Typical Malaysian Wedding Dinner (usually 40 or more tables!)

From now until to the New Year, I’ve got parties and more parties to attend. A cousin is getting married on Saturday and my dad’s very close friend, we call him Uncle Cheah, is celebrating his 80th birthday this Sunday. My son’s preschool has this really fun 4 day Church camp, culminating with a pre Xmas concert tomorrow. Also, this coming Tuesday is the Chinese Winter Solstice Festival. This is the day when family members gather at the head of the family’s house, in my case, that’s my in-laws house for a big dinner. My little boy is also born on Xmas day, so we’ll definitely have a super duper party.

Parties and big family gatherings are so much fun. And there’s always an opportunity to bring all sorts of tasty food to share at these parties. For example, my kid’s preschool had asked for parents to bring some pot luck dishes for the kids to share. I’ll be bringing maybe 2 dishes to my in-laws house for the Winter Solstice Festival. My sister-in-law will probably bring a few of her fabulous dishes as well. My cousin’s wedding dinner probably calls for a Chinese sit-down affair that probably includes a 10 course meal. Uncle Cheah is having a huge buffet at his house. Meanwhile, let’s not even talk about Xmas party. It’s pretty much a food fest right here.

The problem with food, I realize, is that most of the time, when we buy food, especially pre packaged food, it’s all pretty much laden with artificial coloring, additives, preservatives, all the yucky stuff that can really make you sick; many nice holiday wrapped chocolates for example. How about soft drinks like Fanta, Coca-cola, Dr. Pepper? Yes, even those reconstituted juices at the cold section of the supermarket that tries to pass off as fresh juice. Fresh juice in my opinion is anything just juiced from a juicer or a blender. Anything else is not.

Can you believe this poison sugar water isotonic drink is recommended by doctors for those who have diarrhea?

El Fresco night market juice shop

So anyways, this holiday season, give everyone the gift of love by showing your concern for your friends and family. When you go out and buy food, do stop an extra minute and read food labels and buy safe food.

You could make your own food using natural products, which by itself is free of additives, as presents. What I mean by that? Look at the package labels the next time you go to the grocery store. Notice something as basic as flour has preservatives in it.  The bottom line is, whether it is approved by the whatever government agency, we are still eating bad-for-you preservatives. Buy something that doesn’t have any preservatives if you can help it.

Alternatively, you can buy additive free cookies, cakes and any other food from a place you know serves good food, and I don’t mean, just tasty food. My friend Sui Wei sells preservative free, oh so good, choco chip cookies. I’m sure you probably know someone who does as well. Not only that, lots of gourmet specialty shops sell food that are free of additives, organic food as well.

You see, food is a great vehicle to get everyone closer. And if you show you are concerned about people’s health, they too will reciprocate and take care to feed you healthful food as well.

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More on

• Regular bread is full of additives
• What would you bring to a pot luck party?
• Is food making people around you crazy?
• Flowers, the natural food coloring
• Homemade, handmade butter

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Try this cook book that calls for preservative free ingredients
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-Kenny Roger’s recipe Page 75

- KFC Original Recipe Chicken Page 77

- Mrs Field’s Peanut Butter Cookies Page 91

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- White Castle Burgers Page 157

What beautiful flowers.

My grandma used to pick these bright, blue, delicate Telang flowers from her garden and use it to color quite a few things like fabrics and stuff, but she used it to color mainly food. I get mine outside a narrow grassy area at my neighborhood CIMB bank where it’s growing wild.

Back in the old days, women would cook one part sticky rice with plain water, while in another pot, they would have cooked another part sticky rice with bluish colored water. The water was previously soaked with the Telang flower petals and boiled gently for about 15 minutes to extract the colors. Once both the rice are done, they would just combined both the rice, gently stirring it together to create a two tone blue and white sticky rice dessert.

Some people add blueberries in their smoothies, turning it blue. I like to call my blue smoothies “A Very Smurfy Smoothie”. I don’t know why, but my kids think that name is just totally hilarious.

It would really be nice if more people used natural food coloring to color all the things around them, rather than using artificial coloring and food additives like calcium propionate.

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Read about

• Is food making people around you crazy?
• Is your bread bad for you and your family?
• My homemade bread, no preservatives, no artificial coloring, no eggs
• Malaysian bread statistics you may not know

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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.

– and –

“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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