The Fats of Life (1)

I was reading a book about fats, written by a cardio surgeon
sometimes ago.

In this book, the cardio surgeon repeatedly stressed that,
by his years of observation,
many modern degenerative diseases
from cardio vascular to diabetes, to cancer,
are highly related to the increasing incidence of
damaged oil consumption.

The book reinforced my understanding about oil and fats,
amidst the confusing information out there.

Combining the doctor's latest finding on edible oil,
with that taught by my other teachers,
I finally got one step further in clarifying the sticky oil issues.

From what I gather along my continuous learning path:

(I) The most ideal way of consuming oil is
via raw consumption of whole plant food
e.g. raw/sprouted seeds/nuts, raw coconut and raw avocado etc
~ By this way, the body gets all types
of undamaged fatty acids (SFA, PUFA, MUFA etc)
in the most balanced and controlled manner.

(II) The suboptimal way of consuming oil is
via raw consumption of cold pressed oils
e.g. extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed flaxseed oil etc
~ Cold pressed oils maintained most of
the benefits and nutrients oil, undamaged,
but it's easily oxidised if kept too long or in improper manners.
~ The ratio of different types of fatty acids within
is also slightly skewed (ie not optimally balanced).

(III) The most unpreferred way of consuming oil is
via conventional cooking cooking oils (even tho' it's plant oil)
e..g. any oil that allows high heat treatment
~ This type of oil confers almost no nutritional values (besides calories and taste).
~ The ratio of different types of fatty acids is totally out of balanced.
~ For safety, this type of oil should contain the least amount of
Poly-Unsaturated and Mono-Unsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA, MUFA).
~ Once PUFA, MUFA are heated,
they will be transformed into health damaging elements.
-- While PUFA and MUFA are meant to be healthy,
once damaged, they become one of the big culprits in modern health diseases.
~ It's very difficult to get safe cooking oil (with little MUFA and PUFA),
so, minimise or avoid this type of oil.

(IV) The not-so-wise-way is via
animal fats
~ animal fats contains high percentage of saturated fats that
lead to many cardiovascular conditions
~ the ratios of different type of fatty acids are also not balanced
~ animals fats carry over
residual antibiotics, compounded pesticides, artificial hormones and stress hormones
which will bring about detrimental effects to health in long term
-- this is another big culprit of modern health problems

(V) The fat to be avoided at all cost is
transfats i.e. chemically transformed fats (even tho' it's from plant)
e.g. margarine
~ transfats has totally no value and it's absolutely health damaging,
because the body does not recognise transfats
which is a kind of chemical that looks like fat.
~ our body, when can't get rid of transfats,
will prefer to store it away and this later lead to
clogging of our cardiovascular systems and other health conditions.

Hope the sharing will help raise awareness of good oil and bad oil :)


Well wishes,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: my students at Vegetarian Wellness Course also did a comprehensive report on healthy oils (which benefited me a lot too!). Once, I have finished reviewing, it will be released for free public access online :)

The-Fats-of-Life

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Vital Organic Support

Along the years, during the course of promoting
vegetarianism and organic lifestyle,
there is one thing I am often concerned of.

That is the sustainability of
vegetarian and organic outlets in Singapore.

While some may have the impression that
vegetarian and organic health outlets are blooming in recent years;
for people who have their fingers on the pulse
of organic+vegetarian culture in Singapore,
we know that this industry is very volatile and fragile.

It's mainly because of
the price
which is less competitive to 'highly subsidised' conventional food and
the lack of awareness
about the positive environmental impact of organic agriculture.

One of the reasons, my friends and I set up Cielo Sereno
is in line of improving the situation.

Recently, I have just been informed that
again, another organic outlet is closing down.

It's a saddening,
but if we could give them our last well wishes,
by supporting them at their closing down sales (till 28 Nov),
I guess, it will be heart-warming to them :)

The address is:
Organic Living Hub
Blk 78, #01-17,
Redhill Lane;
(look for the old HDB block along the main road,
opposite Redhill MRT station)



With gratitude,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com




{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Millionaire Mind Intensive Singapore (Extra)

MMI '09 was an impressive experience for me,

altho' I attended the same workshop last year.

I didn't expect the effect of recoursing could be so profound.
-- It may be a result compounded by
my past year of intensive learning in financial wellness;
but certainly, I wouldn't have been 'enlightened' without
the constant bombardment of those words of wisdom
throughout the 3 days!

Two important teachings that struck me
during the workshop:

(1) To honour money and to be responsible for it

~ I didn't get it last year, but it just makes a whole lot of sense this year.

Like many people, I was continuously searching
for the secret formula to manage money and generate good income;
but to no avail.

When I was put through the "money burning" exercise at the workshop,
I suddenly realised my biggest fault in financial management all these years
was that I pay little respect to money and
am reluctant to take responsibilities for money!

Simply, without mutual honouring and care, nothing will work out;
just like that in any relationship, be it couple, family, friends or sport team.

I've probably known this teaching since long ago,
but I've never thought that the same would apply
for the relationship between money and me!


(2) "Do whatever that
makes you feel good when you wake up the next morning"

There was a special reception for those who signed up for "Quantum Leap"
bundled courses after MMI concluded and I was lucky to be there.

Harv spent some extra time with the "Quantum Leap" students,
delivering inspiring/encouraging words,
by sharing his own personal experience.

He emphasized that in order to lead a happy life,
the biggest secret of all is
to do only things that make ourselves feel good,
--things that make us truly feel good when we wake up the next morning.

It sounds like a kindy phrase.
But I was deeply impacted by the simple saying!

Let's reflect:
How miserable a life can be,
if we honestly do things by following
our heart aka our conscience aka our naive instinct?

I totally buy into this, as it's taught in buddhism that
one should follow the flow of nature in order to live in true bliss.
And that very nature we need to follow is our conscience.

Harv's advice wasn't superficial at all,
he in fact skilfully pointed out how people nowadays,
including myself,
do not fully follow their hearts.

Happiness is just a heart beat away
if only we are honest to ourselves...



I am grateful that I went for the recoursing.
And I think, the 4000 audiences in Expo and I
were very lucky to able to learn from
a Boddhisatva who teaches true Dharma
in such a lay context, benefiting the broad public.



With metta,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com



{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Millionaire Mind Intensive Singapore (3)

The 3rd and last day of MMI drilled deep into

the emotional relationship with money.

If one's relationship with money is full of
anger, fear, guilt, shame or sadness,
there is bound to be negative effect on wealth accumulation
(and all other aspects of life) .

Harv explained that
negative emotions are stuck energy;
they are primarily incomplete communications.

Hence, participants were guided thru' another self-awareness exercise
to dig out the anger, sadness, fear, shame, guilt and regrets
that we have been imposing on money;
and then let go of the negative emotions (especially anger).

Harv mentioned, if one is to keep those negative emotions,
it will sabotage one's financial path.
Harv himself ruined his own financial life in his early years,
because he had unpleasant experience with his father
over money issue, during his childhood.
That unpleasant experience turned out to be a misunderstanding
that intoxicated his financial health for decades.
(the incidence happened when he was 9 yo,
and he only got it clarified with his day at his age of 40!)
His early life was messed up just because he didn't learn to let go of his
negative emotion.

The workshop climaxed when participants were
asked to break arrows with their throats.
This exercise was to deal with another big negative emotion -- fear
which has been pulling us back from any endeavour towards success.

Breaking an arrow (real one!) sounded scary in the beginning,
but when we see people doing it and we ourselves actually doing it,
it wasn't as scary or as difficult at all.
-- the arrow broke within just a couple seconds,
and there was no injury on the throat at all (amazing!!)

Towards the end of the day, Harv taught us the last secret
to financial freedom.
He wanted us to always bear this in mind:
"Success breeds Success"

In order to be successful in life,
we ourselves need to be a success first, by:
-- Recognising and acknowledging
every improvement, big or small,
we achieve every day.
-- Celebrating successes once every month,
to keep the momentum of success, constantly up.

Harv claimed that this is very effective and
there many proven records using this methodology!

The MMI workshop ended early evening on 16 Nov 2009,
and from the standing ovation at event conclusion in Expo Hall2,
I see that many were grateful to be at
the enriching and eye-opener workshop.

I attended this workshop for the 2nd time,
I still found it equally invigorating and enlightening.
So as Heng, Wenlong, Gary and Susan who came along.


Well regards,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: The teachings at MMI are simply too much to be covered on the blogs. If anyone is interested to attend the next MMI (19-21 Nov 10) to experience for him/herself, please let me know; as I have discounted tickets (limited) to the workshop next year :)

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Millionaire Mind Intensive Singapore (2)

At the 2nd day of MMI,
more interesting teachings continued to unveil.

So far, Harv had been illustrating,
from multiple perspectives,
on how actually our lives (esp finanicial fate) are determined by
stories we made up in our lives -- beliefs.

According to Harv, Beliefs
are just thoughts we personally hold to be true;
are not true or false, right or wrong,;
are only strong opinions in the colour of the beholder's spectacles.

As we understand that:
"we don't see the world as it is,
we see the world as we are",
the 3rd step to change our belief structure
is simply to dissociate from disempowering thoughts
and infuse empowering thoughts (reconditioning).

As Harv put it, whatever we say or think,
we will live our self-fulfilling prophecy,
because brain's favourite passtime is to make sure it is right!
So, why not infuse rich people's thinkings/beliefs?

To ensure that we create new empowering thoughts
to replace those old disempowering ones,
we were then led thru' a series of
fun and interesting psychological exercises,
e.g. 'rubber band snapping' game, VAKS,
"worthiness-ordainment", composing our own success songs etc.. kekek..

Harv, along the way, also added that
many people couldn't get rich because:
1. they didn't know why they want to be rich or their whys are too small
-- without the why there will never be the how
and with bigger the why, the easier the how;
-- bigger why means adding big values to people's lives.

2. they are simply poor receivers
-- we have been biasedly conditioned that Giving is better than Receiving,
due to mis-interpretation of an ancient Greek wise-saying, which was supposed to be:
"it's better to be at the position to give, than to be at the position to receive"
-- without the receiving, the giving is simply not valid;
-- a lot of people are constantly conditioned to give, and feel ashame to receive,
hence there will never be wealth accumulated..

At the end of the 2nd day,
participants were demonstrated via an interactive session,
to help us realise our own money personalities, whether
we are savers, spenders, money avoider or money-monk;
and the relavant strength and weakness of each personality.

There is no favourable money personality and
in view that each personality has got its own plus and negative points,
the key to success in money management is
- to make sure we lead a balance life in all perspectives and
- to adopt a preset structure of money management (the Jar System)

More exciting stuff to expect on Day 3 of MMI!
Keep tuning in :D

Nice weekend,
Kee Yew






















{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Millionaire Mind Intensive Singapore (1)

Yesterday, was the 2nd time I attended T. Harv Eker's
Millionaire's Mind Intensive (MMI) workshop @ Expo Singapore.
The 1st time was extactly one year ago.

MMI workshop literally transformed my life,
since November 2008,
when I decided to heed Eker's advice
to change my financial blueprint.
I am grateful so much he has changed my life;
and in order to ensure I truly harness all that he taught,
that I decided to re-course at MMI November this year!

Here, I would like to provide a daily update on
some of the highlights at the 3-day workshop.

One thing that struck me at the first day of MMI
was a simple yet profound reminder that
our Income Potential is directly proportional to
our Comfort Zone.
In other words, how much we could stretch ourselves
actually fundamentally determine our capability to generate wealth.
Throughout the past 12 months,
I did feel quite a bit of strain when re-wiring and picking up new skills
towards financial freedom,
and I inevitably complain about it occassionally.
With the reminder above, I guess I need to be more
faithful with the new financial path I am on,
and probably should be happy that I am expanding myself
in personal growth and income potential
when I go thru' the stretching! =)

There were so much that was taught the first 14 hours
at Expo, yesterday.

Notably:
We were guided through some psychological exercise
to realise our own financial beliefs.
As Harv mentioned, the first step to change is Awareness

Harv emphasized that the inner invisible realms of
Mentality, Emotion and Spirituality dictate the
outer visible realm of Physique.

Our current financial status today is merely
a printout (visible fruit) of
our own financial believes (invisible root).

The financial belief is deemed as the blueprint of our
financial outcome because it works like a thermostat,
constantly adjusting the level of wealth to a pre-set level we deem appropriate.
Harv stressed that it's not so much knowing how to generate wealth,
 it's actually more of an issue how our subconscious brain
determines the amount of wealth we are willing to attain/retain.

The second step to change our financial destiny is
Understanding
-- understanding our root motivation to generate wealth.

We were guided through another psychological exercise
to dig out how our financial blueprints
were subcounsciously constructed since childhood
via
Verbal Programming (by our family and friends)
Modeling (of our Parents' financial behaviour) and
Specific incidence (that imprinted a prejudice in our financial perspectives )

Many people accumulated a lot of wealth, but
eventually, they just have to lose them, because
their motivation for money (roots) were based on
Anger, Fear and Proving themselves.

After understanding where our roots lie,
we need to debunk those disempowering believes

and base our motivation for money on

Purpose and Joy.

More to come on the 2nd day of MMI.

Please tune in again tomorrow :)

With metta,

Kee Yew

pureland2012-at-gmail.com

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Simple Health Survey

Recently I came across this SurveyMonkey.com

that help people to design surveys.

Hence I curiously try it out on
a health survey that I have always had in mind :P

We probably could gadge the standard of healthfulness in this region,
by looking at the food sold at supermarket, eateries, advertisement and
some statistics from health authorities.
But I thought a systematic survey may verify those prejudices
and perhaps could also offer some interesting insight.

This is also a good chance for me
to apply in "real-life"
the data-analysis skill I learn at my academic work,
and hopefully
to convert the data into something useful
in line of public health education :)

Here is the Simple Health Survey !
- 10 Questions, will only take <5min  =)


Nice day,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: this is my first time designing a health survey and I guess it is probably not very comprehensive,
so if you have any input to improve it, please do let me know =)
-- oh yar.. since I need at least 100pax to make the analysis statistical significant, kindly help spread the word!!

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Won't you chicken out?

A few days ago,
I was reading the quarterly magazine "Good Medicine" by

Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM),
and was shocked by the stats on chicken consumption in the USA
reported in the magazine.

While most people claim to know that we are eating too many chickens,
many still do not have a clue, how many is many.. .

Stated in the magazine:
~ Broiler chickens were salughtered after merely 6 weeks after birth
~ Chickens were made to grow faster by mocking 23hours day light every day
~ A chicken factory farm can pack 20,000 chickens in one premise
~ Americans eat 1,029,613 chickens every hour
~ 9,019,414,000 chickens were slaughtered for consumption every year in the USA.

PCRM derived these stats from
the official website of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN

You can use the search engine in the website to check out the
figures in Malaysia and Singapore too..

Seriously, it's time to sit back to reflect
why should people eat these poor souls like crazy...


Amituofo,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com



{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Klang Valley Goes Organic!

I have been longing to compile a list of organic outlets in Kuala Lumpur,
like that compiled by Lapis Lazuli Light in Singapore.

I suppose this will help the health conscious ones/organic lovers
find their food more easily and
also facilitate the booming of organic industry in the region.

When I did a few searches online, a few days ago,
I was surprised to see so many organic outlets now
in Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley.

That was very invigourating.
Very.

Here is the listing of organic/health food outlets
in Kuala Lumpur and its vicinity (Klang Valley).
It may not be a comprehensive one,
but I believe the 101 entries will occupy you for a while? ;)

Enjoy the organic therapy!

Metta,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com





{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Walking The Path of Wind

A few weeks ago, I was at Dharma Drum Singapore,
watching this classic Japanese cartoon "Totoro" (made in 1988).

The animation movie delivered very strong sense of
the purity of children.
It moved me, who has always been a kid
in his heart.

By an oversimplified description, 
the story depicted a mysterious and magical cat-like creature (Totoro)
which existed to fulfill the innocent dreams of 2 kids.
That reminded me not to give up hopes,
like how we all upheld our pure faiths
when we were kids;
-- because kids believe miracles do happen.

During the 1.5hrs I sunk into this elegantly presented
Japanese fairy tale,
my heart was cleansed and purified.
Hopes were revived and
good faith were re-energised.

Noteably, I was also touched by
a beautiful piece of music
played in the mid of the movie.



This piece of music by Joe Hisaishi
is called "The Path of Wind".
The name was particular sentimental to me
as I recalled a poem
I first learnt, 3 years ago, from a Chinese friend,
on how to lead a liberated way of life.
-- That is to live by the way the wind lives.

I hence annotated the poem in the music video clip,
to enhance the soul of the music :)
The poem goes like this:

"When the wind passes a bamboo forest,
the bamboo doesn't trap the chime, as it doesn't trap the wind;

When seasonal birds travel across the winter-chilled lake,
their shadows never stay on the lake, as the birds, too, never will;

Hence, an elightened one will react to an occassion, only when the occasion arises,
and also he will leave it behind when the occassion is over."

Hope you enjoy the simple music clip :)

With love,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com


{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}