I eat lots of fruits and vegetables

Someone once asked me how I get well-built without eating meat.

My friend who was with me answered for me, "He eats LOTS of fruits and vegetables!"

Yeah, I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. And that's all to it! You don't need to eat meat.

The truth is, it is exercise that builds muscles, not meat. Of course, protein is required to for muscles to grow. But ultimately it is exercise that builds muscles, and vegetable proteins are just as effectively as meat protein to fuel muscle growth.


My diet

There is nothing special about my diet. I do not make or pack my own food to work. So I just eat what is available in the cafeteria, food courts or hawker centers.

These are my considerations when I get my food:

Brown Rice: I always get brown rice if it is available.
Green Leaves: I always make sure I have some green leaf vegetables. Actually, I grew up hating green leaf vegetables, but green vegetables are important for vitamins and minerals. I do like Kai lan and spinach, but they are rarely available at the usual food stalls because they are more expensive. Most likely, you will get cai xin (which I hate but will still eat), xiao bai cai (I really hate it when they cook the whole plant without cutting it into smaller pieces) or Chinese spinach (xian cai).
Protein food: I love bean sprouts and tofu. Other protein-rich vegetables are long beans, french beans and peas. The cafeteria at my office serves India vegetarian food, so sometimes I can get chickpeas and dhal.
Mock meat: Mock meat adds variety and texture to the meals. But I usually limit to just 1 dish each meals, because these tends to be highly processed with lots of additives and seasoning. These tends to be made from wheat gluten (which is a form of protein) or soy (Texturized Vegetable Protein), and are actually high in protein.
Deep fried stuff: People always say vegetarian food is mostly deep fried stuff, but I don't think that's true. There is a lot of fried food available at the vegetarian stalls. But if you choose to avoid the deep fried food, there are still other choices. The only problem is that the deep fried stuff tends to be the tasty stuff... I usually limit to a maximum of 1 dish of fried food each meal.
Other vegetables: Generally, I try to get vegetables and limit deep fried or highly processed food stuff to at most 2 side dishes. The one vegetable that can be found at almost all vegetarian stalls is cabbage and that's one of my favourite vegetables. Brinjal is nice too, except that it is tends to be cooked too oily and salty, so I don't take that too often. I consider potato a carbo food rather than a vegetable dish, so if I get potato, I will ask for less rice.
Desert: I will go for green bean soup or red bean soup if I would like to have some protein. Otherwise, I will get cheng teng or some thing with real fruits (like honey dew sago).
Drinks: I drink at least 1 glass of soy milk everyday. My favorite is Unisoy Organic Soy Milk with no sugar added. If I buy from Mr Bean, I will ask for less sugar. Generally, I avoid sugared drinks. In the morning, I drink black coffee with very little sugar (Kopi O siu dai). I always drink Chrysantamum tea without sugar and avoid soda drinks like Coke or Sprite.
Eggs: I do like eggs. But I do not rely on it for protein. I know people who will eat 3 to 5 hard boiled eggs every day, but I don't do that. I allow eggs mainly for convenience, because many cakes and pastry has some eggs. Sometimes I'll add a fried egg to my breakfast.
Milk: I am slightly lactose intolerant. I can take milk tea or coffee without problem but a piece of cheese cake or a glass of fresh milk will send me to the toilet. Most of the time, the milk I take is what gets into the tea, coffee or deserts.

So, I really just eat the usual stuff available from food court. There is no special home cook food or magic diet. I just try to be more careful and mindful about what I eat. Here's my typical meal each day:

Morning: A plate of fried bee hoon or fried kway tiao, sometimes with an egg or tofu. A cup of black coffee with little sugar.

Lunch: Brown Rice with 4 - 5 dishes. A piece of fruit. I usually ask for less rice and have more side dishes instead. I always bring a lunch box with me and sometimes I will split the lunch into two portions. The other portion to be eaten after 3pm.

Tea Break: The other portion kept from lunch, or some biscuits, or a egg mayo sandwich, or a curry bun. I need a tea snack because my lunch is light and I will usually get hungry by 3 to 4pm and dinner is usually after 7pm.

Dinner: Rice (about 1/3 of a bowl) with lots of vegies/tofu. My mother is not a very creative cook, but there is always lots of variety, even if they are cooked almost the same way. My family is not vegetarian, but if I eat at home, my mum cooks vegetarian for everyone. I will eat 2 to 3 pieces of fruits. There is always fruits in the fridge because we buy fruits regularly as offerings to the Buddha.

I know for many people, home meals are the most problematic because the rest of the family are not vegetarian. You will need to talk to family for more vegetarian variety. You can also prepare some extra side dishes for yourself, like pickled vegetables, veggie patties, and salads. These can be kept in the fridge and you can just take small portions for yourself if the rest of the family are not interested.

Supper: No supper. If I am hungry late in the night, I will eat an apple or an orange.

Snacks: I avoid snacking. Once in a while, I may have an ice cream, or some potato chips. If temptation is great, I will snack on some nuts (cashews or almonds), or eat a piece of fruit instead.

Supplements: I have a bottle of Vitamin B12 on my desk and once in a while I will pop a pill.

I do not take protein supplements until recently, although a few years ago, I did take some spirulina (I stopped because it was too expensive). And there is really no need to unless you want to really put on bulk. We can get enough protein from our regular diet. The other problem is that most protein supplements are whey protein, which is milk protein. Although I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian, I did not like the idea of taking whey protein. If you have read the book The China Study, you will know why. Whey protein is after all animal protein, and taking it in concentrated amounts can't be too good for you. Two months ago, a friend introduced a vegan brown rice protein, and I have added it to my diet. It is called "Brown Rice Protein" by Jarrow Formulas. It is not available in the shops, but someone is selling it on Singapore's Ebay. Since I just started on it, I can't tell if it is any good. But at least it adds variety to the soy-based protein that is most common form of protein in Asian vegetarian diet.

So that's basically how I eat. Nothing very special really.

Vegetarians can have hot bods

I'm going to be a bit shameless and show off a bit.

Vegetarians can have hot bods. You really don't need to eat meat.

Anyway, I know I look hot in that picture because the sun was really blazing hot that day. Trust me...

Vegetarian love

A couple of days ago, a friend wrote to me, asking if going vegetarian could help bestow longevity to his father. He father had fallen ill and his friend had told him that if he could go vegetarian, he could generate good karma which could help prolong his father's life.

Actually, this is a pretty common belief among many Chinese Buddhists. I've know many who would go vegetarian for a period of time, either to pray for their loved one's health, or in thanks-giving after their loved one recovered from some major illness.

I told my friend honestly that I don't believe that going vegetarian could improve his father's health the way he thought.

Now, I do believe keeping a vegetarian diet does improve a person's health and probably leads to a longer life. There is a direct link between diet and a person's health, and a strong correlation n between meat consumption and incidences of modern "life-style diseases" like heart diseases, diabetes and cancer. (For more information about the correlation, I recommend the book The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell). However, I do not believe that it improves another person's health through miraculous transference of good karma.

I still encouraged my friend to try go vegetarian anyway, for good reasons. By doing that, he personally benefits from avoiding meat consumption, and he provides support to his father to change to a vegetarian diet, which could well improve his father's health.

I remember many years ago, my mother was not well too. I was away in USA and at that time, I was not yet fully vegetarian. That time, I went vegetarian for one month to pray for my mother's well-being. With my understanding of Buddhism, I was quite clear then, that it was not going to generate good karma that will miraculously make my mother well. I still did it anyway. I was away from home and felt pretty helpless for not being able to do much. So I observed one month of vegetarian diet. It was my way of keeping my mother in mind and dedicating my love for her.

So, if anyone would ask me if they should go vegetarian for a while to dedicate merits to their loved ones, I would encourage them to do so. For them, going vegetarian is an expression of their love.

孟子素食语录

君子之于禽兽也，
见其生，不忍见其死。
闻其声，不忍食其肉，
是以君子远庖厨也。

-孟子

Counting calories

I was browsing at the NTUC Fairprice just the other day and saw a bottle of stewed mushrooms going for $1.50. I love mushrooms. This came in a nice bottle and the contents looked quite tempting as well. At $1.50 it's really quite cheap.

Actually, I thought it is amazingly cheap. When I looked at the nice bottle, I could not help but wonder about all the resource that went into making the bottle, the metal lid, cooking the mushrooms and then transporting it from China to here. Are all these resources worth just $1.50.

It's not that I have anything against cheap food. In fact, I hate inflation and would like to see food prices remain cheap. But I think we are really not paying for the real cost of the food. $1.50 really does not cover the environment costs and social costs involved in making that bottle of stewed mushrooms.

I remember there was a documentary years back (it was when I was in Junior College, so that's like almost 20 years ago. I remembered that because my JC classmates laughed at me when I brought up the topic) which pointed out the gross inefficiency in the way we gain energy from our food. The irony is that the calories we derived from canned food, for example, is really a fraction of the total calories that is used to get it to our dining table. Energy was used to mine the tin ore, refine the ore into tin, manufacture the tin cans, cook the food, package the canned food and transport it -- the total energy used in the whole process far exceeds the few calories we derived from the food in the can.

I had a good look at the bottle of mushrooms and then put it back on the shelf. I decided that eating fresh is healthier and less demanding on the environment.

Are you eating animal carcass?

I saw on yesterday's The Sunday Times, a recipe that called for the use of a "chicken carcass"

At first I thought it was a mistake, but it occurred more than once in the text, so it's not.

I checked up the meaning of this word. I guess in this case, it means "the body of a slaughtered animal after removal of the offal."

But this is not the most commonly used meaning of this word. In fact, the Longman Contemporary English dictionary I have did not have this entry. The listed meaning was "the dead body of an animal".

Actually, that's what meat really is: the dead body of an animal. Most people, however, refuse to recognize that. I think most people would find it revolting to think of eating meat as eating a carcass.

This is most commonly observed among the Westerners. They have no problem with fish fillets but find whole fish with their heads and eyes intact revolting. They have no problem with chicken parts or nuggets, but find whole slaughtered chicken with the head still attached revolting.

Most of the time, the meat people eat are "sanitized", cut into pieces or processed into something else, that distanced the link between the meat and the animal.

If people would recognized that the meat is really the dead body of a living animal, perhaps they would be less inclined to it.

Let them eat potatoes

Recently, as the price of rice started rocketing, someone suggested that perhaps it's time we start looking for alternatives as our staple, such as the potato.

I could not help but think about 2 historical incidences.

When his officials told him that the people were dying of hunger, the Chinese Emperor of Jin Dynasty Sima Zhong (司马衷，晋朝） asked, "Why don't they eat meat porridge?"

When told that people could not afford to eat bread, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France in the 18th Century said, "Let them eat cake."

Of course, the suggestion to consider potato as an alternative is not as far fetch as the above incidences. But I was still piqued, because I wondered if it really make sense economically. If people could not afford rice, is the potato really more affordable? I always had the impression that potatoes were more expensive than rice.

So I made a trip to the NTUC and checked out the prices. I found the price of 5 mid-sized potatoes to be $1.35. That should be about slightly more than a kilogram. On the internet, I found that someone at XpatXperience had quoted $3.20 for 2.27 kg of potatoes in January 2008 (as part of price index survey). Price of potatoes does fluctuate quite a bit, depending on the varieties and supply situation. But I guess the range is probably around there. And if I were to eat potatoes as a meal, I would need about 2 mid sized potatoes, or 4 small ones. That means mean about $0.50 per meal ( 2 out of 5 potatoes at $1.35 for 5).

The price of a 5 kg bag of rice ranged from $7.50 for the cheapest (NTUC house brand) to $26 for top grade Thai race. The cheapest variety, was the type I grew up with, which a shop keeper once told my mother that it was meant as dog feed and not for human consumption!

Well, since I am talking about affordability, I shall take the cheapest brand. I estimate that I would need about 100 g of (uncooked) rice per meal. So a 5 kg bag would last 50 meals, meaning each meal is about $0.15.

Even if I were to buy the most expensive brand at $25 per 5 kg. It would cost me at most $0.50 if I consume 100g per meal.

So really, in spite of the increase in the price of rice, it is still cheaper than potatoes!

And that does make sense according with my experience. A plate full of rice is about 30 cents to 50 cents at the hawker stall. But potatoes are dishes which cost far more than that. French fries aren't cheap either. Even at a hawker stall, a plate of fries for snacking is easily $2. Baked potatoes can cost a few dollars at the restaurant just for 1 potato.

So in spite of the increase in the price of rice, I think it is still more affordable the potatoes. I am not sure what is the price difference between rice and potatoes in other countries. But I find it hard to imagine why people would insist on rice if potatoes are more affordable.

My father always finds it an irony that today, sweet potatoes is more expensive than rice, when during the 2nd World War, rice was an luxury and people subsisted on sweet potatoes.

Now, sweet potatoes are even more expensive than potatoes, so I won't even consider sweet potatoes as an affordable alternative staple for the poor.

So whoever suggested that replacing rice with potatoes really need to do some math.

Having said that, it is not totally with merits either. Potatoes can be grown more quickly and in harsher climate. It is also not traded as a commodity and not used an bio-fuel, and hence not subjected to the inflationary price pressures other staple crops like rice, wheat and corn are experiencing. The FAO has in fact made year 2008 the International Year of the Potato and has some pretty interesting facts about the potato on the website http://www.potato2008.org

For me, I guess I'll stick with the good old rice as my staple. Tastes aside, it really is still more affordable than potatoes.