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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Maybe not the best face mask for smog / haze but it's sure darn cute!

A new study showed a link between exposure to smog before birth and low IQ in children, as reported by the Washington Post, and published in the August issue of Pediatrics.

This was why, hubby and I (pregnant with my first child back then) went all out and bought an outrageously expensive air filter at the height of the smog problem we had in Year 2005. I had nightmares about my unborn being smothered with really bad air! This annual smog / haze problem has been around for years. Now, if only we can get the Indonesians to stop burning on their side of the fence because really, the burning haze is really affecting us in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore. Plantation owners and farmers who wanted to clear their lands find burning the cheapest way to clear the brush. And really, it’s just a greedy, greedy, selfish method.

The head of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Dr. Syed Babar Ali, called it an international catastrophe.

And I agree! And unfortunately, for the past one month, I had bring out the air filter from my storage and use it again to protect my babies as best I can.

My Sharp Hepa Air Filter

His startled expression and pleading eyes say it all.

Left stranded in a rather undignified position, this poor baby elephant was in need of some urgent help.

Poor baby elephant stuck! Rescuers spent 3 hours freeing the animal, who was unharmed, by using a bulldozer to widen the hole

I love these regal creatures. In the old days, Malaysians, just like the Thais, used to use elephants to move large heavy objects, for Royal use, ceremonial use and so on. You see, Northern Malaysia was once part of the Kingdom of Thailand so they share a similar culture. Today, many of the elephants in Thailand are trained to carry tourists on elephant treks through the jungle or to beg on the streets of many large Thai cities. Baby elephants are often taught tricks to appeal to tourists and, although it is illegal in many cities, work the streets with their owners from early in the morning to late at night. However, unlike the Thais today, we hardly see elephants anymore, except in the zoos. We do have an elephant sanctuary called the The Kuala Gandah Elephant Orphanage Sanctuary Malaysia.

Started in 1974, Kuala Gandah is the only elephant sanctuary centre in Malaysia. The team is dedicated to locating, subduing, translucent problem elephants from areas where their habitats are constantly being encroached by plantations, to Malaysia’s National Parks such as Taman Negara.

I have been there in my 20s, and they allow people to take rides on the elephants as you can see in the picture above. The problem is, nobody warned my group that elephants have hair as thick and as rough as wires. So, those who wore shorts or pants with thin materials had a rough time as the stiff hair kept poking into our legs and butt as we sat on them. Fun stuff!

We were not prepared, but those who want to visit this Sanctuary will be …. after reading my post! Wear jeans.

There’s always volunteers from Malaysia and from other parts of the world at this sanctuary to help the fast disappearing Asian elephants. Please click on the picture above to go to the The Kuala Gandah Elephant Orphanage Sanctuary Malaysia to read about their conservation activities and to see how you can help.

Jasmin

A bamboo coffin

Just last week, hubby showed me an interesting article about eco friendly burial methods. Apparently, there’s sustainable bamboo weave coffins which are supposedly better than wooden coffins. Cheaper too. I think it’s absolutely wonderful. In theory it’s great, but think about it, in a lot of cases, families of the deceased may be coerced to buying a very expensive and not environmentally friendly coffin by the “coffin salesman” for fear of looking like cheapo skinflints who can’t be bothered to provide the best for the loved one who have since passed.

Me? I want my healthy, working body parts to be donated to be transplanted into bodies of people in need, like my cornea, heart, or whatever that is in good condition. I have reminded hubby not to donate my body to science and any medical facilities. My dead body is still my temple, and I want it to remain that way LOL. Oh yes, and after the good docs are through harvesting my body, I wish to be cremated and my ashes dumped in to the nearest sea, just like my paternal grandparents. Still not the most eco friendly method, due to the energy needed for the cremation, but this is how I want my Buddhist body to be handled.

Slightly off topic, my granddad passed away when I was 17. After the funeral, my dad put my grandpa’s ashes and bones into a cloth bag. He didn’t close the cloth bag all the way before he dropped the bag into the sea. When I asked why, dad said it’s so that granddad can swim out anytime he wants to. Anyhow, I always thought everything would be burned down to ashes. I mean, that’s what I see on tv, but apparently, not in Malaysia. There was still half a femur bone here, parts of the rib bone there. Grandma passed away a few years back, and yes, they did not fully burn her body down to ashes as well.

Nowadays, there’s all sorts of eco friendly burial products. There’s bio degradable urns. But why urns when a cheap cotton cloth bag will do, since someone’s going to bury the urn anyway. You can’t have a biodegradable urn sitting on top of the living room mantle anyways. It would look nasty as the urn start to bio degrade. There’s also special burial parks that looks exactly like parks with no burial stones to mar the landscape.

However, in my book, the best eco friendly burial is still the muslim burial. They use a simple white shroud to wrap the body, and then they bury the body in the muslim graveyard. Two simple burial stone marks the grave. Flowers and fragrant flower water is sprinkled onto the body and onto the grave. Prayers are made without much fuss and pomp.

A taoist grave.
Read about it at http://foolamak.com/fooie/qing-ming

To celebrate this holiday, we joined hubby’s old schoolmates at TGIF for a scrumptious dinner.

Food was excellent, but boy, oh boy, oh boy, was the servings huge! By now, most of you are aware of studies saying that eating less is actually better for our health right? If that is so, why are servings still such a gigantic proportions at the restaurants, and what can we do about it?

For starters, we can share. We can also just order an appetizer instead of the main course. We could also just eat half, and doggy bag the rest of it back home. There’s no shame in eating less, but if anyone asks or if you feel judged for doing these stuff or you are on a date or on a business dinner, just look at your dining companions in the eye, give a wide, genuine smile and say, you are dieting for health reasons; not lying, for sure.

For me, I have to consciously remind myself to eat less instead of just mindlessly wolfing down the entire 3 course dinner because I luvvv food.

Happy Birthday Malaysia!