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?

I was just drooling over this really beautiful and elegant planting bed. Definitely something I would consider creating if I lived in an apartment.

The planting bed you see belongs to the Casa Camper hotel in Barcelona. There are all sorts of herbs for the hotel chef to use.

What a wonderful sight!

I want to share Alton Brown’s recipe for a home made ginger ale.  I love Alton and his somewhat unusual cooking show called Good Eats. Part science, part crazy cooking show, it’s all in good fun. Big boys love it because he really gets down to the scientific reasons for why things done in a certain way tastes so much better.

Anyways, I don’t really drink frizzy drinks because it’s usually loaded with sugar and all sorts of chemicals and artificial coloring I can’t pronounce. And really, I tell you, if I can’t pronounce it, it usually can’t be good AT ALL! So when Alton came up with a home made frizzy ginger ale drink, whoa! it’s really something to try at home.

Home made ginger ale is not something new. People have been cranking up frizzy drinks in their back yards for years … (can I saw centuries??) now. Some have tried making sparkling apple juice and all sorts of other fruity drinks. If you’ve never had a home made frizzy drink, then this is a good recipe to start with.

Times:

Prep                     15 min

Inactive Prep  49 hr 0 min

Cook                    3 min

Total:                  49 hr 18 min

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 ounces finely grated fresh ginger
• 6 ounces sugar
• 7 1/2 cups filtered water
• 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions

Place the ginger, sugar, and 1/2 cup of the water into a 2-quart saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to steep for 1 hour.

Pour the syrup through a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl, pressing down to get all of the juice out of the mixture. Chill quickly by placing over and ice bath and stirring or set in the refrigerator, uncovered, until at least room temperature, 68 to 72 degrees F.

Using a funnel, pour the syrup into a clean 2-liter plastic bottle and add the yeast, lemon juice and remaining 7 cups of water. Place the cap on the bottle, gently shake to combine and leave the bottle at room temperature for 48 hours. Open and check for desired amount of carbonation. It is important that once you achieve your desired amount of carbonation that you refrigerate the ginger ale. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, opening the bottle at least once a day to let out excess carbonation.

The young ginger gives a milder flavor than old or mature ginger.

Again though, the most important thing is to use FRESH yeast, and to expect the bubbles to be a lot softer than what you are used to with the commercial stuff.

A chutney is actually a condiment, and really, there’s all sorts of chutneys, some similar in consistency to jelly, salsa or relish.

But let me tell you, I love chutneys, especially coconut chutneys and coriander chutneys. I can, believe it or not, can eat them by a bowl full if nobody stops me.

There’s this fabulous fresh raw green chutney that’s a favorite of mine, and it just goes very well with everything. If your family is not into raw, then, this chutney is a sneaky way to add more fresh raw greens into their diet. Try it on grilled fish, seared scallops, pompadums, unsalted chips, sandwiches, roasted potatoes, fried eggs. You can try replacing pesto in your pasta with this chutney. Japanese sashimi purists will cringe, but I’ve been told it’s really good topped with raw salmon. The possibilities are endless.

Easy-easy Coriander Coconut Chutney Recipe

1/2 cup washed and chopped coriander leaves and stems

1 large red chilli with the seeds removed. Also rinse the chilli. This will remove the heat, which is good for people like me who unfortunately can’t eat too spicy food.

1/4 cup freshly grated coconut (or if you can’t get fresh grated coconuts, try getting 1/4 C fresh coconut pulp. You’ll want an older coconut pulp that’s hard, and does not have a consistency of jelly)

Salt to taste

A few drops of lime juice to taste (the sourness of the juice is what gives the dish an extra oomph!)

Just put everything into the blender and blend away until the cilantro is completely broken down. If the sauce is too thick, you can add a little bit of water. Season with salt to taste.

Not only is this condiment tasty, all the ingredients for this dish helps you body remain healthy. The coriander leaves are full of antioxidants. Coconut is an anti bacterial, anti viral health food. Lime juice have plenty of Vitamin C among other things.

Chilli has tons of Vitamin C as well, plus it’s an anti parasitic health food, meaning it helps get rid of parasites in your body.  Not only that, I read it’s helpful for arthritic sufferers as it relieves joint pain.

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Note:

About 90% of the human population has some sort of parasite, one time or another. Consider this. Flu bugs are parasites. To read more about parasites and to see if you have some, go to

• Do you have parasites?
• How can you tell if you have  parasites
• Killing parasites with chilli peppers
• Yummy raw Pineapple juice can kill parasites in your tummy
• Protocol For Pineapple Parasite Cleanse
  

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Hookworm image taken from http://curezone.com

We were having breakfast at an al fresco restaurant when we happened to see this spiky purple plant popping out of the edge of the sidewalk. Hubby said, every time he see this plant, he is always reminded of the time when his sister healed after drinking tea brewed with this plant’s delicate flower.

Shaun was a young boy at the time when his sister, Florence, fell ill with very, very high fever. Try as they might, their parents could not get the fever down. It got so bad, they had to put her in an ice bath, and that didn’t help either. Then, someone told his mum that drinking a brew of this flower would help reduce Florence’s fever. The family immediately bundled the kids into the car in search of this plant. They would stop at the road curb, walk onto stranger’s neighborhood, … to pluck flowers. Hubby said, at that time, he was highly embarrassed at what they were doing …. plucking people’s flowers without permission. But plucked they did. That was his mum’s mission. And today, being a parent, he understands what lengths parents would do to save their children.

So anyways, they collected a handful of flowers, which his mum washed and boiled with some water. Florence drank the brew, and her fever went down.

I should try to get the recipe from her, but it’s past midnight and I could not wait to download this picture and blogged about it. So, the recipe will have to wait another time.

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Writer’s note: My sister-in-law who now lives in Sydney just told me it’s called “Pong fa” or Pong Flower’. I tried googling, but I still can’t find any info on this plant.

I have been traveling often lately due to work.

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What work we do?

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The problem with eating more raw food while traveling is the how to? Since I’m very busy, I often don’t have time to visit the supermarket where I’m at, and my bag is so heavy, I really don’t like to carry a blender, like some raw foodist do. Also, there’s no raw food restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore as I know of.

So, I do have to compromise when I travel. Lucky for me, there’s plenty of restaurants, coffee shops (Starbucks, take note!) and food stalls that sell freshly squeezed or freshly blended fruit juices at very reasonable prices.

But fruit juices have very high sugar content, so if you are up to it, while traveling in these neck of the woods, you can carry some fresh organic vegetables, like spinach or salad lettuce in your carry bag and just pass it to the guy who makes the fruit juice at the stall to blend the fruit juice together with the vegetables. Most of them are very accommodating.

I also get munchies when I am on the go. Most raw foodies carry raw nuts, but I don’t really like to eat too much nuts. I have this hang up, since I was a kid, about nuts getting stuck between my teeth. Instead, I carry lots of fruits and maybe some raw, fresh Egyptian dates.

The latest box of Egyptian dates I bought

Anyways, while I was in Beijing, I stayed in this cool B&B place, and they planted lots of mint and some other herbs all over the garden. So, mint was my daily green while I was there. Should have taken a picture of the garden to show. It was fab! I just plucked the mint, washed it and chewed it for some greens and to freshen my breathe (not that it wasn’t awesome in the first place!).

Plus, you know, there’s always salads at restaurants. Speaking of fruits, you can generally find fruit stands all over the place, like at shopping centers, food courts and at busy streets so it’s easy for me as I don’t have to specially run to the supermarket everyday.

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See what fruit I ate in Beijing

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What’s your challenge when you are on the go?