This is a bit of thinking post because I have been a bit stumped at times. It’s one of those “guilt-trip” feelings where after watching a TV commercial on “Buy Malaysian Products”, I actually don’t do it much when it comes to food.
Oh, I eat the raw food that are grown locally i.e. vegetables, fruits, meat and fish. It’s just that majority of the seasonings or processed food, I’ve bought imported stuff. And all for one reason : reduced salt or no-salt labelling. Malaysian seasonings or processed food will either have no labels about sodium content or they would put a generic one of “Less than 2,400 mg” (equivalent to 1 teaspoon).
A good example is the Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. The one that is packaged in Malaysia doesn’t have the sodium content. However, the one imported in from the US does. So I bought the one in the US and not the Malaysian one.
A lot of people have also advocated that sea salt is also good because it has reduced sodium in it. Unfortunately, for a person who has a blood pressure condition, any salt intake is enough to get the heart beating. It also isn’t comforting to know that my Uncle Doctor mentioned that Norvasc will make my heart palpitate a bit more anyways. Aiya…
The difficulty about going on such a strict diet was the amount of hearsay that I hear from people. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Relax a bit. Little do they know that I eat enough now to be satisfied. Plus, because my diet is so clean now that taking outside food will give me discomfort. I either have a lot of gas in my stomach causing me to burp a lot or I get heartburn. I get the feeling that friends are trying to tell me to go easier to comfort themselves that they couldn’t do it. Haha! Ah well.
The one thing that is motivating me from going back to bad habits is my skin, to be honest. It’s starting to clear up a lot and if I ever went back to eating uncontrollably, the reddish bits are going to come back. Now that’s something I do not want to happen.
Also, Malaysian-made seasoning in the rare occasions, will give me allergic reactions. So, I tend to keep away from things like Chilli Boh which I suspect has a lot of artificial vinegar/acids inside it or there’s some bizarre chemical in there that’s giving me problems.
In any case, I hope one day that there will be a Malaysian Food Company who is like Del Monte. They took a very strong stand of reducing salt in their products that their competitors just loses out. Whether it’s can products or sauces, it’s reduced. They didn’t always promote their products as reduced salt but when you compare the products side-by-side, they use less.
Now, just to end this post. The number of people who I meet are now surprisingly starting to eat more healthily. It was an eye-opener for me as they came up to me to either say it worked for them or they are enjoying their meals more. So there is some truth at least in this clean diet business.
Anyway, I have had my cheat meal this week already. Lunch with Dad at Sushi King and an ais kacang dessert. Which resulted in me not being able to sleep well at night. Also, a bowl of Sarawak Laksa for lunch yesterday with Granny. So yes, I have these cheat meals but they are rare and in-between. I compensate it later with more veggie and no-carb meals later on. 🙂 It balances out pretty well, if you ask me. 🙂 But I can’t do this for long. 🙂
I’m off the whole week so posting up stuff on the blog again. Next week is back to work so less time to blog.
