Food Labels - Part III - Understanding Them Is Critical To Your Health

Food labels contain a wealth of information about the healthfulness of the product if you know what to look for and how to interpret them. The packaging of a food product tells you nothing about how healthy the product is. It tells you what the manufacturer wants you to think about the healthfulness of the product.

 Nutrition Facts
The Nutrition Facts on food labels gives you information on calories, grams of fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugars, and protein in each serving plus some percentages of a few nutrients. What they don't tell you is that:


1 gram of fat = approx. 9 calories. 
1 gram of protein = approx. 4 calories. 
1 gram of carbohydrate = approx. 4 calories. 
4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon of sugar 

Label reading - Part II

Since 2005, Malaysia has made it compulsory for food companies to label their packaged products with nutrient content. Manufacturers must state the amount of energy, carbohydrate, protein and fat in each 100gm of the product or per serving.

Nutrient information for vitamins, minerals, sodium and cholesterol is optional. (Check the Nutrition Month Malaysia 2008 Guide at www.nutriweb.org.my)

Here’s a brief on what to look for when we scour through the mind-boggling variety of food products in the market. It’s unrealistic to carry a guidebook on additives when we shop but paying attention to the labels is a good start!

Label 1: chicken sausage (locally made)

1. The label chicken meat is only a fraction of the content. The flavour enhancers give you the chicken “taste”. It would be good if the manufacturer can list the ratio of chicken, corn starch and soya protein in sausage.

history behind Aidila Adha

Apart from Aidil Fitri, the festival most grandly  celebrated by Muslims the world over is Aidil Adha. In Malaysia, it is more commonly known as Hari Raya Korban or Hari Raya Haji and a public holiday is observed. 


This year it was my first time celebrating Aidil Adha with my in-laws family. It was a short break this year as Aidil Adha falls on wed a mid week instead like the usual hols either in the beginning or end week. Their celebrations ritual are totally different to ours (kl-ians & johor-ians...) cos to them Raya Korban is not just about families & villagers helping out 'korban'; its also like a visiting & minggling with relatives (houses to houses) with lots of fancy food & laughters on their plates. Nways it was a good experience raya-ing with my new family hehe.

My parents in law cooked lemang &; nasi himpit for the festive celebration and i notice their cooking rituals begin since the day before Hari Raya Korban. Most the relatives would arrive by the Raya eve to cook lemang & the spirit of togetherness is their main agenda. Overall it was a good celebration -- had fun going raya-ing houses to houses meeting relatives & all -- hehe its just that when they're about to extend their celeb to Kelantan; we had to leave for KL as work commence the next day. sob sob.


Nways here's abit of info behind the Hari raya Korban. It is quite Interesting one to summ up in one word.
 

April Fools' Day: Origin and History

The uncertain origins of a foolish day by David Johnson and Shmuel Ross

April Fools' Day, sometimes called All Fools' Day, is one of the most light hearted days of the year.

The deal with Daylight Savings

Say today is the official day the Daylight Savings has ended for Western Australia.. All those hours we lost to having a stretch day hours are now back in our hands... nyways lets recap what is the deal with this Daylight Savings anyway...