Jessica’s Notes

When I was shopping at Sg. Wang Plaza, K.L few weekends back, I happened to come across some cute little decorationss. I did not realized that those were displayed items until I took a second glance. My goodness… they were merely cakes and sushi made of TOWEL. They looked so real. Price range was rather cheap too (RM20-RM70). If you’re looking for something special for birthdays, perhaps you should check this out!!!

Eggs are an excellent nutrient-dense food that packs six grams of protein, a bit of vitamin B-12, vitamin E, riboflavin, folic acid, calcium, zinc, iron, and essential fatty acids into a mere 75 calories. Second to the lactalbumin protein in human milk, eggs have the highest quality protein of any food.

People always say that having too much eggs are not good as eggs contain large amount of cholesterol. The concerns about unhealthy eggs which contributes to cholesterol has lead to the innovation of OMEGA EGGs.

Omega eggs are a type of “designer egg,” in which the yolk’s fatty acid profile has been modified by altering the hens’ diet. This egg is an excellent model for the saying, “you are what you eat.” Specific lipids — fatty acids and fat soluble vitamins — can be modified in the egg yolk by feeding the hen increased proportions of “good” fatty acids and increased amounts of fat soluble vitamins from dietary sources such as flax seed, fish oil or bioengineered algae. Check out the below nutritive comparison between Omega Eggs and Standard Egg.

Table I. Nutritive Value of Omega Eggs - Compared to Standard Eggs

For more reading about eggs:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T041100.asp
http://www.northland.cc.mn.us/biology/Biology1111/Bioreadings/Omega%20Eggs.htm

As mentioned in the earlier post, an acidic environment encourages growth and multiplication of cancer cells causing tumors. Here are some easy tips (suggested by John Hopkins) that you can do everyday to neutralize the acidic environments:

a) Fruits and Vegetables Diets: A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells, try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 to 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperature of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

b) Exercise: Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

c) Supplements: Supplements such as IP6, Flor ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFA’s and etc enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted or unneeded cells.

d) Positive mindset: Cancer is a disease of mind, body and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

Cancer cells is inside every human being. It is whether we have activated those cells to multiply enormously and turn into tumors.I received a forwarded powerpoint slides (summarized from John Hopkins - 20/Oct 2007) about cancer and it’s prevention today. I think it’s a simple guide that we all can follow:

a. Avoid Sugar: Sugar is a cancer feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to cancer cells. Sugar substitutes made of Aspartame is harmful. A better natural substitute would be honey or molasses but only in very small amount. Table salt that has chemical added to make it white in color should be substituted with sea salt.

b. Cut Milk: Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. But cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened Soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cut meat: Meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become purified and leads to more toxic buildup. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells. In addition to that, meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. Say no to high caffeine food: Avoid coffee, tea and chocolate which contain high caffeine. You can use green tea as a substitute. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

e. Reduce plastics: Make sure there are no plastic containers/wrappers in microwave. Bottle water in freezer should also be avoided. According to John Hopkins recent newsletter, dioxin chemical causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to cells of our bodies. Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from plastic. We should not reheat our food in microwave using plastic containers. This applies to food that contain fat. The combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Replacing with glass such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers are highly recommended.

There are three types of fat: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated.

Monounsaturated fats — including olive oil, sesame oil, canola oil, almond oil, flax oil, and fish oil — are good fats. These contain essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) that are critical in brain development and function, skin health, vascular health, proper immune function, fertility, and normal physical development.

Polyunsaturated fats, such as margarine, corn oil, hydrogenated safflower oil, and sunflower oil, also contain essential fatty acids. Unfortunately, these fats are highly refined and contain large amounts of trans fat. Trans fat, created by hydrogenating vegetable oil to make it spreadable, is implicated in both cancer and heart disease.

Saturated fats are the bad kind of fat. Included in this category is butter, peanut oil, coconut oil, palm kernel oil, and lard. These saturated fats elevate cholesterol and triglyceride levels, leading to an increased chance of heart attack and stroke. These oils are best avoided.

by Dr. Mao

For more information =>                                http://health.yahoo.com/experts/drmao/1165/health-tips-about-oil-pros-and-cons

It really wasn’t easy to cook the pack of brown rice that I bought. Tried a few times but it still tasted like burned rice (most of the time —> too hard (just like eating those burned rice leftover sticking on the claypot chicken rice).

After searching for a while, i think this is one of the best article I found so far about Brown Rice. Check out the summary:

Cooking Brown Rice.

• The basics is more or less the same with cooking white rice.
  
• Make sure you allow the rice to soak in water for about 30 minutes before turning on the heat (Soaking in water helps soften the grains).
• Water to grain proportion: 2:1 ratio. (2 cups of water to 1 cup of brown rice). Complete the brown rice cooking and check the texture of the rice by eating a few cooked grains. This will give you a starting parameter to work with and you can then make subtle changes to the time that the rice is soaked (before cooking) and also the proportion of water and brown rice.

Suggestions For Eating Brown Rice.

• If you have not eaten brown rice before, it would be a good idea for you to mix one portion of white rice and one portion of brown rice.
• Gradually reduce the proportion of white rice and allow the brown rice to be the major portion.
• You will soon love brown rice and go on with this as your choice of rice.

Source: http://www.health.food-recipe-cooking.com/brown-rice-health-benefit.htm

Having heard of the some healthcare professionals’ advices to consume of unpolished rice (also known as Brown rice) vs. polished rice, me and my fiancé bought a packet of it to try. As we have predicted, I was difficult to cook and not very pleasant to eat. That’s why I have actually browsed the net for certain cooking methods when I come across the below info:

Only till now that I realized how much good stuffs have been scraped away when we eat the softly textured and the beautifully presented whitish polished rice. Just check out the protien, fats, carbo, fibre, calcium, iron and vitamins lots.

Well, of course it’s not to say that we should avoid having polished rice from now on, it’s just that, if would be better if you can consume more unpolished rice. Bear in mind though that unpolished rice is a little more costly compared to the polished rice due to reasons related to economics of production. For more info about unpolished rice, check out my next episode of posting.

Source: http://www.helium.com/tm/37259/depends-whether-polished-unpolishedpolished