What food do you buy for New Year?

New Year Food? New Year coming.... the kids are laughing and feeling so happy...to know that there are plentiful of good food and drinks to eat..... and 'ang pow'.... are they eating the correct foods? are you concerned?

I prefer to spend money on monthly buying quality food, spending averagely then to spend the whole lumpsum to buy New Year Goods and eat them up within the festival.

Many people spend a lot of money on celebrating New Years. Get me straight....... haha...I am not against people spending money on New Years. Afterall it is a festive season where all the people are eating, drinking, enjoying and partying. Don't look at me like that! It doesn't mean that I am not celebrating New Year. But celebrating it in a slightly different way.

We drink and eat. Just last few blogs I was talking about healthy drinks to buy, now I am going to touch on those foods that the Chinese or just anybody buy for their New Year. I understand that New Year should be celebrated with abundance and filling up their few refrigerators to their limits, serving plentiful of foods across the table. No one is to say that there are no foods.

What do we have for Chinese New Year? Most of us will have a whole fish, auspiciously to mean that every year we will have excess...and more to come. Just some to mention, good food to include abalone, bird's nests, lobsters, crabs, shark's fin, sea cucumber, beef tendons, ducks, pork, Chinese sausages, frozen delicacies and cured meats. Meat balls made from almost any sources like fish, crabs, cuttlefish, prawns and many others. Just name it, most of them have, good food.

What do they have to serve to their customers within the festive season? Out in the market, you will see and can buy dried red meat slices made from beef, pork or chicken and sold at high prices. Dried cuttlefish coming in different colors, yellow, red and orange. Colored, mind you..... dead cuttlefish is not of that color....forgive me for describing them in such a way.

You can also see all those sausages and cured meats that come in tins and sacks. And all types of cakes, all types of sweets, all types of 'keropok', crackers, preserved fruits, chocolates, nuts, delicacies that one can typically see from a supermarket! What do you want to buy? It is up to you...

There are also lots of precious nuts, mushrooms, beans, white and black fungus, seaweeds, groundnuts and 'kuachi', chocolates, tofu products, biscuits, canned foods, soft drinks, wine, beer and alcohol. There are abundant imported fruits and vegetables too. No wonder, our refrigerators are filled to the brim. Human beings are all so clever at celebrating and can cook up a storm. Oh yes, and buying all those sauces...and flavorings to spice up the foods.

All foods can be eaten, all drinks can be consumed, all celebrations can be celebrated, all festivals cheered. Life without food or joy is of no meaning, of no use...... but think twice, do you know how they are made? do you know when they are made? do you know what they are made from? How much do you have to pay for them?

How much food can you eat? How much food shall our family eat? How much is too much or too little? Ever thought of DIY? Self made, home made, home baked. It is another choice. No matter how one obtain these foods, remember one good advice. Eat moderately, eat sparingly... eat healthy and look out for those hidden sugars, hidden salts, hidden preservatives, additives, hidden fats, hidden colorings and hidden carcinogens found in some foods.

Preservatives... they are there...bacterias and even germs cannot survive, those minute bad microorganisms that couldn't spare any infection, any attack on living things. Who is immune to bacterial attack? Who is not infected by one? But these foods can stand for weeks, for months and some for years. Think twice, what about those foods that you cook yourself? They go bad even after a day or two.

Preservatives are aimed to extend the shelf life of the product, not to extend the life of the consumer!

Colorings? like I mentioned just now, dead cuttlefish are not red in color... soft drinks are not just plain, ask yourself, what is the color of your urine after consuming coke? Is it still black or grey? Where are all these colors? You know the answer...

Additives?.... when you cook something without any flavorings or sauces, will they taste as nice? Perhaps all of us are so used to it that one couldn't differentiate the difference between natural flavors versus artificial flavors. Natural flavors are being enhanced by too many artificial flavorings...guess what..permitted and within safe levels??? Within safe levels? When one is consuming it for just that one time, ok...it is within safe limits. But what about those who have been consuming them for months, for decades?

Hidden fats? Fried potato chips, french fries, fried chicken parts....and many others.... try to just take one piece of french fries and squeeze it. You will squeeze out oil, dripping and soaking your paper tissue immediately with fat. I wonder if all of them use clean and fresh oil to fry or dirtied and stale oil to do the job.... I fear...yes, I do fear for those who constantly eat deep fried foods...how foods are mass-produced and stored for commercial sales... For sale, for profits, for benefits, for money, whose faults? No body's faults?

Hidden sugars? Sweets...and sweetened foods...the lists of sweet drinks and food....what has sugars done to us? Know this disease, we call it diabetes? Diabetics are people suffering from the inability to absorb sugars in a normal way. I will have an article written on some of those suffering from diabetes and how dreadful their lives are. It really pain me so much to see those people suffering and yet I cannot do anything to help.

We are solely responsible for our health. We are totally responsible for our well-being, for our kids, for our family, loved ones.... Spend money wisely, spend them for the benefits of our health. When we have health, we have hope, when we have hope, we have everything. Listen to our health instinct, not our heart's desire to please our taste-buds, to feast on unhealthy foods, one day we would have to pay dearly if our body system becomes overloaded.

REmember that all of us have the choice, the choice to pick and buy what is best for our body...for the sake of oneself and loved ones. Don't let our loved ones suffer too. Think twice before buying and eating. We eat to survive, not survive to eat!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007