Prepare for the finals, eat for the brain

Final week is around and everyone needs some brain food to finish the unfinished. My personal choices are tootsie pops (chocolate flavor), venti caramel latte with whipped cream and oreos (preferably with less cream). Obviously, these are not official brain foods that can give your energy a boost. I read an article from the internet today and it gives us more insight on the topic.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/brain-food-eat-for-productivity.html

Though it may sound strange, Chinese have the concept of brain food as well. But the traditional Chinese brain food may not suit your (or my) appetite. There is a belief that if you want to improve the function of a certain organ, one should eat the same organ of another animal. So here you go, broiled pig brains. I have never tried it before because my mum, who is not a very good cook and sort of cholesterol phobic, never allows such food in our house. But judging from its texture, it may not be very delicious.

p.s. for better performance in bed, use your imagination.

No more Kung Pao and General Taos!

If you are tired of the Chinese takeaway and want to try out some real Chinese dishes (Cantonese dishes indeed), here is a real simple one I stole from my aunt.

Chicken wings in Shrimp Paste

serves 8

What you'll need:
2 lb chicken wings
Boiled white rice

For the flavor:
3.5 tbsp shrimp paste
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1.5 tbsp ginger wine
1 tbsp sugar
cornflour

1. Mix all the seasonings.
2. Clean and dry the wings.
3. Marinate the wings with the seasonings.
4. Leave the wings in the fridge for an hour.
5. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in the wok.
6. Shallow fry wings until golden and crispy.
7. Serve the wings with white rice.

It's lunch time!

Food price is soaring! At least that is what I read from the paper... So to save some coffee money for my roadtrip in May, I have made up my mind to bring my own lunch to school from now on. Not a very good cook and with the limited kitchen utensils, packing an appealing and healthy brown bag is harder than I thought. ( No more soaky salad and doritos!) But msn.com has some good lunch box ideas that we can all borrow. My top picks are the avocado tea sandwiches and thermo ready smoothie. They are easy to make and they look great too. Please click here for the article.

What did you have for lunch today?

Chicken soup or soup in Chicken?

I read from the paper yesterday that most chickens we bought from the supermarket are injected with broth. It is not any illegal trick done by farmers to increase the weight of the poultry. It is permitted by the government.

The article does not explain why the government allows such practices. But the intention of the farmers is obvious: increase the poultry weight and maximise the profit. Not that profitable for the consumers though. While we think we are getting a healthful lot of protein and vitamin B from our chicken sandwiches, what we may be getting is indeed some extra salt and pepper. I do not know if this practice is common throughout the agriculture industry worldwide but this is the first time I have ever heard of it. I know farmers inject growth hormones to make chickens grow faster. But injecting broth? Not until yesterday.

I wonder if they do the same thing to the beef or fish or lamb too. Hope not.

Thoughts on Earth Day

To celebrate Earth Day, my roommate and I have decided to do a few things to conserve our resources:

1. Turn on either the heater or the air conditioner, not both at the same time. ( Yes, we should turn off both indeed.)
2. Toss the newspaper in the recycle bin, instead of the trash can across the hallway, for the sake of convenience.
3. Buy less 100 calories packs. Hopefully, the aluminium packaging we saved will not turn into fat around our waists.
4. Stop buying and using air freshener and hair spray. Okay, hair spray is permitted under certain emergency circumstances.
5. Print notes and readings on double pages. Estimate the chance of reading the readings before printing them.
6. Eat less beef and cow products. (I learnt from the last neighbourhood newsletter meeting that not eating beef alone can save us a signifciant amount of CO2 produced. )
7. Start doing what I have just put down.

A healthier version of Coke?

I am not talking about Coke Plus here. Yesterday in my econ lecture, our professor told us that Coke in the United States uses high corn fructose syrup instead of sugar in the production. That's why Coke is so much cheaper in the States than in anywhere else ( The high demand is of course another factor. ) and it tastes different from other countries' versions as well. But the issue is high corn fructose syrup is said to be very unhealthy to our body. I have heard reports saying that high corn fructose syrup leads to faster blood sugar rise after being absorbed by our body than sugar. And this dramatic up and down will lead our body to crave for more sugar in a short period of time. That's why some people say that high corn fructose syrup is the reason behind obesity and other weight issues. I do not know if that is true. But it is probably a good idea to cut back on Coke before I go home where they have the "healthier" version of coke...

A healthful surprise in Chicago

Missing Gino's East in Chicago is not all that memorable. But Chicago is not only home to deep dish pizza and Garrett's popcorn. I found this place called Whole Foods Market (on W. Huron) when I was doing my shopping in Michigan Avenue (Touristy activity I know...). It is an organic food supermarket, similar to Clover's in Columbia but it was much bigger and it had its own food court as well. It had a wide range of products and even its own product lines called Whole Food and 365 which provide cheaper(and organic) options for shoppers. What I like most about Whole Foods Market is that most products, if not all, are certified organic and not only "natural". This is what some organic supermarkets do when they cannot find cheaper substitute for their organic products. They sell the "natural" products instead of the organic products. But "natural" is different from "organic". A bottle of orange juice is natural because it contains orange, a natural ingredient but it does not mean it is organic and it can still contain tons of harmful pesticide and hormones. Consumers may not be aware of it especially when sellers sell them with other organic products.

Whole Foods Market has five stores in Chicago and one in St. Louis. They have stores in other Mid-West cities as well, not in Columbia though. (Okay, Columbia is not a city.... ) Anyway, if you love organic food and have not had a chance to visit WHM yet, check out their website.

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

Mission unaccomplished in Windy City

I spent my spring break in Chicago. I had a great time visiting the Art Institue, the Field Museum and a couple of landmarks in the city. Yet I failed to accomplish one of my planned missions- to try out the world famous deep dish pizza at Gino's East. Everyone said the restaurant's pizza was the best and my friend's favorite is the deep dish with tomato and extra cheese. So full of expectation, I decided to save the best part for my last day of my trip. Yet when we got to the restaurant at half past five in the evening, there already gathered a crowd of eager tourists and pizza loving locals. Finding our chances to get in slim, we went to Quartino, an Italian restaurant. Their thin crust pizza was good but I believe it would be nothing compared to the inch thick deep dish pizza across the street.

Demanding for (vending machine) consumer right

I have the habit of late night snacking ( bad habit I know. ) and the vending machine becomes my go-to place after mid-night when stores are closed. But I recently discovered that all the chips, candy bars or pretzels I got the vending machines are soon-to-expired ones. The pack of chex mix I got few days ago was going to be expired on April 14 2008. I wonder if that is a tactics used by the food company to get rid of the soon-to-expired food or just that no one is buying from the vending machines anymore. I suppose the business of the vending machine is not that bad to have products stocked up for a whole year with anyone buying them. But if that is a sales strategy, as a consumer, I feel unfair because even though I am paying a high price for the sake of convenience, it does not mean I deserve to get stale food... It is different from a price markdown of fresh food in the supermarket because consumers are fully aware that they are going to get food that are less fresh because of the lower price. But as a (mid night) vending machine consumer, I have no idea of that.

V-day's (sugar) junkie!

Here came another sugar filled holiday. I bought a dozen of chocolate pretzels from the Candy Factory few days ago for my friends and roommates. I have not had a chocolate pretzel before until yesterday. It was so good. The salty and crunchy pretzel and the dark rich chocolate are just the perfect couple. I ate three of them on my way to the J-school yesterday morning.

My new found addiction...

Chocolate pretzel is a fantastic idea but the Japanese have something more evil in mind. Replacing the pretzels, they dip ruffle potato chips in the chocolate. (Talk about sinful combination...) The product was "invented" by Royce, a Japanese chocolate company which is also famous for its Nama chocolate, a super soft and creamy chocolate cube. I got a box on my birthday and am now totally addicted to it.

A picture from the chocolate company. Yum...

If you have not had enough sugar this Valentine's day or plan to increase your intake, order one from their online store. Here is the website

http://www.e-royce.com/

Make tea not war!

I read this slogan few years ago from a UK slogan t-shirt website. To make peace with Columbia's very cold weather, I bought myself a small kettle today and started brewing different kinds of tea in my dorm room this afternoon.

Little Kettle in the boiling.


Tea bags bought from World Harvest. Smell good but taste a bit weak.


More (organic!) tea bags from Peace Nook. Yerba mate is a south American tea.

Drinking tea is considered as a healthy habit in many cultures. Western researchers say that tea contains polyphenols, an anti cancer chemical and few studies even say that tea's polyphenols can reduce risk of gastric, esophageal and skin cancers if one consumes 4 to 6 cups daily. Chinese practistioners also believe that drinking tea can help balance the Yin and Yang of a body and help blood circulation. So while I was boasting to my roommate about my new found healthy habit, she put down her coffee and showed me this website:

http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=20382

First Post!

Hello all! I'm Candice and this is is my first post @ blogger.com. Enjoy! :D