Food for good skin and health

I am sorry for my absence for almost two weeks. I am extremely upset that I am unable to access WordPress in Shanghai. I am trying to tap on proxy servers to get through the firewall.

I have been in Shanghai for a more than a week. I do like this place very much. The weather is cool but sometimes the wind sends down a chill into my bones!

Everything is great except my skin – it is cracking. I have been putting on more moisturizer for the past few days. I am heading to the mega supermarket to get baby oil later.

I came upon an advertising newsletter which is distributed out at the subway station. There is a section on lifestyle that talks about the type of food you could eat to improve the condition of various parts of your body.

Here are the tips:

Tip #1: Improve your hair condition

Eat small wheat which provides organic and natural nutrients. It also helps to prevent the growth of white hair, balding, and it provides a healthy shine to your hair!

This is really new to me. I am definitely going to try this out.

Tip #2: Care for your brains

It is really simple – just eat biscuits. With a well-balanced level of sugar, biscuits help our build our brains cells and improve memory.

I should have eaten more biscuits during my examination period.

Tip #3: Protect your eyes

Yes, it is definitely carrots which are rich in Vitamin A. It helps to improve eye sight, prevent astigmatism. Besides protecting your eyes, chomping down carrots would also make your skin happy.

Tip #4: Love your heart

Eat the silky, white and soft tofu which helps to prevent blood clots and high blood pressure. Tofu also contains calcium for your body.

I love tofu, and it is pretty easy to find tofu in Shanghai.

Tip #5: Protect your digestive system (This has been my health problem for ages)

This is not something everyone would like – garlic. It is reported that people who consume garlic often enough, would face lesser indigestion problems.

Tip #6: Get good skin (listen up everyone!)

The orange and funny looking vegetable that is iconic for Halloween – the pumpkin. (I am surprised too.) Well, pumpkin contains Vitamin A and helps reduce the risk of developing skin cancer.

I am posting this entry with the help of my dear friend in Singapore, Elaine. Thanks a lot my friend. I will definitely try to tap onto some proxy servers so that I can post more often. 

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 7

I will only be away from Singapore for four months, but I am already missing all my favourite local dishes. I will miss Nasi Lemak, for sure. I love to have my Nasi Lemak served with lots of chilli, especially those sweet-spicy type.

 

Well, where does Nasi Lemak stand in the “healthier-unhealthy food” fight? This fight is Nasi lemak against Hainanese Chicken Rice.

 

 

      Nasi Lemak                            Hainanese Chicken Rice

(Source: wikipedia)

 

Here is what Simply Her researched on.

 

“Gram for gram, chicken rice is much lower in calories, higher in protein, lower in carbohydrates, and gives you about the same amount of fat as nasi lemak. To cut your fat intake even more, opt for steamed rice, and ask for extra cucumber to up your fibre and vitamin intake.”

 

I have to agree that Nasi Lemak is less healthy as compared to Hainanese Chicken Rice for the various reasons based on my own analysis:

 

1. The rice served for Nasi Lemak is cooked with coconut milk.

2. Nasi Lemak comes with other side-dishes that are usually fried, for example, fried chicken wings (my favourite!), fried ikan billis (aka anchovies).

3. The chilli served with Nasi Lemak is cooked with lots of oil.

4. (This is personal) I will do not feel full eating one packet of Nasi Lemak, so I will usually eat another dish! (You can tell what a glutton I am.)

 

I am busy preparing for my examinations now, and I will be off to Shanghai on Friday. I hope I can get my Internet connection fixed quickly so that I can update my posts once I am settled down. 🙂

 

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 6

In 10 days’ time, I will be leaving for Shanghai for my 16 weeks internship. I am beginning to miss Singapore’s local food, especially the hawker food.

 

Now, my love for hawker food brings my attention to today’s contestants – char kway teow and carrot cake.

 

(Source:boo_licious of Masak-masak blog)                                               

 

(Source: www.ourawesomeplanet.com)

 

As we know, both are fried with a lot of oil, and of course, they come with lots of calories and fat.

 

But here is what Simply Her has to say: “Gram for gram, char kway teow wins hands down – it has more protein and less fat, even if it’s slightly higher in carbohydrates.”

 

(Rejoice) I am pretty shocked with the verdict, however, because I love fried carrot cake, it is a dish that I can eat for breakfast, snack and supper.

 

Nonetheless, please refrain from eating char kway teow and carrot cake too frequently.  They are good for occasional treats.

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 5

The food battle on healthier-unhealthy food continues to amuse me. Today, the contestants are berry jam and kaya.

    

(source: gettyimages)              (Source: www.kaya.sg)

Kaya seems more unhealthy as compared to berry jam. Kaya contains sugar (lots of it), coconut milk and eggs.

However, Simply Her magazine found out that Kaya gives you more protein, less sugar and about the same amount of dietary fibre as jam.  If you really love jam, opt for a fruit conserve, which has a higher vitamin and fruit content, and less sugar.

It is time for teabreak in Singapore, and I am craving for some kaya toast.

(source: www.singaporefoodrecipes.com)

 

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 4

The healthier-unhealthy food battle continues…

For this round, the contestants are tiramisu and brownie.

      

(source: gettyimages)

Tiramisu is contains mascarpone cheese, while chocolate brownie contains chocolate and butter.

Gram for gram, tiramisu has fewer calories and is lower in fat than a brownie. You may wish to read more about the nutrition facts of tiramisu and brownie.

Tiramisu is “healthier” also because of the added nutritional value from the cheese content – cheese is rich in calcium and phosphorus.

What is your take on this?

I love brownie, so I will just eat it at all cost. (Well, maybe after a gym workout.)

 

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 3

This is my weakest link – dipping lots of condiment with my fast food.

Whenever I eat McDonald’s, I will have at least three different condiment to go along. I will have curry sauce, chilli sauce and mayonnaise.

(source: stockxpert)

I do know that it is very unhealthy, but here is a consolation. There is another condiment that contains more fat, and that is tartar sauce!

Now, the next two contestants are mayonnaise and tartar sauce.

Tartar sauce is actually mayonnaise blended with finely chopped pickled cucumber, capers, onions (or chives) and fresh parsley. That’s why it has more calories than mayonnaise. Therefore, per tablespoon, mayonnaise has half the fat of tartar sauce.

I feel less guilt when I consume mayonnaise now. Thanks to Simply Her magazine for this great research. 🙂

*Updates*

A fellow blogger, amandaiscooking asked a great question about how would tartar contain more fat when the ingredients do not have fat content. With careful examination, the ingredients do contain calories, to a small contributing amount, I must say.

Here are some links to the nutrition facts of the main ingredients that go into the mayonnaise, which makes it the “unhealthier” tartar sauce:

1. pickled cucumbers
2. onion
3. capers

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 2

Now, our next food “contestants” would be honey and maple syrup.

(source: stockxpert)

The winner is honey, because maple syrup has fewer calories in terms of sugar content while honey has trace amounts of vitamins and minerals. The former is also an excellent source of trace elements like manganese, ribofalvin and zinc.

Once again, the above analysis is provided by Simply Her magazine, March 2008 issue. 🙂

There are many ways you can consumer honey. Mix it into a drink, spread it onto your bread, or add it as a seasoning for chicken. 🙂 Try it!

The healthier-unhealthy food – Part 1

I have always thought that french fries is an unhealthy choice of snack, because it is deep-fried. However, if you compare french fries to potato chips, the former may likely give you less calories.

  (source: stockxpert)

Why is that so?

For the same serving size, french fries contain roughly half the fat and calories, and a bit more fibre, than potato chips. Due to its higher water content, fries also fill you up faster than chips.

Chips are easier to pop into the mouth so there is a high chance you will end up eating more chips than fries, even though the calorie content of the two are comparable.

Intrigued?

There are many more such comparisons, such as honey and maple syrup. For the next few days, I will be posting these various comparisons.

These information are found on Simply Her magazine, March 2008 issue. This is a great and useful information which allows us to choose wisely amongst the not-so-healthy food!

Catch me as I roll out these food fight among the unhealthy food!

Answers to weight-watch, dieting and slimming down

A fellow blogger has great answers for some of the most burning questions which most of us are concern about:

1. Which foods should I eat pre-and post-workout?

2. Should I count calories, fat or carbs if I’m watching my weight?

3. What’s the biggest dieting mistake?

4. How can I quickly slim down?

Find your answers here!