Domestic Diva Wannabe

Have you ever heard about the cookie diet? If you’re like me who loves anything sugary and sweet, a “Cookie Diet” would seem like an ‘ideal’ diet. But then again, going on a Cookie diet does not mean having an eat all you can cookie party but having to eat the ‘precribed, prepackaged cookies at a certain times.

As with any other diet that is constricted to a single food item. This diet is surely another fad diet that us unbalanced and unsafe.

So, there goes my dream of eating all the cookies I can and still lose weight.

This is something new for me, making a weekly menu for the family. Normally, I don’t plan out for our weekly or even daily dishes. I just wake up in the morning, open the fridge and see what I can cook from there. Usually, I end up just frying some eggs or meat since I don’t have the complete ingredients to cook a decent dish. Sometimes, I give up easily and ask my Hubby to buy food from the shop making the lack of ingredients as an excuse of my negligence ( or maybe laziness to cook!?).

Anyways, it was just recently that I’ve discovered the real advantages of planning out the meals. First, it’ll save time and costs. If a weekly menu is prepared so, I would be able to know what I need from the grocery and get them in one shot, therefore saving time and frequent trips to the grocery. Costs, because  home cooked food is cheaper than outside meal. If I’m not prepared with what to cook, there’s always a tendency to eat out or buy food from outside. Another advantage for planning out meals is that it’s healthier. With a lot of thought put in planning meals, I can see a broader picture of the family’s food intake and therefore I would tend to want to make it more balanced and healthy.

I’ve tried menu planning for 2 weeks now and I love it. I love the variety of food I’m serving the family, I love the sense of ‘preparedness’ every morning and I love trying out different recipes.

The Health Ministry here in Malaysia has identified the 15 companies which manufacture or distribute plum products with high lead levels.

Here is the list that has been brought out by the ministry:

Manufacturer/Distributor on Product Package – Product Name on Label

1) Alamo Packing – The Original  Chinese Candy Dried Plums with pickle and Lemon Saladitos Con Pepino Y Limon

2) Almax International- Its Fruit Chinese Style Dried Prune Saladito

3) Bolner’s Fiesta Products – Saladitos 6 Count

4) Casa De Dulce – Salted Plum Suckers

5) Cheung Fat – Plum wrapped ‘candy’ ( Packaging predominantly in Asian foreign language- blue and white bag with candy wrapped in red and white)

6) Dollar Value Distributor – Saladitos Salted Prunes

7) Hinojosa Brothers ( H.B. Wholesale) – Salados Salted Dried Plums

Kam Tai Hong – Hua Ho Ying Tzu ( Packaging in Asian Foreign language)

9) Little Gregory – Chinese Candy ( Packaging also contains individual packets of Limon and La Sabrozita)

10) Mexican Products and Spices – 7 Salted Plums 7 Saladitos

11) Produce Plus – Saladitos Chinese Candy

12) Roxy Trading Co. – PReserved Liquiriced Prune, Preserved Plums, Preserved Salted Prunes, Preserved Plums, Preserved Plums: Preserved Red Prunes.

13) Sanh Yuan Enterprise – Preserved Fruit Pitted Prunes

14) Tang Hoi Moon – Chan Pui Mui Preserved Plum

15) Wan Tom Food Co. LTD. – Ka Po Preserved Plum

Source : FDA Website