Food for skin!

A few months ago, I was listening to an interview of a Food Administration Official in the NPR FM channel. I do not remember the name of the official though. The interview was about a book that she wrote recently about why the number of incidences of cancer are on the increase. One thing that caught my interest was about the skin-care.

(As mentioned in the interview): Skin is a very large organ that is exposed all the time. Hence we need to take really good care of it. Skin absorbs whatever is applied on it and these enter the body. So, what we apply on the skin should be edible practically.

This made me wonder -- in that case, all the skin-related products that we use, firstly should not have the warning tag 'For External Use only'. Ayurveda-inspired products like Himalaya have the same tag. Even products like chap-sticks and lip-sticks, alas! I wonder how these companies that make these products think the substance is far away from getting into the mouth!

All these thoughts brought back my childhood memories, when my mother and my grand-mother would constantly remind me almost everyday to do an oil-bath. Oil-bath is an elaborate and healthy process (it used to be a daily ritual, but no longer). An edible oil like sesame oil or olive oil is used to oil the skin well and then one has to wait for a while for the oil to soak into the skin. A soft paste is prepared with lentil's flour (usually moong dal, chana dal) and milk. This paste is applied on the skin and the scrubbing process starts. After one feels the scrubbing has been good, it is time to rinse. Now if I think, all the substances we used were edible - indicating that this is the best bath product for the skin and hence, for our body too. Forget about all the 'complexion-care', 'dry-skin care', 'even-tone care', 'anti-aging care' skin products - one run through the ingredients present in the soap - puts in a lot of doubts in my mind, like is sodium laureate edible?

Recently, a pediatrician also suggested the same, when I was raising concerns over kid's skin dryness which I observed usually during seasonal and climate changes (this is called acclimatization) and asked which moisturizers to use. This is what he said - 'you should be having sesame oil at home, the one we use for pickles. Apply that before and after bath. And for the bath, use stone-pressed soft moong dal flour'. And its been a week now and the skin has improved and it could withstand the effect of climate changes. Do I need any other testimony? I don't think so!

What our ancestors followed, does seem to be a very healthy thing! After all these inventions and research in skin-care products, I think we will and we have to get back to lentil's flour and edible-oil based bath products. And for such products, I shall look out.

p.s. Well, it will be amusing when skin products have the tags like -

'Gives better or similar results when consumed'!

'Can be used as a substitute for a snack, 0% Trans fat'

[Any such interesting one-liners are welcome!]

Interview of Carol Thompson Eidt: Good points

Read the article here:

http://anitaborg.org/news/archive/senior-technical-woman-profile-carol-thompson-eidt-common-language-runtime-microsoft/

Points to note:

I just loved some of the points she makes like
1. the innumerable problems to solve,
2. endless possibilities to get a solution and innovate
3. being an expert in one's field and getting excited to work on it
4. family/work balance and
5. finally, the important thing is CONFIDENCE. I am amazed when she tells it is still one of her challenge even now. I cannot help but quote her very own words - very inspiring!!!

"""
My greatest challenge has always been confidence, and it’s an ongoing struggle. I have to work at trusting my own competence (rather than assuming that if someone disagrees with me, they’re probably right). I have to pump myself up in preparation for presentations or controversial discussions.
"""

Something for all the career woman to keep in mind and work towards.

Time-pass fun for Toddlers - Idea 1 (Collage)

Managing kids of 2-3 years age is quite a task. Engaging them in a useful activity that also helps hone a few skills is ideal. So, here's an idea that could turn very messy, but has a lot of learning fun.

We get a lot of junk in our mails - especially the glossy shopping advertisements. I store them and give one at a time to kid. Kid takes it up and with the aid of a small scissors (this HAS to be done under adult supervision) ask kid to cut portions of paper having a particular alphabet. Kid searches for the alphabet, finds one and tears up the portion. All these bits are kept aside and later in a scrap-book, will let the kid paste all the bits having the same letter in a single page. Every day, it is a new alphabet. In a month's time (26 days at least) - you have your very own alphabet book prepared by your kid! Now that is something really worth storing and using it to learn alphabets!

Whole-grain idlis and dosa! 'Health' it up!

Often seeing whole-grain breads, whole-meal pasta - wondered why not whole-grain idlis or whole-grain dosas. I tried it two years back and from then on, the idlis and dosas at home have the whole-grain ingredient.

The ingredients are just the same, but replaced with the whole-grain substitutes. That is, polished white urid dal is replaced with black gram (whole urid dal with cover) and rice is replaced with brown-rice or unpolished rice.

The texture and color changes - in fact, idlis do get a slight bitter taste due to the cover of urid dal. The texture of dosas is good and gives a good nutty taste. Try it out next time you make idlis or dosas, though it will need sometime to get used to the taste and color!

A few organic stores in Singapore (around Tiong Bahru)

I favor organic products - food, vegetables, cosmetics, clothing and other products. This interest urges me to search for stores that contain organic products. I will list out a few stores that have organic products:

• Yes, Natural!, right opposite Tiong Bahru market - This is my favorite. It is an organic store with a lot of natural products* too. The highlight of the store (for me, especially) is, natural ponni rice grown from Taiwan at almost the same price as that of the regular non-organic ponni rice from Mustafa. These days they offer organic plant produce like fruits and vegetables and also have a few organic bakery items (their wholemeal bread is amazing!).
• Organic vegetable stall in Tiong Bahru Market: There's one really small stall that sells fresh organic vegetable produce. The best thing: the shop-owner entertains vegetable-list one day prior to our visit (sent through SMS) and sets them ready for us to pick them up. Offers a wide variety of organic produce which no shop offers so far; some of them are papayya (for cooking), snake-gourd, bitter-gourd (both indian and chinese), raw mango (for cooking), sweet papayya (fruit), green chillis, beetroot, potatoes, onions, ginger, garlic, different types of spinach, herbs and many more. (all of them are organic, most of them certified).
  
• NTUC Tiong Bahru Plaza: This NTUC has a shelf in an aisle dedicated to organic plant produce; tomatoes, lady's fingers, carrots, kailan, spinach (occasionally), string beans, coriander (occasionally), green bell peppers, red bell peppers, pumpkin, cabbage, lettuce are the regular items that could be spotted.
• Nature's Glory on Outram Road: This is a large organic store - having almost all kinds of products.
• Four seasons market at Carrefour in Suntek Mall: Large organic section, offer almost all kinds of products.
• Organic paradise: Used to be on temple street. A recent trip - I did not find the store. I liked the store for all the kinds of products they offered - especially vegetables.
  

A big complaint with most of the organic stores is finding proper cooking oil with high smoke point. Most of the oils are cold pressed and extra-virgin which are suitable for salads and dressing. To obtain cooking oil for high heat cooking - I resort to the organic section (four seasons market) in Carrefour at Suntek Mall. The organic section is huge, way larger than that of Carrefour at Plaza Singapura.

Another complaint is organic fresh dairy milk; the organic milk is usually available in tetra-packs (available at NTUC Tiong Bahru, NTUC Bukit Merah). NTUC Tiong Bahru obtains organic fresh milk - but that's not frequent.

* To the best of my understanding, natural products are also produced (i) under the same restrictions as organic products, but are not certified or (ii) not as strict as organic farming.