Awareness on the Rice (3)

Altho' Brown Rice is the foundation of

a healthy diet (I couldn't emphasize more),
there are several pitfalls that one needs to look out for:

Pitfall 1:
Not soaking brown rice before cooking:
-- it's not a fatal mistake, but without soaking,
brown rice may be difficult to digest for those
with weak stomach.
-- This is because, brown rice, like any seed on Earth
contains enzyme inhibitor (mild toxin born with all seeds
to protect themselves from being eaten up, and also to preserve
the nutrients in the endosperm for as long as 500 years!)
-- soaking will help release "locked up" nutrients in the seeds
(in scientific term, increase bioavailabiity of the nutrients),
hence soaked brown rice can be 2-3x more nutritious than non-soaked ones.


Pitfall 2:
Not chewing thoroughly.
-- brown rice is generally more complex in structure than white rice,
hence thorough chewing thoroughly will ensure maximal digestion,
and nutrients intake.
-- If one is too busy to chew, try brown rice porridge,
brown rice powder as breakfast cereal or even delicious brown rice milk.
(learn how to make tasty brown rice milk at Kampung Senang Eco-Kitchen)


Pitfall 3:
Not taking Organic brown rice:
-- Very few people realise, rice is one of the most toxic crops on Earth..
-- Because rice is the main staple for bulk of the population on Earth,
people can/will do anything desperately to preserve and  protect the yield of rice.
This means that fungicides and pesticides etc are heavily used.
-- Organic rice may be a bit more expensive,
but it is much healthier and is worth the investment.

Hope the info on brown rice so far,
will bring good health to more people :)

Well regards,
Kee Yew

Awareness-on-the-Rice
{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Awareness on the Rice (2)

While many people understand

the healthfulness of brown rice,
and would like to adopt brown rice in their routine diet;
some may be troubled/confused with technical issues
such as the accessibility of brown rice, the method of cooking,
and the type of brown rice to consume.

Here are some FAQs that I come across very often in
my vegetarian classes:

I) I don't see brown rice around my work place, what should I do?
3 suggestions:
a. Buy brown rice powder from supermarket and
stir into plant milk as breakfast cereal/afternoon tea.
b. Cook brown rice porridge the night before using thermal cooker
and bring to work.
c. Take whole wheat noodle or wholemeal bread for lunch
as replacement.

II) My family members complain about the taste/texture of brown rice, what can I do?
3 suggestions:
a. Learn to cook brown rice the proper manner.
Use 1.5~2 cups of water for every 1 cup of brown rice.
b. Try Golden Brown Rice Recipe in "Simple Vegetarian" cookbook :P
c. Cook brown rice as porridge, it is usually more acceptable for newbies.

III) Which type of brown rice is better? Long grain, short grain, red, black or brown?
Different types of brown rice have different nutritional profiles.
Do not be selective/discriminative about the shape and colour they come in;
as we need all the nutrients from all types of rice.
So, rotate among different types from time to time :)

IV) Brown rice is 'heaty' to me, what do I do?
3 suggestions:
1. get into habit of drinking 12 cups of water daily
2. drink 2 cups of fresh juice daily
3. do more exercise to circulate the 'chi' in our body evenly

V) Do I throw away the water after soaking my brown rice?
YES, after soaking brown rice for 4~8hours,
the soaking water now contains metabolic waste
released from the awakened brown rice.
The water is acidic, hence it should be thrown away
or used for watering plants ;)


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

Awareness-on-the-Rice{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Awareness on the Rice (1)

It's has been very encouraging to see

that brown rice is getting more and more common at vegetarain outlets
and more people are switching from white rice to brown rice.

I was teaching a cooking class
at Buddhist Life Mission Assoc a few days ago.
A quick survey among the ~40 students,
revealed that brown rice was acceptable in 90% of the crowd.

It's not significant statistics with such a small pool size of 40 people,
but it's definitely a good indicator.
Multiple years back, when I talked about brown rice,
many of my students outright complained about
its taste, difficulty to cook, the price, accessibility etc..

Consistently in the past 7 years,
I make effort to emphasize the importance of
brown rice in our diet;
raising the awareness
that brown rice is a critical switch into a healthy diet.

Often, I tell people that
brown rice is the solid foundation of
a nutritionally balanced vegetarian diet,
because:

i) brown rice is 10x more nutritious than
polished white rice
(potentially 20-30x more nutritious
if soaked before cooking)

ii) on top of complex carbohydrates, essential fats,
phytonutrients, vitamins etc,
brown rice also contains a lot of minerals
which supply us with vital life force

iii) brown rice provides stable energy
in a sustainable manner over longer period of time
(due to low GI)

iv) brown rice is high in fibre which cleanses
our gastro-intestinal tract

v) brown rice is rich in VitB which
helps in making blood and
maintaining a good nervous system

vi) brown rice balances the Yin elements from
some veggies and fruits.

vii) brown rice is loaded with IP6, a kind of
plant-specific nutrients that is highly potent in
battling cancer and mitigating diabetic condition.

...

There are a lot more reasons to go brown rice,
but talking alone does not change our lives,
so, start taking brown rice today! =)



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

Awareness-on-the-Rice


aotr.
{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

Financial Freedom A Deception?

A while ago,
a friend forwarded me a blog on
how one may perceive
the idea of financial freedom as a kind of
deception.

I agree to how the author pitched in his article
that the phrase "Finanicial Freedom" is overly abused,
and how many industries exploit this term to lure in a lot of funds,
sometimes unethically.

But this is again a same old debate of whether
money is the root of evil.

While money has always remains as tool,
it's human's greed and ignorance that bring about the adverse effects.

In the article, it was questioned whether
financial freedom is at all achievable for most of the people.

The answer should be a yes,
depending on how Financial Freedom is defined.

According to Harv Eker in The Secrets of Millionaire Mind,
Financial Freedom is achieved when
one's monthly passive/investment income exceeds
one's monthly expense.

The tricks in achieving financial freedom is
1. to gain financial IQ (ie humble and continuous learning)
2. to put in effort to set up platforms/systems for passive/investment income
3. to simplify lifestyle (ie reduce monthly expense in sensible manner)

A lot of people go thru' a lot of futile effort in wealth management
because at least one of the 3 above is missing,
and when one fails,
one decides to call oneself a victim and
conveniently denies the whole idea of financial freedom
(or even the necessity of money)

Watch what Robert Kiyosaki says
in this preview clip to his latest documentary on wealth:




In other words, as Kiyosaki puts it,
it's financial education and personal quality
that matters in financial success.

It's never been a money issue.


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

 {Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

The Fats of Life (4)

So, is there any way out?

We are not supposed to take animal oil;
and now, we can't even use plant oil for cooking!?

The core of the whole story lies in
the proper methods of consumption,
not exactly
the types of oil to avoid,
as mentioned in The Fats of Life (1)

Some tips on healthier ways of fat intake:

1. Consume fats naturally from
raw nuts/seeds/fruits
(e.g. soaked raw almond, raw sunflower seeds,
fresh coconut milk, avocado spread etc..
-- also check out this good fat/hi protein recipe )
or
raw cold pressed oils
(e.g. olive oil+herbs for breadspread, flaxseed oil for salad)

2. When cooking at home, use only plant-based cooking oil which
has the highest [saturated fats: unsaturated fats] ratio
(e.g. certain brands of naturally processed coconut oil).
-- BUT only for quick and low heat cooking
(never deep fry)
-- AND, buy cooking oil from health food shops, not from supermarket
(as the conventional brands are usually chemically processed)

3. When eating out, avoid or minimise on just any type of cooking oil
-- because there is a high chance that the oils used are cheap and bad oil...
(i.e. eat out less or order food with no/little oil)
Try go for dishes
like fresh salad, sushi, steamed dim sum, noodle soup, porridge etc
that lend little chance to the abuse of cooking oils.

It sounds like a great misery
that we have to exert on ourselves such restrictions.

But the good news is our taste buds
can adapt very quickly (in just 2weeks!).

Once we switch into the habit of
having less oily content in our hot meals,
our body will like it and carry on the habit
naturally and effortlessly ;)

Now, we are given 3 choices:
Kicking the bad habit of taking bad cooking oil for only 2 weeks
and enjoy a revitalised life happily ever after
or
Suffer for 5.5yrs of detox after taking bad fat
or
Suffer entire life (if one don't even bother to detox!)
having leaky and malfunctioning fats in our every single cells

We know what we should do obviously =)

Happy life-transforming,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

p/s: in my students' project report on healthy oils , there are indications on how to choose a safer cooking oil :)

The-Fats-of-Life
{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

The Fats of Life (3)

It may be difficult to believe that

the plant based cooking oil is intoxicating us day by day.

We were educated since day one that
plant oils containing unsaturated fatty acids
(c.f. artery-clogging saturated fats from animals)
are good for health,
and now,
it's the otherwise!
So is there something wrong with the science?
-- or the scientists?

The fact is,
if it's true science, it will never fail.

The contradictive remarks could be attributed to
dishonest and biased presentation of scientific facts
(by certain organisations, due to vested interests)
and food politics
(that purposely twist the interpretation of scientific facts).

The unsaturated fatty acids (comprising of Omega-3,6,9)
in plant oils are indeed great stuff!
They are raw ingredients for cell membrane, nervous system,
certain hormones and cellular receptors
which are all vital for basic physiological functions and daily metabolism.

However, unsaturated fats are also very unstable and
easily damaged by heat/light/oxygen/humidity.

If these unstaurated fats are used inappropriately
(ie subject to high heat treatment e.g. grilling/baking/stir fry/deep fry),
the structure/conformation of the unsaturated fats molecules will alter.

These altered/deformed unsaturated fats molecules
when assimilated into our body
to become part of the cell membrane, nervous system, hormonal system etc,
these systems will become leaky/malfunctioned.
(simply, when the basic units are 'looking funny',
the bigger system is not going to work properly too!)

What's worse is that
any fat molecule once assimilated into our bodily system,
is not going to be expelled from the body easily.

The average half life of a fat molecule is 500 days.
In other words, if one were to have assimilated 100g of bad fat today,
no matter what, one will still retain 50g of bad fat ~1.5yrs later.
To get rid of 93.75% of bad fat,
one needs to wait for 2000 days (~5.5yrs).

This is where the concept of responsible eating comes in
and why detox is not an overnight or even over-the-year affair!

Actually, the science of fats is quite established nowadays.
It's more like an issue of lacking good will or hidden conscience,
rather than a matter of bad science..

Hence, ultimately, it's good will that heals..



With loving kindness,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

The-Fats-of-Life

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

The Fats of Life (2)

Along the years of learning about fats,
it's not difficult to see
some widespread misconceptions about fats:

Misconception 1:
Fatty food is bad for health
>While this statement holds true for most of the time,
knowing the average person's intake of fats nowadays
easily exceeds 20% (recommended) of our diet,
fat is actually important for health.
Fat, in physiological perspective, is vital for:
- cell membrane building (ie cellular division)
- brain cells development
- making of hormones
Fatty food (e.g. avocado & coconut) is not necessarily bad,
provided that:
~the total percentage fat intake is controlled at 20%
and
~the fats are from whole plant food and undamaged
(ie no artificial refinement and no heat treatment).


Misconception 2:
All plant oils are healthy
>Depending on the method of consumption,
plant oil can be very bad,
when it is subject to
chemical processing
(e.g. hydrogenation to generate trans-fats)
or
high temperature treatment
(e.g. for preservation of oil during manufacturing
and deep frying)



Misconception 3:
Saturated fats are bad for cardiovascular health
> This is also an over-generalised statement.
Long chain saturated fats
which are relatively prominent in animal fats
are bad indeed,
as it's less easily combusted and our body prefer to store it.
Medium chain and short chain saturated fats
which are easily found in some plants
(e.g. coconut milk)
are good for our health,
as they are easily combusted or assimilated
(hence no clogging problem).
These plant-based saturated fats, when taken raw,
also confer medicinal benefits
(if administered appropriately).

Fat, just like cholesterol, comes in both bad and good forms.
So, the solution to fat-related health conditions nowadays
doesn't lie in avoiding fats blindly;
but relies on our ability to differentiate the good and bad oils.

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

p/s: I have finished reviewing my students' project report on Fats.. looking forward sharing their great work online =)

The-Fats-of-Life


{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}