What did you receive during the holiday?

I don't know why people kept giving us the gift of sweets during the holidays. We know that we receive sweets, so why don't we start giving something else from this year? The best gift is the fruits!! There is a lot of sweet fruits during the winter season! I know the fruits don't last long.... BUT! If we receive the gift of fruits, then it'd change from the unhealthiest of sweet, meat, and alcohol to the healthiest season in the year! I'm sure people would be happy to be healthy;)

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Are you a vegetarian?

A Happy New Year everyone!

How was the holiday? Well, I went to a Christmas Eve party at my friend's house. We had three types of fondue: beef, shrimp, and vegetables. Because I love all, I sat in the middle to reach the three fondues!!

At this party, there were two people who were vegetarian, one of which was a vegan and the other was my friend who eats eggs and drinks milk but never eats meat, fishes, and shrimps. The reason for her to be a vegetarian is not to kill animals and fishes, or whatever have lives. The other person I've met at the party had the same reason but a very strong belief, that's why he became a vegan.

On the other hand, one of my friends considers himself as a "vegetarian" because he has grown up with a sort-of-vegetarian family and never liked the taste of meat. But as getting older and having more experiences especially with his girlfriend, he has started eating chicken and fishes. He's learned "spam" too. I think by comparing with those two people I've mentioned just above, he is definitely not a vegetarian... :(

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Oatmeal with 0 sugar

Here again I'm talking about Oatmeal. Honestly I am becoming to like it!! Ok, now... I have previously mentioned about the oatmeal that contains 0g of sugar. Before trying the non-sugar oatmeal package, I researched on how to make the non-sugar oatmeal taste good. Here I found an interesting website all about healthy recipes. Then I tried it. It wasn't bad at all!! It's my breakfast almost everyday now.

How I like to eat is, based on the recipes, to add some organic raisins and probably one tea spoon of honey. I sometimes add a little bit of organic soymilk that my boss at work makes by herself. It's so good and very healthy!

One day my boss made an ultimate healthy non-sugar oatmeal for all the employees for the breakfast. I added some slices of banana and organic raisins. hummmmm yummy~

I am so glad that I have discovered another healthy meal!

Oatmeal

I've been exploring oatmeal. The other day I noticed that the instant oatmeal I was eating had 10g of sugar per package. I thought it's a little bit too much for just one package, isn't it? According to wikipedia, it says "the type of instant, boil-in-bag oatmeal that is common in America, has many artificial additives, an extremely high content of carbohydrates (about 70% carbohydrates and 167 calories per bag), and a fairly low content of oats in itself. This sugar content easily makes up for the other health benefits of the oatmeal, and makes the end result an unhealthy breakfast."

That is exactly what I am concerned about. Oatmeal should be very healthy but it turns out an unhealthy meal if you don't pay enough attention to what contains. Eating oatmeal isn't always good but considering what contains in it is more important.

So I went to the Wholefoods near my place and looked around. What a surprise! There are so many oatmeal packages that contain lots of sugar! So I chose the one with 0g sugar. I don't know about the taste, so let's see if I would like it or not.

This incident reminds me of something; the bitter the taste is, the healthier it is. My mother always said that when we had to take medicine, "if it tastes awful, it means the medicine is good." Because if you think about it, if it tastes sweet for taking medicine easier, that means it's added sugar. ugh.... At least this oatmeal should be healthy... hahaha

Soba again!

Yes yes, I'm so lazy to cook sometimes, so I cooked soba again. But this time I added spinach, green onion, egg, sesame seeds, and different types of seaweed such as wakame, nori, and tororo combu (shaved kombu). This meal was really healthy.

Stomach Upset

After lunch with a little bit too sweet french toast with sausages on the side, I started feeling sick. It's more like I wanted to throw up. I knew what it was... It's a simple stomach upset that I sometimes have by depending on my body condition. In addition to my body that had been slightly tired, I ate a little too many sausages that were a kind of too oily.

Because I love sausages, I totally forgot that I was not young anymore when I could eat as many oily sausages as I wanted and had been eating very healthy food for a quite long time that my body could not digest such food.

I took a pill of live acidophilus but I guess one was not enough this time. I didn't get better. I could've taken one or two more pills but I didn't. It's simply because I knew it would be better sometime soon. Sure it was! 4~5 hours later(!?) Bingo!!

I wasn't planning to eat dinner but decided to boil some water and put spinach and edamame (soy beans) in it. I ate them with katuo bushi (bonito fish flake) with some sesame seeds and a bit of ponzu shoyu. My stomach was settled.

I knew my body needed more green.

Oatmeal

I remember one of my co-workers at the previous company liked oatmeal and discussed about it with other co-worker who didn't like. I had never tried because it didn't look good. I mean I hardly ate cereal at that time either because I didn't grow up that way and cereal was like a snack rather than "meal."

I have learned that cereal is actually good for breakfast because there is a lot of fiber and balanced nutrition. I just have to carefully choose the ones with less sugar.

Now after 4~5 years later from the discussion my former co-workers had, I've finally tried oatmeal as breakfast. The reason was the other night I was searching healthy food and happened to find out how good oatmeal was. My co-worker I currently work with at a company always eats oatmeal in the morning and it still didn't look good, but I was thinking, "since it said very healthy, actually healthier than cereal, why do I just try it?" So I did. I liked it at the beginning, but the more oatmeal melt in the hot water and stickier it got, the harder I could eat. I mean I finished them all but I had hard time to eat at the end.

The funny thing is that I eat natto. It's very sticky, smelly and weird taste, but I still like it. My roommate at that time loves food and he wanted to try any kind of food as just an experience, so that he knows what it is and can talk about it from his own experience. I understood because I am the same. So I let him try and he made such a funny face while eating natto. He said he didn't mind the smell and taste but the stickiness. I was thinking while experiencing the first oatmeal, "wow, this is how he felt when he was easting the natto. And I actually AM making the same funny expression on my face while eating the sticky oatmeal!!"

I think it's all about the psychological mind. If you think it's weird, then it is weird and it doesn't taste good. So I will try again with a happy thought. Actually as my co-worker does, I shall put the half package of oatmeal with hot water and the rest after, so that it's all fresh before getting mussy. What do y' think?