Reminder on Plastics N Stuff

Remember my post on plastics? Now they've found phthalates (pronounced "thowl-ates") in baby talcum powder, lotion, wipes etc. I'm glad I did not dust my boys' little you-know-what with Johnson's baby powder, like most people do in this hot climate, because I just didn't find it necessary. I'm glad now that I didn't have a confinement lady for my 2nd and 3rd child because these ignorant ladies are the ones who love to use talcum powder. I've seen some people talc their babies so much I felt sorry for the babies who were thrashing wildly in a cloud of talc, breathing all that powder in. So, as I told Derrick back in Melb, go simple. Don't have a dozen fancy detergents, softeners and what-have-you when all you need is just one detergent to wash your clothes. Sooner or later the researchers will find out that this or that is harmful. Simplify.

Plastic In Your Banana Fritters!

I haven't been able to enlarge the article, but The Sunday Post (what date, Nee?) has an article about plastic straws and bags being an ingredient in the oil that the vendors fry your favorite goreng pisang in, and all the other gorengs like chicken, fishballs and so on. I still find it hard to believe but didn't somebody do a video series called Shocking Asia in the 80s? And I live in one of those countries...

This is one reason we should be more knowledgable and careful about what and where we eat.

Melamine Alert

The next time you have your favorite ban mien or tomyum noodles, make sure it's served in a ceramic bowl and not a melamine bowl. Sure, the Malaysian Plastics Forum have responded to The Consumers Association of Penang's (CAP) call last week to all consumers against using melamine tableware by stating that "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and many other international agencies have determined that melamine ware products meet stringent standards for food and beverage contact...", skipping around the fact that the CAP specifically stated that melamine melts at high temperature and harmful substances can enter our body causing cancer, skin allergies and blindness.

Did any of the FDA eat a bowl of boiling hot mee soup from a melamine bowl? All over South East Asia, boiling hot food is served in melamine ware. The strange thing is, in my parents' days when the income per capita can only buy one pair of Dior sunglasses now, restaurants and vendors could afford to use nice heat-proof ceramic ware. So either we are getting too poor as a country so we have to eat from plastic ware, or people in the food business are making quick money at the expense of our health, or the relevant authorities just aren't doing their jobs in safeguarding the public's health.

Have you not noticed after slurping that last bit of sup soto, that your melamine bowl is discolored at the bottom (where did the color and plastic go?) and the bowl actually is kinda bent? We Asians eat boiling hot soup in scorching weather so for goodness sake, let's support the CAP's call to the Government to ban all melamine table ware. Start by boycotting your favorite noodle place if they use melamine, and tell them why. Count the number of times you eat out and ask yourself if you should heed the CAP's warning.

Trees For Free

Just trying. If any of you know the Mayor of KK, or any tree enthusiasts, we have 10-year old raintrees to give away. Upto 5 of them, so Hub will still have a beloved one or two left in the garden. He loves his big trees, so do I and all surprised visitors because we live in an area still zoned under KK District.

The trees have grown so big, my FIL insists their roots are going to uproot the house. I just don't want to see them cut down, killed, after ten years. Trees, as Wey will tell you, make oxygen for us and take in carbon dioxide. They provide shade for us and home for those beautiful blue kingfishers I see very morning flying from tree to tree. Years ago about half a dozen big green and red parrots visited our trees daily.


This cutie flew in around 6:30 am one morning. His feathers were almost irisdescent blue, torquoise and green. Awesome.

I love the big raintrees in Singapore that line the roads, parks and every available land they have. In KK, they either don't plant trees or they plant those shadeless palm trees (try driving to UMS). This is Borneo, land of hundreds of thousands of tropical flora and fauna species and yet the city is bare. It's a shame! One of the most upsetting recent development is the Harbour City project in front of the Sutera Resort. That whole road can be a beautiful tree-lined boulevard, from the new flyover at Wawasan to the traffic lights to Kepayan but the new mall being built suddenly came up to the edge of the road, making it impossible for the road to be extended in future, let alone plant trees. Now that I'm on this topic, did you notice how Warisan Square just 'eats' onto the road?? And that multi-storey carpark in Lintas Plaza? Don't we have zoning?

What? Oh yes, I'm supposed to write on food. Remember, trees for free here but you have to dig them up yourself. Anyone? Any suggestion? Be a shame, no,a crime, to have to cut them down.

No to Plastics

Whenever my kids walk out some store holding their drinks or icecream, or whatever, sans plastic bag, I feel a sense of pride. I've taught them to abhor plastic bags and they can recite (with eyes rolled up to their hairlines) "plastics don't biodegrade, plastics are carcinogenic and we have to think of the next generation."

I feel so guilty everytime I shop. One shopping trip will garner at least 5 or 6 plastic bags. That's just one trip, one person. The worst are bakeries, who put one item in one bag, then bag all of them again. I tried using green bags but they don't carry big items and wet market items so well. Recently I've taken to using a rattan basket, like how my mom and her generation did. I hope to convince people to cut down on their use of plastic bags, for their own good and that of their children. And everybody's.

It is more troublesome to go green. Sometimes I forget the basket just as I'm paying and go back to the car to get it and I know what the people are thinking: she's crazy. But many times they agree with me that it's better to use a basket and really, you can put all the shopping in one basket that normally requires 5 bags (one for meat, one for non-food items and so on) and it's much easier to unpack. And you don't get a whiff of the plastic bags that you get when you fold them away. Have you noticed that some plastic bags, the thicker ones, smell really strongly of plastics? Avoid them like you'd loan sharks.

At home, cut down on clingfilm. It's more troublesome but I store leftovers in ceramic bowls and cover with a plastic plate which is not as reactive as the wrap/clingflim. If I do use the wrap, I make sure it doesn't touch the food. Avoid styrofoam food containers and cups, and never take away hot food in plastic bags. Studies have shown that PVC toys and baby bottles contain high levels of cancer-causing plastic softeners called phthalates. At the least, phthalates can disrupt your babies' hormonal production upsetting their physical development, including their sex organs (explains the declining fertility rate)*, or in the longer run cause fatal diseases. A good book(let) to read is this, published by the CAP and available at Popular bookstores:



Yes, I am an unofficial consumer's advocate. The book that first frightened and prompted me was one I read as a freshie, a book called 'The Silent Spring' by Rachel Carson. The one point I still remember was her claim that everything we eat has pesticides (DDT I think), including mother's milk. I was shocked because I was so ignorant. And that book was written maybe in the 60s, way before Al Gore and all the green people. Has the world learnt from Carson? I don't think so.

Let's do our part, friends!

*According to CAP's booklet, Britain's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) did a study and found that many brands of baby food contain phthalates. It was estimated that a newborn would receive on average 0.13 mg/kg body-weight per day of phthalates. One phthalate, BBP, can reduce sperm production and testes size at levels of 0.1 mg/kg. Ouch. And baby feeding bottles have Bisphenol-A which can leach out and again cause abnormal prostate development, lower sperm count, early onset of puberty in females etc etc. You get the point.

Eating Well

Two months ago I read an article in Google on cancer and concern regarding the ability of Asian governments, especially China, in dealing with the rising costs of medication and care for cancer patients. I printed the article but somehow can't find it. I tried to check Google's archives but got lost in all those articles. What struck me in that article was the rate of cancers in different parts of the world: around 50% in Asia, over 150% in North America and over 200% in Europe! I can't remember the exact figures, or what the % means. But based on that information, it seems that the more idustrialized and advanced the country, the higher the cancer rate. I guess it must be the higher stress and pollution, and all those processed food you get in the more advanced places.

I've also noticed that whenever scientists research on food and its effects, eg salt intake of certain populations, they would study some exotic groups in exotic locations, such as the Yanomamo Indians of South America or the Inuits in Alaska or the Ainus of Japan, and the results would always be in favor of these minority groups. That plus the higher cancer rates in western countries have made me rethink my menu. With more affluence, our diet has changed from the simple, natural food we had as kids to something we think more suitable to our modern, westernised lifesyle, status and image: charred steaks, fat-laden pizzas, heavy cream cakes and pastas, greasy sausages and chips... Well, I have repented. I am going back to a more chinese diet, with less meat and more varieties of fresh, organically-grown veg and fruits, no unnecessary sugar (including juices), no butter unless the bread's worth eating, and most of all I'm staying away from processed, plastic-wrapped foods full of additives and preservatives. I'm glad I can still grab a bunch of sayur manis or taiwan bok from my veg garden to throw into my noodles, buy my fish from people who go out to the sea themselves, get that home-reared chicken from Auntie so and so, eat water buffalo meat instead of frozen beef. But I just don't know what to do about that essential meat for us Chinese: pork. Is it time to go hunting for wild boar?