Fitness Quotes

Eat more whole grains! Substitute a whole-grain product for a refined product - such as eating whole-wheat bread instead of white bread or brown rice instead of white rice.

*Taken from iGoogle Gadget

润肠玉米羹 Corn Soup

功效 Effects：
滋润
润肠
材料Ingredients：
玉米粒 Sweet Corn Kernel 250g
十谷米 Whole Grain Rice 100g
班兰叶 Pandan Leaves few pieces
冰糖 Crystal Sugar 2 tbsp
水 water 1700ml
做法 Making Procedures：
用SOYLOVE煮出4-5人份的玉米羹。

预先将十谷米浸4小时。
Soaks the whole grain rice in advance for 4 hours.

1. 把玉米粒和十谷米放入网内。
   Put the sweet corn kernels and whole grain rice into the filtering barrel. Lock the filtering barrel at the lower part of the main unit. (Fig 1 above)
   
   
2. 把1.7ml的水、班兰叶和冰糖放入桶内。
   Add 1.7ml of normal temperature of water, pandan leaves and crystal sugar in the pot. Pull the grip forward to lock the device. (Fig 2 above)
   
   
3. 连接电源线到主机的上部。
   Connect the power cord to the upper part of the main unit. (Fig 3 above)
   
   
4. 按"粥" 按钮开始操作。
   Press the "Porridge" button to operate the unit. (Fig 4 above)

25-30分钟后润肠玉米羹就大功告成了。

健康十谷米汤 Healthy Whole Grain Soup

材料 Ingredients：
十谷米 Whole Grain Rice 200g
番薯 Sweet Potatoes 50g-80g
班兰叶 Pandan Leaves few pieces
冰糖 Crystal Sugar 2 tbsp
水 Water 1700ml

做法 Making Procedures：
用SOYLOVE煮出4-5人份的十谷排毒汤。

1. 把番薯切成丁， 将十谷米和番薯放入网内。
   Cut the sweet potatoes in small cubes (approx. 1cm). Put the sweet potatoes, whole grain rice into the filtering barrel. Lock the filtering barrel at the lower part of the main unit. (Fig 1 above)
   
   
2. 把1.7ml的水、班兰叶和冰糖放入桶内。
   Add 1.7ml of normal temperature of water, pandan leaves and crystal sugar in the pot. Pull the grip forward to lock the device. (Fig 2 above)
   
   
3. 连接电源线到主机的上部。
   Connect the power cord to the upper part of the main unit. (Fig 3 above)
   
   
4. 按"粥" 按钮开始操作。
   Press the "Porridge" button to operate the unit. (Fig 4 above)
   

25-30分钟后十谷排毒汤就大功告成了。

排毒南瓜浓汤 Detox Pumpkin Soup

南瓜的价值不贵但却营养丰富。南瓜含低热量(low in calorie)，丰富的胡萝卜素(beta-carotene)和维生素B(vitamin B)。

功效 Effects：
降血糖 reduce blood sugar
排毒 detox
减肥 lose weight

中医认为：南瓜具有治疗调理肠胃(recuperates the stomach)、肺痈(pulmonary abscess)，能驱虫解毒、补中益气的功效。《本草纲目拾遗》说：南瓜色黄味甘，多补元气，不得以贱而忽之。” 因此，吃南瓜餐能有效缓解宝宝的便秘。

材料Ingredients：
南瓜 Pumpkin 500g
燕麦 Oatmeal 2-3 tbsp
薏米 Barley 2 tbsp
冰糖 rock sugar 1 tbsp
水 water 1700ml

你也可以用鸡汤来取代部分的水; 用胡椒粉和盐来取代冰糖; 加入少许洋葱也行。

做法 Making Procedures：
用SOYLOVE煮出一碗南瓜浓汤。
http://soylove.com/english/pumpkinsoup.asp?left=5

没有用的朋友也可以传统的方法把南瓜切成块，和洋葱、鸡汤一起煮到南瓜软， 再将南瓜块搅成泥，煮开后加入胡椒粉和盐提味。

Soylove – An Easy Way to Prepare Natural Soup/Baby Foods

Soylove IOM-201A is a soymilk maker which designed in USA, made in Korea with Japanese parts. It is a popular food maker in US and Korea, and it is becoming a hot model selling in Malaysia, getting more popular in Singapore.

What is so good about this machine? I personally like its features as follow:

• Speedy food processor - Make soymilk, bean curd and various types of soups in 20-30 minutes with raw bean/vegetables and water
• Easy to make food - Automatic process
• Quality of Food - Use natural ingredients to make creamy/thick soups. Cereals are well blended for easier digestion

Comments:

• It is an easy way of making your own soymilk, soups or teas. No hassle – Just put all ingredients in the bucket and push a button.
• Thick whole grains soup is tastier than what I expected. Thick soups prepared by Soylove are also good for people with digestion problem as well as kids.
• Consume ROUGH FOOD in FINE METHOD – I do not used to favor food like sweet potato, whole grains, pumpkin even though these are healthy foods but I just like them when presented in soups. Now I cannot wait to explore more recipes on rough food.
• My husband was not really supportive when I decided to buy Soylove but now he would ask me to make soymilk and black glutinous rice dessert for him frequently.

To mummies...
You can send me private mesasge if you are interested in this machine. I can pass you the contact distributor in M'sia or Singapore

iGoogle Experience

Besides dealing with the daily household stuff, a modern homemaker should also keep herself acknowledged with the technical step as far as possible. Just wandering whether you have tried the iGoogle page creation facility.

What is iGoogle anyway?

Google offers the ability to create a personalized iGoogle page that gives you at-a-glance access to key information from Google and across the web. On this self-designed page, you can choose and organize content such as:

• Your latest Gmail messages
• Headlines from Google News and other top news sources
• Weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
• Bookmarks for quick access to your favorite sites from any computer
• Your own section with content you find from across the web

Besides the above things that you can do with your own iGoogle page, you can also choose a theme for each of the tab (category) created. Some of the themes are very lovely – The background of each theme will change from time to time. I have provided the screen shots of my iGoogle as follow:

Fig 1: 'Home' tab theme.

Fig 2: 'News' tab theme.

I personally find it quite useful. You may want to visit the following page to find out how to personalize your own iGoogle:
http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25551

Ratatouille

Has anyone seen this movie? I have not. May be this weekend. How to pronounce this word anyway? Yes.. Rat-a-too-ee.

Ratatouille is a vegetable stew, usually made with eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and onions, seasoned with herbs and garlic.

Aah… zucchini. Whenever I heard of this vege name, or see this word, or even see this vege in the market, I feel disgusting. I just cannot get rid of the taste of zucchini in my mouth whenever I think of it. It is not because it tastes horrible, just because I had too much of it the last time I prepared it. Ehh... I think I will decline ratatouille for a long while, but I don mind watching the movie.

5+ A Day. Have you practice that?

5+ A Day was a campaign launched in NZ in 1994 by the non-profit organization United Fresh NZ Inc to encourage all New Zealanders to eat and enjoy eating 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables every day for health, taste and variety.

There was similar campaign launched in Singapore as well but it was called 2+2 - "Eat two servings of fruit and two servings of vegetables daily".

I like serving portion image shown on United Fresh NZ Inc website (as shown below):

“A serving is about a handful – this is why we have a hand in our logo to measure servings. Everyone uses their own hand to measure their servings. This means a serving for an adult is a lot bigger than a serving for a small child.”

BUT… how many of us really practice it? I doubt, even myself. Hehe..

Why said so? The facts are...

• Many people do not eat breakfast
  
  May be they do not have time? Some people do have the habit of having breakfast. Yesss… I ever heard one of the ladies in the office saying “Oh.. I usually don eat breakfast. I don have the habit of eating breakfast la…”. Alamak!

• Carbo and protein breakfast

What breakfast would you have? Beehon/fried noodle with egg, nasi lemak, currypuff, sausage with egg, chicken porridge or yao za guai?

• Lunch without fruits and vege
  

What lunch you usually have? Prawn noodle, fried fish noodle, cha siew rice, chicken rice, noddles? Some people eat 2 vege + 1 meat rice. Some people will have fruits after lunch. The number of fruit and vegetable serving could be just 3 servings or less after all.

• Dinner? How many serving of fruit and vege you mange to take?

I had a jumbo fruit set with my daughter yesterday evening. She was so excited to see so many fruits on the plate. Haha...we ate everything on the plate... feeling great.

Hmm…I gotto really put the 5+ A Day in practice. How about you, my friends?

肠燥便秘? 勿食莲子

莲子 (Lotus Seed)

<<性味>>甘涩，平。

<<功用主治>>养心益肾，补脾。涩肠 (se4 chang2)。治夜寐多梦，遗精，*淋浊，久痢，虚泻，妇人崩漏带下。石莲子并能止呕、开胃，常用治*噤口痢 (jin4 kou3 li4)。

莲子功用多多，但是什么时候不宜使用呢? 肠燥便秘患者。

我所找到的资料就提到 - 肠燥便秘者应该润下通肠，忌收涩固肠。 莲子有收涩的作用， 所以如果患者食用莲子，会使病情加重。 反而是对脾虚便溏、腹泻者较适宜。

以上资料是取于药品资讯网。 他们的资料也是取于《本草经集注》。

所以呢 。。。当你或你的孩子有肠燥便秘的情况时，就应该避免食用莲子，比如莲子粥、莲子羹等等。

*淋浊 - 指小便滴沥涩痛，尿出混浊的病证
*噤口痢 - 指患痢疾而见饮食不进，食入即吐，或呕不能食

The english version of the lotus seed's uses, application and contrainditions (in brief) can be found at Sen - traditional Chinese medicine (tcm) website.

肠燥便秘? 勿食莲子

肠燥便秘? jishi

Children's Song - Baby Bumblebee

My kid was mumbling this song to 2 months ago which I do not know how to sing. I decided to find out the song lyric to sing along with her. Hmmm... now I know what was she singing.

Baby Bumblebee

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee,
Won't my mommy be so proud of me,
I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee,
Ouch! It stung me!

I'm squishing up the baby bumblebee,
Won't my mommy be so proud of me,
I'm squishing up a baby bumblebee,
Ooh! It's yucky!

I'm wiping off the baby bumblebee,
Won't my mommy be so proud of me,
I'm wiping off the baby bumblebee,
Now my mommy won't be mad at me!

Watch the Baby Bumblebee from one of the Barney episode on YouTube.

油虫珠

我女儿一岁大以后, 家婆就常常给她喝糖浆七星茶,但我总是觉得糖浆的七星茶太甜而且不知道她的身体是否适合常喝七星茶。

有一次她小伤风就带她让中医师看看并顺便带了糖浆七星茶让他给给意见。 他指出那种糖浆七星茶含有酒精和高糖分,应该少喝或尽量泡稀薄点。
他还开了适合我女儿的七星茶配方让我自己煎煮给孩子喝. 材料如下:

1. 山楂
2. 竹叶
3. 谷芽
4. 麦芽
5. 灯芯
6. 炒薏仁
7. 蝉衣
8. 琵琶叶
9. 甘草
10. 油虫珠

以上材料有些我懂有些不懂但它们的名字都满好听的, 对吧?
直到去了中药铺才知道什么是油虫珠. 你知道油虫珠是什么吗?

是'蟑螂粪便' - 治小孩肚风和呕吐等.. 哈哈

Ivy Extracts – Benefit in Peditric Bronchial Asthma

I believe many mothers are resist to western medicine when they fall sick, just like me. I was a little hesitate to give my daughter the PROSPAN cough syrup prescribed by the pediatrician but I was at ease after knowing the ingredient – Dried ivy leaf extract.

Do you know what is Ivy called in Chinese? 常春藤

Ivy is recommended for illnesses of the respiratory tract and symptomatic treatment of chronic inflammatory bronchial conditions. You can find out the details from the American Botanical Council.

The syrup did help to relieve and ease my daughter’s coughing. Now I always keep a bottle of PROSPAN at home in case family members need it. Recently my husband was having bad cough but his condition was improved after consuming PROSPAN for a few days.

PROSPAN is made in Germany and distributed worldwide .It is manufactured by Engelhard Arzneitmittel. You have to buy PROSPAN cough syrup with prescription in Singapore (around SGD 7++) while it is a non-prescription medicine in Malaysia that you can easily get from pharmacies (around RM 9++).

Impressions to share:

I let my family members to consume PROSPAN because Ivy is herbal medicine – is nature. It is …

o mucolytic – mucous-reducing
o secretolytic - secretion-reducing
o spasmolytic - relieving or preventing spasms

It has non-drowsy, alcohol-free, sugar-free formula and it tastes like cherry – my daughter does not resist drinking it.☺ Not to worry, it is non-additive.

It has no side effects only in rare cases, it may have a laxative effect due to the content of sorbitol (山梨醇) in the product.

You may also want to read the PROSPAN cough syrup information posted at the following:

http://ugaritpharma.com/prospan/Prospan_en.html#Composition:

My personal opinion - PROSPAN may not help for all kinds of cough but you can try when if you are not having stubborn cough. For serious illness is always better to consult your doctor.

豆腐与葱相克

很多人喜欢煮豆腐时并洒些小葱在上面，认为这样很好吃，但其实，豆腐与葱是相克的。

为什么呢？

因为葱含有大量的草酸(Oxalic acid)， 而豆腐中的钙与葱中的草酸结合后会形成一种白色沉淀—草酸钙(Calcium oxalate)。草酸钙这种不溶性的沉淀不容易被人体吸收，如果长期这样配搭食用，一来造成人体对钙的吸收困难，进而导致人体内钙质的缺乏; 二来也浪费了豆腐中宝贵的钙。

Vacuum Thermal Cooker – Good Helper in Kitchen

My mum bought for me a good quality of vacuum thermal cooker long time ago even before I got married. Before that I did not even bother how much it cost until I owned a kitchen and a kid.

Thinking of what to prepare for my kid’s dinner has becoming part of my daily task. How could I manage to prepare a bowl of nice soup in such a short time after I got off work and picked up my kid from childcare centre? This cooker has become a good helper to safe me from a lot of hassle. Some people called it the MAGIC COOKER.

So how does this vacuum thermal cooker look like? It is actually an inner pot that by high quality stainless steel which enclosed inside a vacuum insulated stainless steel outer shell to broil soup or even stews without the need of electricity or gas. If I plan to broil soup today, all I have to do in the morning is to prepare the soup ingredients and put in the inner pot, simply broil on stove and then put it inside the outer pot. Is that all? Yes, or may be add a bit of salt to the soup before I serve it for dinner night.

How does this vacuum thermal cooker work actually? The outer pot is actually acts as an excellent heat insulator which can maintain the temperature of food inside. It continues to cook for another 2-6 hours. The one I am using can keep the inner pot heat up to 12 hours! Few things good about this cooker are the food inside never overcooked, I can leave it unattended without the fear of fire because it does not required electricity to operate (an energy saver per say), no worry of broiling dry because it produced less loss of water, and yet it preserves the taste of food.

Still cannot imagine how it looks like? Simple use these keywords in your search engine to find out how it looks like and other details – ‘vacuum thermal cooker’, ‘magic cooker’, ‘thermal pot’, etc. May be i should take a picture of mine and post it here. There are many brands available in the market now and the price has becoming more affordable. Those who are interested can look for a good one and experience it yourself. You are also welcome to share your recipes of using the cooker here.

23 Jul 07 - Just posted my cooker as shown.