I need more calcium!

I consider myself as a heavy coffee drinker. I drink 2 cups per day, sometimes more (i tried not to have more than 2 lar..)! One of the cons when you have too much coffee is that, it will kill your calcium (that is why better not to drink when you're pregnant)! Since i'm drinking so many cups per day, I have to find ways to gain back my calcium.

The easiest way will be, take those calcium pills lor.. But then again, I've heard someone said that gals are not advisable to take calcium pills because of dono what.. (sorry i forgot..) so how? milk powder? anlene? yeah.. milk powder is good, but I hate milk powders...

If you are like me, hate milk powders, then maybe you should try this. Drink the milk powder together with milo. trust me, the milo can get rid of the milk powder and you can't really taste the milk powder. In fact, now i prefer milo with milk powder!! Yummy yummy!

Serai (lemongrass) clears wind/gas

My aunt told me serai is very good. It helps us to remove the wind in our body ('ki hong' in hokkien). What is serai?

serai (lemongrass)

How to eat? Well, normally we used serai to cook tom yam soup, paprik and some malay dishes. Besides that, when you know you going to cook extra rice to keep for the next day, put serai into the rice cooker to cook together with the rice. Or when you cook some spicy dishes, you can add it in too. I actually quite like the taste of serai.

cut into small pieces when cook.

Leg cramps? What to do?

I hate leg cramps, it's painful and normally it happened while we were asleep. You will be awake with a sudden pain. What to do to get rid of that?

I once heard from dono who, says when leg cramps, instead of lying down, quickly stand up and straightened your leg and it will go away quickly. I tried and it works. I google a bit and found out there's actually other ways to get rid of the leg cramps, besides straightening your leg, you can also try to walk on the affected leg, take a hot bath (by the time u take bath i think the cramp already go away lar. hehe..), massaging the affected muscle and etc.

and how to prevent it? Drink plenty of water during the day, stretch your leg muscles before bedtime and get adequate potassium in your diet. So try these when you have night leg cramps next time.

How does the real Nan Fei Leaves (南非叶) looks like?

I received a lot of mesg from my readers asking me how the real nan fei leaves (南非叶) looks like, after they read my post on "Nan Fei Leaves (南非叶) prevents cancer, cough, high blood pressure, high cholestrol...".

I managed to get a picture of the Nan Fei plant when I went back to my hometown last weekend. So here's how the real plant looks like.

Nan Fei Plant

According to my aunt, this nan fei plant is very easy to grow and it can grow very tall. A lot of ppl now has this plant at their house. Check around your housing area, maybe your neighbour has this plant too!

High Cholesterol Food

After gooling about the high uric acid food, i search for the high cholesterol food. Was kind of surprised that egg is actually on the top. EGG!!!! My favorite!!!!!

Ok, let's see, the highest is Kidney, beef, followed by Liver, beef, and then butter, then sponge cake then EGG!!! Wow, among all these, the most i eat is EGG. Sometimes I wonder how many eggs I eat per week!!

Do you have high cholesterol? Do you like eggs? If yes, start calculating how many eggs you eat per weeks. Oh ya, make sure it's not more than 3 eggs per week!!

High Uric Acid Food

After the conversation with my friend, I google a bit to find out what are the food that are high in uric acid (except meat). So here's what I found..

Some of the food that are very high in uric acid:

• hearts
• mussels
• yeast
• sardines

Not so high but still high in uric acid:

• mutton
• liver
• bacon
• kidney
• salmon
• turkey
  

As for vege, I think i heard ppl said Corn (Jagung) is also very high in uric acid. So now we all know not only MEAT are high in uric acid!!

So how to get rid / lower down your uric acid? LEMON + WARM WATER helps!!

Nan Fei Leaves (南非叶) prevents cancer, cough, high blood pressure, high cholestrol...

My aunt asked me to try this Nan Fei Leaves (南非叶), she said her friends tried and found that it can actually cure cough. Another cough remedy? then I must try lar, no harm trying mar, since i cough for so long already.

She showed me a newspaper article about this Nan Fei Leaves (南非叶). After I read the newspaper article (if you know chinese, click here to read about the article.), this article does not mention anything about curing cough, but apparently this Nan Fei Leaves has antioxidant that can prevent cancer and also very good for ppl who has high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Wow...

Anyway, my aunt asked me to try as she said it really cured her friend's cough. Ok ok, let's try then. How does Nan Fei Leaves looks like?

Nan Fei Leaf

wash it, there's about 15 leaves here.

boil a pot of water, when the water boils,
put in the Nan Fei Leaves and turn off
the fire. Cover it for a while.

it taste a bit bitter. drink as much as u want.

According to the newspaper, this leaf is best to eat raw as the heat might lower down the antioxidant. It is best to eat with green apple, blend green apple with this leaf and drink the juice (prevent cancer). I think this is very good especially for old people. A lot of ppl already start planting this at home. If you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, you might want to try this out. Even you don't have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, you can also try it out as it prevent cancer.

As for the cough, I'm not sure it works or not, as i cough on and off one. hehe, let me try to drink a few more times first then only i let you know. Where to get the plant? Well, i also dono, hehe, maybe you can start by asking your neighbors around, it's a very common plant, maybe your neighbors has it, who knows right?

Extra precautions during early pregnancy!

Have you heard from the elderly that if you are pregnant, do not spread the news to all your relatives and friends till it's over 3 months? Chinese believes that it will easily caused miscarriage if news about pregnancy being spread before 3 months. Although not many people believes in this nowadays but I think everyone agrees that extra precautions needs to be taken during the EARLY PREGNANCY.

You might be asking these questions. What is safe and what isn't during my pregnancy? Will I be having mood swings? What is the best diet for a healthy pregnancy? What kind of exercises recommended through pregnancy? Where can you get answers for all these questions? You can find all the answers to the questions above at Gurgle.com.

Gurgle.com is a site which provides the ultimate parenting and pregnancy resources. Besides having experts answering to your questions about you and your baby, there are also a lot of articles and videos provided. These articles are very informative and by reading these articles, you will get all the useful information you might need to know about in the first trimester.

Can't tell anybody about your pregnancy? Turn to gurgle at http://www.gurgle.com/subjects/Early_Pregnancy/default.aspx for all your answers!

Useful articles on pregnancy

A few of my friends told me that they are pregnant. Congratulations to you all! A fresh year, a fresh start and a new family member! All of them have no experience on pregnancy, this is their first baby. Being a new parent, they have a lot of questions about parenting and pregnancy. Therefore a lot of research needs to be done.

Gurgle.com is a site which provides resources on parenting and pregnancy issues. You can find answers to your questions here. There are a lot of articles, videos available at Gurgle.com and experts are always there to answer all your questions. You can really get a lot of useful information on their articles. One of the article, 'I am pregnant' at http://www.gurgle.com/stages/Pregnancy/default.aspx talks about morning sickness, about calculating your due date on the due date calculator, calculating weight to be expected to put on every month with their weight gain calculator and etc. You can even choose to watch the video by selecting how many weeks you are pregnant. This piece of article is not only useful for the pregnant woman, it is also very useful for the husband.

Besides the 'I am pregnant' article, the 'Dad-to-be: what to expect' and 'Weight gain in pregnancy' are some of the pregnancy articles that is very informative. Check out these articles now!

Burn calories while you sleep!

Do you know what is the reason to drink a glass of milk before you sleep? so that you won't feel hungry? So that you can sleep better? No No NO!!! Alright, let me tell you, the reason to drink a glass of milk before you sleep is because it can actually burn calories during your sleep!

Not only milk, all dairy products works the same. The casein protein in them will digests slowly and will not turn to fat easily. This means it continues to supply amino acids to our muscle mass and our body will burn calories even when we sleep!

Wow, i wonder how true is that? eat more cheese lar, drink more milk and these can help us burn calories while we sleep? hmm... you try lar, then let me know.. :p

An apple a day ...

An apple a day, keeps the doctor away. Ya i think most of us know that but when do you eat the apple? After meal? It is actually best to eat an apple before your meal not after! If you eat apple before meal, it makes you feel fuller and curbs the urge to overeat.

Oh ya, and it's best to keep the peel on as it has the anti cancerous properties. Well, so many wax on the peel, how to eat wor.... :p So remember to eat apple before meal and not after meal ya!!

I love yogurt!

Yogurt benefit our health in a variety of ways. In order for our body to function at its best, we need the active live cultures(good bacteria) from yogurt. These good bacteria prevent the growth of harmful bacteria that cause bacterial infections and diseases. Besides that, it can also promote digestive health and boost our immune system.

When i was a little gal, whenever my aunt brought me yogurt, i will put it in the freezer. Yogurt in the freezer? haha, tat's right! The reason i put it in the freezer is because i don't really like the taste of yogurt (that time not much yogurt with fruits la..), but if put it in the freezer and eat it like ice cream, then you won't taste much of the yogurt taste. hehe..

As I grew older, I gradually like yogurt. No more putting it in the freezer. hehe, but i still dun like those pure yogurt, still can't really take it. If you want your kids to eat yogurt but you are afraid they don't like it, perhaps you can try buying this..

I think this is for kids lar. hehe, it doens't have much yogurt taste and i'm sure kids would love it. I love it too. :p The grapes and mango and strawberry flavour also not bad, but I don't like the vanilla.. Try lar, it's really nice, if you are a yogurt beginner, hehe, you definitely will like this.

How to shorten your life by 10 years

Read an interesting article about how to shorten your life by 10 years. hehe. who will want to shorten their life? This article is not teaching you how to live shorter lar, it's telling you these are some of the things that can caused your life to be shorten by 10 years. So if you want to live longer? then stop doing all these things lar, if you want to die earlier.. then do more of these things lor. :p haha, just joking lar.. So what are 'there' things?

1. Negative emotions will lead us to illness and increasing the risk of heart disease or stroke. Therefore, be optimistic, be happy!

2. When you have no friends, you will die earlier! wow.. seriously ar? hehe, the article never explained much but i guess, if you have no friends, you got no one to talk to and thus you will keep all your unhappy feelings in your heart, that is why it'll shorten our life la!

3. Drink too much! hmm, this one i think a lot of ppl also know lar..

So after reading this, are you someone who is going to live shorter by 10 yrs, or someone who live longer by 10 years?

Grapefruit, prevent cancer or the other way round?

I've always heard grapefruit and other citrus fruits are very good in preventing cancer. It is very rich in vitamin C and antioxidants which may help to reduce cancer risk. I've heard and i've read about it then suddenly one day, i received a forwarded email which says grapefruit actually caused cancer!! what??!!

The forwarded email is about a story of a lady who got cancer. She said she used to eat one grapefruit everyday and recently she was diagnosed of getting cancer. (forgot what cancer she got) Anyway, she said the doctor claimed that it MIGHT be the grapefruit that causing it.

From the internet, you can see tonnes of articles saying grapefruit is good, can prevent cancer and on the Internet itself, you can also see ppl saying grapefruit is no good, can caused cancer. Which one should we believe? No wonder ppl say don't trust everything you get from the Internet...

Let's eat broccoli!

Broccoli is well known of lowering cancer risk and generally improve health. It is closely related to cauliflower. I don't really like cauliflower but I love broccoli. Don't asked me why. hehe.. To me, both of them taste differently!

Preparing broccoli is easy. You can either steam of boil the broccoli in water. Stir fry onion or garlic with a little bit of oil, add a bit of soy sauce and oyster sauce and pour it over the steamed/boiled broccoli.

easy to prepare and super delicious!
remember to try it out yourself!

Remedies for headache?

I am having headache again. ~sigh, i hate headache, i can't sleep with headache, can't work with headache. I know taking panadol/pain killers are not good, but when I'm having headache, i got no other option but to take these pills.

Some ppl told me drink hot 100 plus + salt can cure headache. Anybody tried that? Seriously i have never tried that before. I do hope to find some remedies for headache so that i won't need to take pain killers again when having headache.

You got any headache remedies to share?

Tom Yam Gung Prevents Cancer!!

Research has shown that those that always had tom yam gung/soup has a lower percentage in getting cancer. In other words, tom yam gung can prevent cancer!! Wow! Still don't believe what i read, hehe, my favourite food can actually prevent cancer?

The article mentioned it's the ingredients in tom yam gung that helps in preventing cancer. The main ingredients of tom yam gung are the lemongrass(香茅), lemon leaves(柠檬叶) and chili!

Studies have shown that the lemongrass is a good cleanser that helps to detoxify the Liver, pancreas, kidney, bladder and the digestive tract. It can also helps to improve the skin by reducing acne and pimples and acts as a muscle and tissue toner. Besides that, lemongrass can also reduce blood pressure! WOW! Lemon leaves can prevent coughing & reduce the gastric pain! Chili is good for our heart and blood circulation!

It really feels nice to know the food that you love is actually good for health. haha! Let's eat more tom yam gung!!

Brown Rice + Red Rice + White Rice

As we all know, white rice is very nice to eat, but it is not very nutritious especially the 'Hiong Mai'(香米). As for red rice, it is also very nice to eat and it's very nutritious and contains high fibre. Brown rice is the most un-tasty among all but it has all the unaltered nutrient goodness. If you want to eat healthy but you are afraid you are not going to get use to the red and brown rice, here's what you can do.

Depend on how many ppl in your family, if you have a small family or your family members does not eat a lot of rice, you can buy smaller packet. Buy 1 or 2 kg of white rice, 1 or 2 kg or brown rice and 1 or 2 kg of red rice, and mix them up. I bought these at Giant.

2kg ecoBrown's Unpolished Brown Rice
(绿康宝糙米), RM 8.49
Sunflower Red Rice (太阳花纯正特选红米),
RM 5.79

Pour in the red rice.

then the brown rice and
followed by the white rice.

mix them up.

Brown + Red + White rice.

So now you will be eating red+brown+white rice. With red and brown rice, you need to add more water when you cook as the red and brown rice are much more harder. Who said brown and red rice are not delicious? It's tasty! Try it out yourself if you don't believe me!

I need more calcium!!

I recently noticed that the surface on my nails are uneven, they are no longer smooth and shiny, when you touched it, it feels rough. At first i thought it caused by the nail polished that i just removed. Then a few weeks later, i checked my nails again and found the uneven surface still exists! I do not know what's wrong with my nails until i read about it in an article.

The article said when nails are not shiny, with uneven nails, it means we might lack of calcium. Calcium? hmm, maybe it's true. i even had leg cramps few days ago during sleep! food i take not enuf calcium, some more i drink coffee everyday, coffee kills calcium one.. die lar like tat...

i once heard my aunt told me, the chinese doctor that she's seeing told her gals not suitable taking calcium tablets.. (err, forgot wat's the reason d.. ) cannot take tablets? then let see wat are the food that contains calcium.. i should probably eat more.. milk? seldom drink, but i'm ok with drinking it. ok next time drink more milk. cheese? err, still ok lar, next time eat more.. yogurt? oo, i love yogurt, eat more eat more! yay!! soya bean? err i dun like..but have to try to drink abit lar..

so after eating more these stuff, i will.. gain more weight la. of cos. wuahahahahahaha.. :p so u know what else is rich in calcium? tell me tell me!