The Truth About Saturated Fats and The Coconut Oil Benefits

The Truth About Saturated Fats and The Coconut Oil Benefits

Me and my princess Zahra Majdalene Matin

 Have a blessed Friday, a great day to give a gift to anyone in need even if it is a smile and good wishes.                                                              

                                                                           

Warisan Gamelan Melayu - Kunang-kunang Mabuk

Delightful Malay Food

Delightful Malay Food is just that!  

Delightful and Versatile.. no need for much preparations and no need of extensive use of kitchen utensils.  

The influence of Indian and Chinese cooking is clearly seen in the use of spices, coconut milk, chillies and herbs play an important role in seasoning and taste.  The stronger spices are used in the north of Malaysia whereas the more subtle spices in the south with the influence of Javanese cooking.

My mother was a great influence in my cooking who taught me to cook with taste, creativity and personal touch.  The final product should be reasonably tasty and seasonings such as chillies, spices, sugar, salt or herbs should be measured according to one's own personal taste.  Traditionally cooking usually require the use of the mortar and pestle but the food processor will achieve almost the same results.  Tonight i had cooked 2 very simple dishes and would like to share the recipe here for those who love having an adventure in cooking.  Rice is the usual accompaniment with these food but you may use other options like pasta, french bread, Indian Naan bread, chapati or paratha or mashed potatoes with gravy if that is your favourite!

The 2 recipes are :

1.  Crisp Fried Prawn in Tumeric and Garlic with black pepper (or any type of chillies)

2.  Cauliflower & Carrots with chicken in Coconut Cream

CRISP FRIED PRAWN IN TUMERIC AND GARLIC WITH BLACK PEPPER (for 1 person)

Ingredients  :
6 pieces of prawns or shrimps whichever you prefer
2 pips garlic smashed
1/2 tspn yellow powdered tumeric (more less according to taste)
1 tbspn chopped spring onion or scallion
1.5 tbspn vegetable oil
1/2 lemon to season
Black pepper to taste


How to Prepare 

1.  Clean the prawns or shrimp by chopping of the string-like moustache , but keep the whole crustacean as it is without peeling.

2.  In a frying pan, heat oil and fry the smashed or chopped garlic.  Fry till tender.

3.  Add the prawns/shrimp and fry till cooked.

4.  When the prawns changes it color to pink, sprinkle tumeric, black pepper and salt to taste.

5.  Cook for another 5 - 7 minutes or until fragrant and slightly brown and then add the spring onion/scallions, a squeeze of half lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

6. Scoop on to a plate and serve immediately with hot white rice or your choice of bread or mash potato.




Cauliflower, Carrots and Chicken in Coconut Cream 

Ingredients 

1.  1 cup of cauliflower break into small florets

2.  1/2 carrot sliced thinly in one inch slices or however you prefer

3.  1 tbspn of chopped chicken meat (other meats can also be used according to your pref)

4.  1/2 cup coconut cream (use canned coconut)

5.  1 pip garlic chopped

6.  1/2 small onion chopped

7.  Salt and pepper to taste (if you like the taste of chillies, use 1 chopped red or green chilli)

8.  1 tbspn vegetable oil 

9.  Optional -  1 - 2 tbspn water



How to Prepare

1.  Heat a frying pan with oil.

2.  Fry the garlic and onion until soft and add the chopped chicken, stir until chicken is cooked.

3.  Add carrots and cauliflower and cook for a few minutes until soft

4.  Add coconut cream and a tbspn of water if it gets too thick.

5.  Cook it a little more by closing the pan to steam the vegetables for 3 - 5 minutes.

6.  Add salt and white pepper to taste.

7.  Dish up and serve immediately.

                                                                         

You are What You Eat .. Live Food you are ALive, eat Dead Food then you are good as dead!

It is amazing how easy it is to keep to a diet plan when everyone else says it will never work!

It has been fifteen days and i must say i did at least 80% of what i promised myself.  The other 20%? well ... no one's perfect so im not going to get upset about that.  As long as i am true to the plan i know i am making progress.  The changes i feel include a lighter body, better sleep, no craving for sweets, no hunger pangs and best of all i've got back the sprint in my step!  This is not the point to weigh myself as it may backfire my objectives.  Most importantly my objective is not the numbers but how healthy i feel, how good my bp and blood sugar reads.  

It was years ago when i stumbled upon Harvey and Marilyn Diamond's Fit For Life, that for once dieting information made a lot of sense.  After reading a few pages of this book, i could  not agree more that calori counting, checking food portions, or even binging on one food type !! which was all just sort of a hokey-pokey thing!  Eating this way is nonsensical  because one tend to get bored and slide and go back to their regular way of binging on food, which is why all diets don't work.  There has got to be some sense in it all.  Harvey Diamond's Fit For Life made a lot of sense to me because he applied the correct way of eating, the choice of keeping the body in an alkaline state by choosing from a variety of food choices that are alkaline in nature and never ever having to worry about counting calories because the body does not deal with numbers.  The body's only purpose is to deal with compatible foods that bring about ease on the organs to do its job. 

For example, we are taught to eat a carbohydrate (starch) which is alkaline with something of acid state like beef steak and a tiny portion of vegetables on the side which doesn't get any attention!  In the stomach, imagine how these two alkaline and acidic items have to deal with each other!  The body's own hydrochloric acid in the stomach has his job to do too that is to digest this foodstuff in any way it could.  It activates the enzymes so that the protein could be removed from the peptides in order for the food to be processed further to be absorbed into the blood stream.  Don't worry, this is the only point where it is as scientific as it gets!  The nature of this hydrochloric acid or HCI is highly corrosive and is able to dissolve all the food that we eat!  It's job is also to fight off all kinds of infection, kill pathogens, or any disease causing organisms!  (Subhanallah - Glory be to God) If not for the stomach lining, the acid would have digested your stomach!  

Now, after all that time of having to work to break down this two food type without success .. the food is passed on to the bigger intestines (which by now would be foul smelling in the stomach as it acid state neutralizes the alkaline) to do their work ... as if to say, Here you take if from here, we can't do much about it!!!!  And you end up with a heaviness in your insides and letting out a lot of gas!  hehe

Okay, i am not going technical or scientific any further, but that made a lot of sense to me!  I am thinking why do i do this to my body (some people call it Temple)!  I am ruining my own body!  That is when all the diseases start taking over your body!  

However, Life can be very sneaky!  It takes you away from your main concerns.  Life throws dreams at you.  Life makes you believe that it is fashionable  to eat at fancy restaurants because only the RICH, Important, High Class people dine at fancy, expensive and luxury eateries.  Okay, not everyone could always eat at these fancy places .. you say.. they brought in the burger place, the pizza place, the bigger the better and the cheaper it gets to compete with one another.  They made luxury .. affordable.. they put the divide between those who are IN and those who are out ...  those who are cool and those who are centuries behind.  It makes you covet for the unattainable ... 

Then they came up with super delicious spiked drinks that keep a hold on your taste buds better than any drug cartel could ever handle.. soda.  It's tasty, very sweet but it keeps you addicted and it is portrayed as the drink of youths..   So, again we are being tricked into being a Global Citizen .. eat this coz its cool, drink this coz its cool, wear this to look like us coz we're cool ..  and the messages go on and on.... 

Do you ever wonder then why we are all so ill with diseases from our own ignorance and doing?  

Let's get back to my original point.. Fit for Life is the exactly what it says .. if you are Fit then you are alive and can live a good life!  Simple as ABC isn't it?  It doesn't need a scientist to figure that out!

Just like the adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"... when did we last hear that???

I can get more tech than that .. so if you really want to know more, get Harvey Diamond's book.  

Let me tell you this ... I  was once a whopping 200 pounder woman good enough to qualify contending in WWF!!!   hehehe yea funny now, but not then!  It was madness.  Even i could not see myself in the mirror!  How did i get there .. fertility drugs, life's pressure to have children and sadness.   

But Fit For Life made sense to me and just after 2.5 months my weight dropped to 140 lbs!  

This was achieved with consistent proper nutrition keeping the body alkaline, sensible eating style and cardio vascular workouts to exercise the heart and burn off the fats!  There was so many awesome exercises to choose from so i chose the easiest which i cld do anytime i liked!  jumping on the trampoline! (with so many broken springs)  This time round , i will have to do things slightly differently albeit gently as the body need tendre love and care.  

Fit for Life teaches us to eat properly and we can eat anything we want through Food Combining Method.  e.g. eat starches and carboh with vegetables , eat meat or seafood with vegetables only to keep the alkalinity so that the stomach can deal with the food the best possible way.

If you love beef, chicken ,lamb - have it with fresh raw green vegetables.  Why raw - because HEAT kills the vitamins and minerals.  If you can't eat them raw, then juice them up or lightly sautee them.  BEST is raw all the time.

If  you want to eat potatoes, rice, bread .. omit the meat instead eat them with any raw green vegetables for the best result.  

Have as much fruit and vegetable juices as you like.

No more messy kitchens and time cooking .. you just need a Juicer and possibly a steamer or grill for your vegetables.  Lite cooking using the steamer and grill for some of the hardier vegetables is not a problem.  

I don't know what you think of this, but i have made the mark and reached the result i wanted in the past.  I still think it is fullproof and a workable solution for me to gain back my health and a svelt silhoutte that i dream of!  Go for it Irena.. got nothing to lose but everything to gain! hehehe. (i have a side plate with a half bitten tomato on it!) bon appeteett!

Makanan Cinta Berahi (JAMU)

Best Traditional Malay Remedy for Mother's After-Birth Recovery and Sexual Health
(passed down to me from my late Mak Angkat, who lived till her ripe old age of 80)

Warning : ONLY FOR MARRIED WOMEN

To be taken once a month after relief from menstruation.

Ingredients :

3-5 seeds of black pepper (must be odd number) 
1 centimeter root of tumeric (no powders)
1.5 centimeter root of ginger (squeeze out the juice)
1 tablespoon pure (dark) honey (must use only wooden spoon to scoop)
1 egg (only use telur ayam kampung (egg from domesticated chicken from the village)
A pinch of blackseeds Nigella Sativa (habbatus sauda) 

Preparation : 

1.  Clean and dry all the roots of ginger and tumeric.
2.  Except for the egg, put all other ingredients into a stone grinder (tumbuk sambal yg 
     bersih)  
3.  Pound all ingredients (black pepper, tumeric, add juice of ginger, n blackseeds)
4.  Then put in the honey and mix well
5.  Break the egg into a teacup
6.  Spoon the pounded ingredients into the cup
7.  DO NOT stirrrrrr!!!!
8.  Gulp it down neat! 
9.  Only drink water after you have swallowed this egg/spice remedy.
10.  For Muslim ladies .. Selawat 3x and make doa for healing, strength and  and ..... ;-P
11.  Boleh main longset pingpong ke, table tennis ke.. karate pun boleh!

Amalkan sebulan sekali

Multi Trilliion Dollar Heath Drink and Food

I realized all this time i have strayed off from a certain path.  I was too caught up in "dancing" to the tunes of popular media messages about good food, shopping, lifestyle, etc .. that i realized they are really not what i truly want!  What do i want for now?  I really want to feel light, exhilarating, free, but most of all i want to be healthy.  My mistake, i have been eating without one minute thinking about what i put into my fragile body.  Now i realized i have been slowly beating my physical self into imperfection and loss of good health.  It wasn't just the doctor's orders that woke me up, it was the drowning of pills that reminded me of my mother who was till the end of her days, who had a mountain of pills that she had to take in order that her body could function well.  I pray then that that would not happen to me.  I pray that no one would have pity on me if that day comes! and I pray that Zahra would not have to suffer seeing me in that condition. 

Food produce these days are so corrupted with chemicals that it is so hard to find something that is really free and pure unless one plant them in the backyard.  The best way would be to just take extra care in washing the fruits and vegetables as clean as it gets.  

I have learned that the body itself is an Alkaline and in order for it to function at its best, we should eat mostly food that keep our bodies alkaline in state.  Most fruits and vegetables should do that easily.  If they are to be cooked, they should be cooked lightly. I like the fact that it is also termed as Pure Food!  Pure as in no other chemicals are added to it unless it is processed.  As such it is simply wonderful just to pick up a fruit from a tree and eat it the way it is presented to us !  The body welcomes with open arms its delicious sweet, gentle flavour packed with all the heavenly vitamins and minerals from the sun, water and the ground.  Even the soul is cherished and grateful.  I think we humans cannot do without the powers of the sun, wind, water and air.  The body becomes stronger with it and the soul appreciates the gifts from the Maker (Allah SWT) .. others call it gifts from Mother Earth.  Why not Father Earth .. i guess it is because a Mother is designed to provide her child all the good things in life.. good food, drink, values and mind. The spirit of humanity does come from appreciation and thankfulness and the fuel that drives these come from the consumation of pure and gentle food.  Only then the soul can reach it's spiritual heights.  Foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, some meat esp lamb (less acidic than beef)and fish,  have all the "magic" that we ever need to achieve all our ambitions for a loving and peaceful existence.  What more can there be than a gift from the Creator the God AlMighty.  

Within a week of simply eating all fruits and vegetables in its raw form, drinking pure juices,  and sometimes lightly cooked veges ,  i have found myself to be more contented and i ever had been.  I no longer feel the heaviness that slowed me and a sense of wellness has enveloped me.  This is really great!  Whenever i feel a little tired, as the body detoxifies, i just lay down for a few minutes and it will all be over.  

Drinking a cup of water the first thing in the morning was a wise old trick from my great grandmother who passed down the knowledge that if you want to be beautiful, drink water upon waking up in the morning!  It is suppose to give you a beautiful  glow on your face!  Now i know why, it is only to make our "insides' work beautifully so that all the 'baddies' will be washed out for the glow to exude from within. 

People are searching for the fountain of youth in multibillion dollar type Health Drinks .. but really, the fountains are in our precious fruits and vegetables.  Prayers, dzikrullah or meditations keeps our soul free from worldly diseases and keep us balanced in monstrous craziness of the world.