a profit so if the demand changes they will start making other products.

“If consumers would make a choice to buy products that are transparent in what they are and who made them, that could be the standard.”

PIG 05049 from Christien Meindertsma on Vimeo.

After it’s death, Pig number 05049 was shipped in parts throughout the world. Some products remain close to their original form and function while others diverge dramatically. In an almost surgical way a pig is dissected in the pages of the book – resulting in a startling photo book where all the products are shown at their true scale.

Check out more of Christien Meindertsma’s work at http://www.christienmeindertsma.com/

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Interesting things you may not have heard of

• Mr PM. Are Malaysians being used as medical guinea pigs?
• About 90% of the human population has some sort of parasite, one time or another. Do you have parasites?
• Jason Mraz’s Travel Tip #3: Bring a Big Fucking Knife. What else would a half naked raw foodie do?
• Using safe, home made garbage enzymes instead of chemical detergents to clean your plates!