Carrot Cake (2nd attempt) on 25 Dec 2013

Suddenly felt like eating fried carrot cake, so I bought the ingredients to make carrot cake. Yes, I'm nuts to be doing this late at night when I was just busy doing the cheesecake earlier on in the afternoon. Tired? Not really when the passion for cooking/baking gets turned on, lol!

This would be my 2nd attempt doing it. As mum now stays with me during weekdays to help look after my son, I have an advisor who can advise me on cooking and baking! :)

I felt that the mixture was a little bit watery despite I have cut down the amount of water from the original recipe, and concerned that it would turn out to be soft like my 1st attempt, I called my mum to come and take a look. She took over and poured more flour and water in. She advised me to put in more flour and water so that it can fill up the pan more. When I asked her for the proportion of flour vs water, she told me "agar agar". Oh well... older generation tends to cook or bake based on "agaration" and mind you, their agaration makes wonderful cooking and baking!

How it turned out? Of course, it looked more solid, not as soft as the one that I steamed on my 1st attempt. It's still not perfect though, can be a little bit harder. Well, I shall try again soon, before Chinese New Year. Afterall, this is one of my favourite dishes! I shall continue to make it till I find the perfect "hardness". :)

Rainbow Mango Cheesecake (2nd attempt) on 25 Dec 2013

It's Christmas Day! I invited 2 friends to my house for a no-baking session, doing the Rainbow Mango Cheesecake, and a playdate session for the children.

I thought this time round, the cheesecake would look much nicer than my 1st attempt, but who knows, the result turned out to be otherwise, sigh... I realised it was a lot more difficult to pour the mixture into the baking pan as it seems a lot more solidified than my previous attempt. It also looked more lumpy. I think it's probably that I didn't mix the cheese cream well enough, and it could be that my food combo processor is going to "die" soon.

Nonetheless, it still tastes cheesecake. :)

It was a Rainbow Mango Cheesecake as my son wanted mango flavoured yoghurt as he doesn't like strawberry. I thought he would eat more this time, but he just ate 1 small slice! Mei mei who is not even 2 years old was a lot more appreciative than the gor gor!

Updates on 29 Dec: It's still me and my girl who finished up the whole cake! I told my boy that I'm not going to make this anymore since he only takes a miserable small portion of it, at least not for near future! Maybe next time, I would do mini versions instead that I can bring out to treat colleagues or friends, that is if it turns out presentable, lol!

Steamed Egg - Making it Smooth!

Mum told me that the "secret" to make the steamed egg smooth, and that is to cover the plate of egg during the steaming process. She used a bigger plate, turned it upside down and covered it on the plate of egg.

Rainbow Strawberry Cheesecake (1st attempt) on 18 Dec 2013

Finally bought all the items needed to make this no-bake Rainbow Strawberry Cheesecake. This was my 1st attempt trying this out, using recipe from http://www.thebakingbiatch.com/2013/10/cynthias-rainbow-strawberry-cheesecake.html.

Before I planned to try making this, I only have 2 mixing bowls (the white ones bought from NTUC). To make it looks nice, I actually invested in getting more mixing bowls (the blue & black ones) and spree those from Amazon.

It wasn't easy to control pouring the cream cheese mixture in to have nice looking effect. Nonetheless, I think it looks not too bad for a 1st attempt. 

I agree with Cynthia from The Baking Biatch that mixing bowls with spout do help to control the pouring of the cream cheese mixture. This was my experience when using these mixing bowls. The white ones don't have a very good profile, whereas the blue & black ones have a deeper profile. Hence, it is easier to control when pouring the mixture from the blue & black ones as compared to the white ones. 

Ingredients for the Soup

I love to drink soup although I shouldn't be drinking it. Why? A yi shi once told me that plump people like me should avoid soup and thin people like my hubby should drink more soup. The reason... simply because all the goodness of the ingredients goes into the soup! I should avoid the hou liao (hao liao in hokkien) as I'm already quite plump, lol! Since both my children like to drink soup (really true Cantonese) and hubby should drink more soup, so I tend to boil soup whenever I have the time to cook meals for the family.

I love to put red dates and wolfberries (gouji) together with pork or chicken to boil the soup. I tend to use pork more than chicken as it's best avoided if one has cough (my little girl tends to have sensitive nose that may cause her to cough from times to times), and I was told that consuming too much chicken is not good, especially for the females (forgot the reason).

For the red dates, there's a lot of benefits from consuming them, which you can always look up on the Internet. One thing I would like to share though is that it is important to slit it opened so that you can remove the seed inside (can see from the following picture that my red date is opened), check and wash the internal portion. This was what my mum told me... She said that the seed has to be removed as it is heaty, which would make your soup or drink heaty. Maybe that's why I often feel heaty after drinking red dates longan tea ("double" heatiness from the red dates seed and longan, lol!) during confinement period as confinement lady usually not that hardworking to remove the seed (my mum noticed that my confinement lady for 2nd birth did not remove the seed despite repeated reminders). The internal portion also needs to be checked to see if it has rot inside (sometimes inside may be rotten but it still looks okay on the outside), and washed too.

For the wolfberries, it's also beneficial to include them in your soup as it's good for better eyesight. As for longan, it sweeten up the soup but I seldom put this into my soup as longan is heaty. I put longan this time round so as to balance up a bit of the cooling and heaty elements as I was boiling old cucumber soup that is cooling and red dates (with the seed removed) are cooling.

Another ingredient that I like to put into soup is dried scallop (gan bei), which is not in the picture, as I ran out of this for quite some time and haven't really gotten the time to replenish it at a reasonable price.

Since I'm on the topic of soup, I just thought I would share a dilemma that I have. Soup gets tastier and tastier after each reheating, so the soup tastes nicer and nicer on the 2nd/3rd day. However, I've been told that leftover soup can cause wind in our body. For sure, I won't let my children drink any soup that's leftover from previous night(s), but should adults be drinking then??? Sometimes it's just so convenient to use leftover soup to cook a bowl of tasty maggie mee as you don't have to put in any MSG at all...

More Tips on Buying from Amazon

After I blogged on AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore on Purchases Over USD125 (you should read this other posting first before reading this if you haven't read it yet), the pageviews on my blog suddenly shot up, seems like many of my friends couldn't resist shopping? But then again, I didn't make my blog site known on my FB until now when I used Blogger to share about shopping on Amazon with free shipping to Singapore.

If it is your first time trying to buy from Amazon and want to ship via AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore, you may wish to read the following tips as well:

1. Ensure that you only select items that are "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com". If you select an item that is not sold by Amazon, including those that said "Fulfilled by Amazon", it is very highly possible that such item is not eligible for free shipping.

You would have to take particular attention, especially when you choose an item from the list of filtered items that are "AmazonGlobal Eligible" and when you launched that item page, you realised that there are other colours available, which you start thinking of buying the item in your favourite colour, but before you do so, do check it out if other colour options are also sold by Amazon, which sometimes may not be the case and probably why those colour options did not appear in the filtered list in the first place. Besides the difference in colour options, the price is also different, and those sold by Amazon are generally more cost effective.

Take the example below, only the black one is sold by Amazon and thus, is eligible for free shipping while the blue and green ones are not eligible for free shipping.

However, not all "AmazonGlobal Eligible" and "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com" items are eligible for free shipping even if your purchase is over USD125, read the other Amazon posting to find out how you can determine if an item is eligible for free shipping. I hope Amazon can do something about it and make shopping less painful for us, then again, maybe it's a deterrent for us not to buy too much, lol! 

2. If you need some of the items urgently, you may wish to avoid eligible items that state certain delivery lead time as it would take much longer for your order to be shipped out.

3. I would not recommend using Amazon's exchange rate as I personally feel that the rate is less attractive than your credit card rate (unless your credit card is from a bank that charges high admin fees).

4. Do not spend more than total SGD400, which this amount includes the items charges and shipping fees, as you would need to pay for GST if you spend beyond that. If your purchase is eligible for AmazonGlobal Saver Free shipping, just need to ensure that the items charges do not exceed SGD400 and set a higher exchange rate for USD to SGD, just to be on the safe side.

5. If you would really like to get an item that can be shipped internationally but not eligible for free shipping, you may wish to purchase this particular item separately. There is no point lumping all the items together in one purchase and pay shipping for items that are eligible for free shipping just so that you can get this item as well? Of course, you can try your luck to get Amazon staff to help you waive off the entire shipping fees, questioning them that that particular item is AmazonGlobal Eligible, and hence, there should not be any shipping charge, but no one can guarantee the success rate of doing so. If you are purchasing that particular item separately, you can check it out if there's any on-going Amazon spree on singaporemotherhood forum as it's often more economical to poll orders to share out the shipping charges.

Hopefully the information I shared on this post helps as well. :)

AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore on Purchases Over USD125

I finally have time to figure out how to shop on Amazon for items that are eligible for the AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore, and just placed an order to get some Christmas presents and other stuff. *happy* For a start, it seems a little confusing to shop for items that are eligible for the free shipping. However, after you know how it works, it gets easier albeit troublesome. Hence, you would need to have patience and shop when you have time to browse through the site so that you can trial and error on the items that you are interested to get.

A few friends had asked me how do we know which items are entitled to free shipping to Singapore. I did some screen captures and going to do some kind of step-by-step instructions, as follows. Hopefully these instructions would help people to understand how to go about shopping on Amazon with free shipping to Singapore.

Instructions to shop on Amazon to get AmazonGlobal Saver Free Shipping to Singapore:

1.  Logon to Amazon. Create an account if you don't already have one and make sure you have a Singapore shipping address saved in your account.

2. In the search bar, type the item that you want to search for. In my example, I used "hello kitty toys".

3. The search results which are considered as "hello kitty toys" would be displayed. Scroll down the page until you see "AmazonGlobal Eligible" under International Shipping (see the black arrow), and checked it. Once you've checked it, the search results would be refreshed to show only items that are eligible for AmazonGlobal; however, note that this does not mean that all the listed items are eligible for free shipping.

4. From the list, select the item that you would like to buy and add to the cart. To test out if the item is eligible for free shipping, select the quantity so that the total cart amount would be more than USD125 as you need to buy at least USD125 worth of items to be eligible for free shipping. In my example, I used Mega Bloks - Helly Kitty Treehouse that costs USD19.99, so need to buy at least 7  (see the black arrow) so that the total cart amount would be more than USD125. 

I choose this item as an example as it's currently selling in Takashimaya as an "exclusive toy to Takashimaya" at SGD99.95, so you can see the amount of savings that you can get if you buy from US website, e.g. Amazon instead. For the price that you pay in Singapore, you can buy 3 from Amazon and yet, still have balance amount to buy yourself a decent meal or get McDelivery to deliver a late night supper while you shop online, lol!

5. Proceed to checkout the cart.

6. Select the Singapore shipping address (see the black arrow).

7. If the selected item is eligible for free shipping to Singapore, you would be given the option "Free AmazonGlobal Saver (averages 9-14 days)" as a shipping speed (see the black arrow). In my example, the item is eligible for free shipping. If you do not see this option available, it means that this item is not eligible for free shipping.

8. Continue your shopping spree and do steps 2-7 as above until your actual total cart amount reaches USD125. Actual total cart amount means the sum of your intended purchases, and not based on the amount that you test out if the item is eligible for free shipping (see below picture which shows the testing amount as one is unlikely to buy so many pieces of the same item unless it's a consolidated spree by few people who are buying the same thing). Hence, as you proceed with the shopping and when your purchases have finally reached more than USD125, do remember to adjust the quantity to the actual quantity that you intend to buy. Do a thorough check on the quantity of all selected items before you make that final purchase.

A little bit of caution... the prices on Amazon are rather volatile, they may change faster than the stock exchange, and sometimes at quite a significant difference, so if you are browsing the site over a couple of days, you may be prompted several times of price changes in your item(s). Sometimes, if the price increases too much, you might wish to hold back your order and wait for the price to drop; however, doing so may cause the price of other items to go up, so do prioritise the items that you really want and be prepared to drop any item that has gone up too pricey for you.

Hopefully, you would benefit from my sharing and enjoy a better shopping experience on Amazon for free shipping to Singapore! :)

Nama Chocolate on 16 Nov 2013

I bought the ingredients at least 2 weeks ago, and now finally gotten the chance to make Nama Chocolate, lol! I'm using the recipe from Angela Chia, which you can find it at http://chiaangela.blogspot.sg/2013/08/nama-chocolate.html.

You don't need a lot of ingredients for this and not too difficult to make.

The output looks alright, isn't it? I have to confess that it doesn't look as good before coated with cocoa powder. I think I didn't warm the whipping cream enough as I was afraid that it would boil, and didn't break the chocolate into much smaller pieces than I should (lazy, lol), so the mixture wasn't that well mixed. They taste fine though. There's definitely room for improvement but it would be my 1st and last attempt, haha... simply because hubby prefers to eat the chocolate by itself without the cocoa powder, even better... save my trouble of making this.

Crucial Conversations

I recently just attended a Crucial Conversations course conducted by True North, and find that this is really a good course. The cost materials include a toolkit that contains the contents taught during the course, a book and a set of 6 CDs, as shown in the follow picture.

The course taught us to differentiate facts (e.g. what you see or hear yourself) versus stories (e.g. other people's opinions that you hear from them on what they see or hear). It taught us this important word - STATE and to use this during our crucial conversations.

S: - State the FACTS (facts are facts, more persuasive and least consulting; feelings and stories often keep us from facts)

T: - Tell the Stories

A: - Ask for Other's Paths (the magic sentence - "Can you help me better understand?")

T: - Talk Tentatively (e.g. saying "In my opinion" is more tentative than saying "The fact of the matter is" as the latter is too forceful)

E: - Encourage Testing (sincerely inviting differing opinions)

Before attending the course, many participants, including me, felt that we jumbled up the facts and stories, and said facts and stories together instead of saying all the facts first followed by stories. This often leads to the other party thinking the stories you said are real, which may not be real in reality, and indirectly causing the other party to be defensive. After attending the course, we concluded that we should really try out "STATE". Hopefully I would remember this and many other useful things taught during the course, and apply them in work, with family and friends.

It's hard to share with you in details of what I've learnt through blogging, considering that I've learnt via 2 days of classroom style learning with a trainer guiding us through learning scenarios. If you are keen to know more, you should really consider attending the course! :) 

Egg Tarts (2nd attempt) on 19 Oct 2013

My little chef kept pestering me to bake more egg tarts for him!!! That's why I made a 2nd attempt with a little bit of fine tuning to the recipe by cutting down the sugar content by 20% and turned the oven temperature down a bit but baked the tarts a bit longer, hoping that the tarts won't turn out looking like Portugese ones.

Here's the results with the fine-tuned recipe:

The verdict - the egg tarts tasted better as they aren't as sweet as those I made in my 1st attempt, and well, they definitely look a lot better, not that Portugese, haha!!! However, I think there's still room for improvement as the tarts are kind of wobbly unless they are stored in fridge. Hmm... how to make the pastry a little bit harder or firmer?

Egg Tarts (1st attempt) on 12 Oct 2013

I finally bought another microwave oven after the last one spoilt so that I can resume baking (inspired by Angela Chia!). As I need to test out if the oven works, I went to buy tart tins and the ingredients for making egg tarts. I decided to make egg tarts as these are my son's favourites! 

I'm using the recipe from Angela's friend at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151599496124858&set=t.573243023&type=3&theater.

This is the new microwave oven with the egg tarts baking inside.

This is the outcome... Don't think it's supposed to look like Portugese egg tarts, so I shall fine-tune the temperature or timing for subsequent attempts to see if I can get better looking egg tarts.

Hubby and I tried them out, but my little chef (son who insists in helping out although it's late) went to lalaland while waiting for it to cool down. Our review is that it's too sweet to our liking, so we shall fine-tune the recipe to suit our taste buds, and of course, don't let the children eat too sweet stuff. Overall, I still pass (I guess!) although there's parts look burnt, they don't taste burnt! The pastry part is crispy. I shall see when I have time to make another attempt since this is my son's favourites and hubby likes them as well.

Building up Immunity for the Young Ones

I'm sharing this based on what I've learned from other mummies and what I'm giving to my 2 children (aged 6yo and 18mo as of Oct 2013). Hence, this is very much my personal views as there could be other equivalent supplements as well. While some may not agree to give supplements to children, I do find that the supplements I'm giving to my children do help them build up their immunity and fall sick less often, which is so important as they are in childcare centre.

Scott's Emulsion Cod Liver Oil - this can be given when the child reaches 1yo. I would advise to give the original one; don't give the orange one as the latter does not have DHA & can cause phelgm. 

Childlife Colostrum with Probiotics, Orange/Pineapple Flavor - this can be given when the child reaches 6mo. Colostrum is nature's first food for the immune system. ChildLife uses the finest bovine Colostrum that has been naturally harvested and especially prepared with Probiotics to enhance the health and vitality of your child's immune and digestive system. This is sold at local GNC at $78.50, VIP price $62.80, but don't buy from local as you can spree from US that costs about 1/3 of the VIP price, depending on where you purchase it from and the promotion from time to time. I prefer to order from Vitacost as it's cheaper than iherb. Both Vitacost and iherb have international shipping to S'pore, which you can upfront know the shipping cost before checking out the cart. However, to make the purchase more worthwhile, you have to join spree or gather friends to spree, so as to share out the shipping cost.

Rhino Multi-vit Gummy Bears - this can be given when the child reaches 2yo. This comes in handy if your child doesn't like to take cod liver oil since it's kind of fishy, so use it like some kind of "reward". The bottle of small Rhino gummy bear on the right of the pic, contains 60 gummy bears, which is sold at local GNC at $29.95, VIP price $23.96, but you can get from Vitacost at less than S$10, abt $8. The big bottle of Rhino Multi-vit Gummy Bears, contains 190 gummy bears - http://www.iherb.com/Nutrition-Now-Rhino-Gummy-Multi-Vitamin-190-Gummy-Bears/7911, is what I spree from iherb. There is no cost comparison with local GNC as they don't sell this but this is more economical as it costs slightly more than S$20 for triple amount of gummy bears. My son prefers the big bottle as it's not sour type of gummy bears. 

Sambucol (not in the above picture) - this can be given when the child reaches 1yo for the UK version and 2yo for the US version. Besides the age limit difference, I'm not sure if there's other difference, and if there is, what's the difference(s). I've bought the US version as it was easier to spree since I can get it from iherb. I've personally taken it when I was having a bad cough, especially at night when my throat was so itchy that I kept coughing non-stop. I felt it works even better than my cough medicine as the medicine couldn't stop me from coughing and I can't sleep, but this actually helped to stop my coughing and get back to sleep. 
US - http://www.iherb.com/Sambucol-Black-Elderberry-Immune-System-Support-Liquid-For-Kids-Berry-Flavored-4-fl-oz-120-ml/16697?at=0
UK - http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk/sambucol-for-children_1_12228.html

If you would like to spree from iherb and/or Vitacost, you can use the following discount code or referral link to get some discounts: -
iherb - use discount code "BUN642" to get USD10 off your 1st order of USD40 & up, or USD5 off on smaller orders!
Vitacost - use referral link "https://www.vitacostrewards.com/9G9SduF" & get US$10 referral discount code off your 1st order of USD30 or more!

If you need to learn how to spree from iherb and/or Vitacost, feel free to leave a comment with your email address so that I can contact you. :)

Keeping Fruit Fresh in Refrigerator

I bought some kiwis on 3rd Sep, and asked the seller if I could keep them till I come back from Genting on 9th Sep. The seller shared few tips to keep the fruit fresh. He advised me to keep the kiwis in an air-tight container and put the container into the fridge to preserve them. He also told me not to put fruit such as apple, banana and pear in the fridge as they emit quite significant amount of ethylene gas that would speed up the ripening process and may cause other fruit and vegetables to rot or yellowing faster.

I did what the seller suggested, and the kiwis are still fresh after a month when I just tried it today.

Hence, I did a little bit of research on fruit emitting ethylene gas and found few websites (see below) that provide some useful information, hope you benefit from reading these websites.

http://shelflifeadvice.com/content/ethylene-and-produce-friends-or-foes
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fruits-vegetables-storage-conditions-d_710.html
http://www.polarfresh.com/_files/How%20Ethylene%20Gas%20Affects%20Your%20Produce.pdf

Fried Carrot Cake on 27 Sep 2013

This is a continuation from my last post on http://jenniferphua.blogspot.sg/2013/09/carrot-cake-on-25-sep.html.

I fried the condiment - garlic and chye poh, which smells so nice!!!

I fried the carrot cake with the garlic chye poh condiment, prawn, and egg, sprinkled some spring onions and added a dash of pepper. Having fried the garlic chye poh condiment first before adding it to the fried carrot cake tastes better than what my mum does, which is simply adding the washed chye poh to the carrot cake and fries together.

Overall, it's a successful first attempt to steam carrot cake and fry it, but definitely room for improvement as I find the carrot cake a bit soft, so I'll probably have to adjust the recipe a bit to add in lesser water. 

Carrot Cake (1st attempt) on 26 Sep 2013

My mum has been a great cook, and she's been steaming carrot cake for the past many years. I did not learn from her how to do so, but I've been wanting to learn to do it for quite some time. Since I've been into a cooking mood lately and found this appetising looking recipe on http://ieatishootipost.sg/2013/05/carrot-cake-chai-tow-kueh-recipe-with.html, I went hunting for the ingredients and finally made it. Hopefully it tastes nice as it had smelled nice!

The raddish that I bought was much bigger, weighing approximately 750g. Hence, I adjusted the recipe accordingly, and the amount of mixture that I got was just nice to almost filling up a 10" by 3" round tin pan.

The steamed product (not the final product yet as it still need to be put into fridge to set it overnight and fried it):

Hopefully, I have time to fry the condiment - garlic and chye poh tomorrow. I would not be putting pork lard though as it's better to be a bit health conscious, especially cooking for my young ones. After frying the condiment, hopefully I can fry the carrot cake and taste it! 

To be continued...

Muah Chee on 24 Sep 2013

Not sure why but I've been into a cooking/steaming/baking mood, so I tried out making some muah chee, with help from my little chef again.

The recipe is from Angela Chia, which you can find it from http://chiaangela.blogspot.sg/2013/09/easy-home-made-muah-chee.html?spref=fb and https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151723670424858&set=a.10151385916854858.1073741828.607144857&type=3&theater.

The final product:

The preparation was easy. The challenging part was actually removing it from the pan as the cooked dough is so sticky! If you would like to make your life slightly easier, can oil the pan before putting the uncooked mixture in for steaming, but to be a little bit health conscious about oil, just take up the challenge, lol! 

It's a rather big portion for my husband, my 6 years old son and me as my little 18 months old girl was asleep by the time this was done, but even if she was awake, doubt we could finish up this big plate of muah chee without my hubby stuffing himself with it, haha... I would probably adjust the menu a bit to make it "just enough" for us. :)

Steamed Egg Cakes (1st attempt) on 22 Sep 2013

I made these steamed egg cakes with some help from my little chef (my son). 

The recipe is from Angela Chia, and you can find it on http://chiaangela.blogspot.sg/2013/08/cute-ladybug-steamed-egg-cakes.html and https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151630744344858. I fine tuned it a bit to make it less sweet, so mine is only 150g of sugar.

Before steaming the egg cakes:

Steaming done:

The design doesn't look as good as it's my first time using a piping bag, but at least it was a success with the design able to stay on top.

I noticed that the 1st batch of steamed egg cakes tasted less sweet than those in the 2nd batch, so probably would have to stir the mixture a bit before scooping and putting the mixture into the cupcake liner each time.

I shall try it again soon. :)

Learning Points from a Cooking Workshop

I recently attended a Cooking Workshop at my boy's child care centre, and it was very informative for me. Here's what I learnt and remembered, hope you find them useful.

By changing the diet, it can improve the child's health. The child would have stronger immunity and it can cut down the visits to a doctor. However, it would take 120 days to see the effect.

What makes up a meal? Imagine a circle shaped plate divided into 4 quadrants - 1st quadrant, it is 1 fist size of fruit; 2nd quadrant is 1 fist size of vegetables; 3rd quadrant is 1 fist size of protein; and 4th quadrant is 1 fist size of grains. 

At a meal, it is recommended to serve only 1 type of fruit. Fruit should be taken before meal; if it is taken after food, it would cause wind. Banana is a good source of calcium, and has high potassium. The high potassium causes heart to beat faster, and hence, it is recommended to take in the morning and avoid taking at night to avoid having difficulty sleeping at night. When choosing a banana, it is recommended to choose those with some black dots instead of smooth shinny ones without black dots. This is because the shinny ones have too much chemicals on the banana skin that even the fruit ones do not want to go near them. Take green apple and carrots help to improve eczema (it is no wonder I have very good skin back then when I took a green apple with 3 carrots juice for 3 times a day on everyday basis under a diet programme).

One should take different colours of vegetable for different meal as they provide different vitamins and minerals. Protein for each meal should be just 1 type of meat, i.e. chicken, fish, pork, etc. It is not recommended to take too much of chicken, especially for women.

Do not wait till you feel thirsty and drink water. By the time you feel thirsty, you are actually already dehydrated.