Some Of The “Superfoods” I Have Been Consuming Regularly

1144 days ago

One of the most important concepts of staying healthy is eating the right foods. If you eat right, you will be healthy. All foods have nutrition. Some more so than others....

One of the most important concepts of staying healthy is eating the right foods. If you eat right, you will be healthy. All foods have nutrition. Some more so than others. However, I am a big fan of telling others to consume certain types of “superfoods” regularly is a good way to maintain your health. The reason is not just because they are packed full of nutrients, vitamins and minerals but because they make everything easier. For example, if you consume a piece of fruit which gives you the daily recommended amount of Vitamin C, you don’t need to worry about having enough Vitamin C for the day and doing all sorts of calculations and what-not, just to consume enough Vitamin C. Life shouldn’t be all calculations. Time is better spent for you to exercise or doing your favourite hobby.

Anyway, I have a list of “superfoods” which I take regularly.  Most of these foodstuff can be easily found in our local stores and are not expensive nor are they exotic. I don’t believe in exotic foodstuff which has some sort of miracle giving life healing properties. In fact, most of the superfoods are neither exotic nor hard to find. And as more consumers are starting to realize which foods are good for their body, they are starting to expect their local supermarkets to stock them as well.

  1. Yogurt – My favourite “superfood”. Although I don’t consider them as cheap, but you can find them quite reasonably priced in Singapore. They are full of Vitamin B12, pantothenic acid-vitamin B5, zinc, potassium, protein and molybdenum, calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin-vitamin B12 and iodine! The live cultures in the yogurt also helps to maintain a healthy digestive system and can help fight bad bacteria in the gut. For more information on the health benefits of yogurt, please take a look at WHFoods’s take on Yogurt.
  2. Tea – Another of my favourite. Although, I have been drinking black tea for sometime, I recently switched to drinking both black tea and green tea. I discovered that green tea does provide a little more health benefits than black tea. Anyway, tea is so very refreshing, especially in the mornings. Green tea is very rich in flavonoids and these plays an important part in the green tea’s anticancer and antioxidant effects. Furthermore, green tea helps fight against bacteria or viral infections and diseases. For more information of what green tea can do for you, please browse to WHFood’s take on Green Tea.
  3. Pineapple - Very delicious and tasty. I try to take a slice after lunch.  Yes, just one slice isn’t exactly enough and considering the small slices that Singapore stores nowadays sells, I should consume more. But understand that I am not a fan of fruit. In fact, I seldom take fruits. Only recently did I start to consume fruits in significant portions. Anyway, Pineapple is packed full of Vitamin , Bromelain, Manganese and Thiamin (Vitamin B1). So Pineapple provides antioxidant effects as well as energy production for your body. If you would like to read more about Pineapples, take  a look at WHFood’s take on Pineapples.
  4. Kefir -I take this everyday without fail. One of the most powerful probiotic powerhouses, this one is a must for me. I consume about 300ml of Kefir per day. It is a fermented, creamy, tart and delicious beverage and with it’s antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal properties, you should try it too. In addition to beneficial yeast and bacteria, Kefir contains good amounts of calcium, magnesium, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B12, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Vitamin D, Tryptophan anda huge array of amino acids and minerals. I doubt that you can find Kefir in our local stores, so you might need to make Kefir yourself. If you would like more information on making your own Kefir, please take a look at Dom’s Kefir Website.
  5. Raw Honey – Who here doesn’t like honey? Everyone does. It is sweet (perhaps a little too sweet) and taste great in cakes, buns, on bread or even just mixed with tea. Raw honey is unprocessed honey so it does contain more minerals, amino acids and enzymes than processed honey. I would highly recommend consumers to choose raw honey over other types of processed honey. However, different types of honey (like buckwheat honey or wildflower honey) does have different health benefits. It is better to check with the manufacturer on these. However, irregardless of what type of honey it is, you would find that taking about like 1 tablespoon of honey per day, your health will certainly improve.

Well, here you have it. I have listed down some of the “superfoods” I consume regularly. Hope that this will inspire you guys to go and perhaps think about consuming more of such “superfoods” in the future. Good luck.

Dairy Farmers Bush Honey Yogurt

1146 days ago

Wow, this is one of the best yogurt I have ever tried. I am not kidding you, it tastes extremely delicious. I normally will not be so excited about a certain...

Wow, this is one of the best yogurt I have ever tried. I am not kidding you, it tastes extremely delicious. I normally will not be so excited about a certain brand of yogurt, especially considering that I have been taking yogurt like everyday since last October, but this time, I have to say, the Dairy Farmers Bush Honey Yogurt is just absolutely great! It is rather thick, something like those Greek yogurt but with a very nice consistency. You will not get those runny yogurt in Dairy Farmers like the other yogurt brands. Furthermore, the honey flavour is pretty good and not overwhelming. I am surprised to find the sweetness is just right. Most manufacturers will often over-sweeten their yogurt in order to cater for the regular consumer, but not Dairy Farmers. That’s one big thumbs up!

If you don’t know much about the brand Dairy Farmers, you are not alone. I too have no idea who or what is Dairy Farmers. Although I have seen several advertisements for this brand, it does not seem very popular in Singapore. Please take a look at their website here. It seems that they are based in Australia and are a major supplier of high quality dairy and dairy products. And the Ski brand of yogurt (which I like very much as well) is also under them. That is just so very cool!

Yes, this is the Dairy Farmrs Thick & Creamy 98% fat free premium yogurt with all the goodness of the country. Wow!

Yup, yet again, this is the Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy Bush Honey 98% fat free yogurt. This is the 550g “bucket”. Do note that this is a premium yogurt which means that it comes with a premium price tag. It costs about S$5.80 (on offer) for this 550g of yogurt. Do note that the Marigold 1kg yogurt normally costs about S$6.10 and about S$5.60 on offer. That is a huge difference in price and well, of course a big difference in taste as well.

I doubt that you find this at Shop N Save or at Sheng Siong. Heck, not even all NTUCs carry them.  I have seen them on the shelves of Cold Storage though.

Just look at the Low Fat Honey Yogurt ingredient list – Skim Milk, Concentrated Skim Milk, Sugar, Honey, Cream, Thickener, Flavour, Halal Gelatine, Food Acid and Cultures like l.acidophilus, bifidobacetrium and s.thermophilus. I am wondering why even with honey, they still add sugar into the yogurt? Isn’t the honey supposed to be the sweetener? Or is it because it is just not sweet enough? Looking at the list, it seems to say that 6% of the total weight is made up of honey.  I am also a big fan of honey you know!

Anyway, I was hoping that they add l.casei cultures into the mix but I was disappointed. I had expected more types of live cultures in this yogurt, seeing that this is a pretty expensive yogurt but it seems that Australian yogurt manufacturers aren’t exactly like American manufacturers, who are keen to add every damn lactic cultures they can find in their yogurt. Don’t really know whether this is a good thing or not.

Hehehehe, made with award winning milk from Dairy Farmers!  If only we can find this award winning milk in Singapore. I had searched high and low for this Dairy Farmers Milk, but no luck. Anyway this yogurt is low in fat (only 1.7%), free from all artificial ingredients & preservatives, comes with live cultures to help keep your body in balance and is calcium rich. Not surprising, the Dairy Farmers company is still 100% Australian owned. Australia do have a good reputation when it comes to diary products so let’s forgive the Australian nationalist pride.

The view from the top. The best before date is 19 April 2009, which means that this yogurt is quite fresh.

A picture of the Dairy Farmers Bush Honey Yogurt in a bowl, waiting for me to eat it. Doesn’t it look absolutely divine?

I would highly recommend you the Dairy Farmers brand of yogurt and judging from how great tasting this Bush Honey flavoured yogurt is, I am pretty sure that the other variety should taste great as well. I am becoming a big fan of Dairy Farmers. Too bad, me broke.

Drinking Green Tea

1147 days ago

I have been reading up on some of the health benefits of regularly drinking green tea and I was surprised to realize that green tea really is a very very health...

I have been reading up on some of the health benefits of regularly drinking green tea and I was surprised to realize that green tea really is a very very health promoting beverage. Yes, my parents have always told me that drinking tea is good for me but I never did appreciate drinking tea. You know, it taste a bit like bittered water and you will get that horrid aftertaste in your mouth and tongue. Well, that is because I have been drinking those commercialized tea you find in the supermarket or that is served in the coffee shops. No, I am not saying that those teas are bad, they are good in several ways but the problem is that they require the additional of sugar or sweetener. Thus, the sugar plus the low quality tea taste will leave this terrible aftertaste in your mouth. However, if you start drinking real tea, you will find that there is indeed a difference between real tea and those crap tea you would normally find.

Recent research has shown that black tea too have it’s own share of health promoting benefits, so I would not completely discount black green or Oolong tea as well. However, this time, I would concentrate on green tea. Green tea is easy to find, even in our local supermarkets. If possible, opt for the loose tea leaves instead of those that come in the form of tea bags which are normally tea powder. Of course, whole tea leaves are the best, but I doubt you can find those in our supermarkets. You will have to visit the speciality tea stores like those in Chinatown to find good quality tea leaves. Try to avoid flavoured tea as those have other additives added to it which may up the taste of the tea but at the same time add some unwanted chemicals to the tea.

If you are interested to know more about the health benefits of drinking green tea, please take a look at WHFood’s website on green tea here. You will be surprised to see the numerous health benefits of drinking tea like heart disease protection, helps prevent blood clots, protects against different types of cancer, protects against kidney diseases, build bones and so on . If I had known about this when I was younger, I would have probably taken a little more tea and I would probably be a lot healthier. Furthermore, it is a rather pleasant tasting beverage. In fact, so pleasant that some civilizations name their makan time as “tea time”.  It has this calming and cleansing effect that everytime I feel heaty, I would reach for my tea bag (yes, I am using the cheap tea bags) and make myself a delicious cup of tea. Well, yes, it is true that tea has caffeine, but the amount of caffeine is relatively small compared to coffee. And just think of the numerous health benefits of drinking tea. From what I read, tea rehydrates your body as well as water, so you can take tea in place of water. I myself have started to drink tea instead of plain water every morning. For me, I feel much more refresh than before. The morning tea really relaxes me and makes me feel more awake in the morning.

I am sure that you are wondering whether I have been paid by some tea company to say good things about tea. Seriously, who would want to pay me money to write articles on drinking tea in an unknown blog when there are already thousands and thousands of respected researchers that say the same thing? Furthermore, the tea market is huge. I am just a small fly. And yes, I would highly recommend you to go and have a cup of tea – everyday.

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