How To Store Cooked Rice Correctly To Avoid Food Poisoning

If you think cooked rice cannot give you food poisoning, you are totally wrong. Rice has spores of bacteria Bacillus cereus. This bacteria remain dormant in rice, and will get active if rice is added heat and water.

After cooking, the rice will cool down and this phase allows spores of Bacillus cereus to grow, producing toxin. If you reheat the rice, it can kill the bacteria, but the toxin remains in the cooked rice.

So if you cook rice, store what you don't eat in a container and put inside the fridge after the rice is not steaming anymore. You can keep this cooked rice in fridge for 3 days.

But if you let the cooked rice out of fridge and stay in room temperature for more than 4 hours, you should throw this rice away as it is no longer safe and can cause food poisoning.

Raw vegetables and spices also might contain this bacteria. So do the same thing to your curries.

Chocolate Mousse Can Cause Salmonella Poisoning

Happy New Year 2010! Best wishes for you all!
I have been and still away for holiday. I will try to squeeze in some time now and then to blog.

So for you guys who are still in holiday, relaxing your muscles, tension, and your brain, enjoying good food, please do watch out for what you eat. You certainly do not want to get food poisoning during your holiday.

When you are out and about, hanging out in some cozy cafe, served with most delicious chocolate mousse, keep this in mind that this seemingly safe chocolate mousse can give you salmonella poisoning, if it is not prepared and stored correctly.

The explanation behind this is that chocolate mousse is made with raw egg. If contaminated, any kind of foods made with raw egg become a breeding ground for salmonella bacteria if it is leaved at room temperature for more than 4 hours.

This is especially true when the unwashed eggshell is cracked open during cooking, the bacteria from the shell contaminate and grow in the egg at room temperature.

So watchout for chocolate mousse, ice cream, tiramisu, which are all made with raw egg. These foods should be stored in a fridge at or below 5 degrees Celcius.

Butter and Margarine: Which One is Better and Healthier Choice

I used to be confused when it comes to choosing between butter or margarine. Which one is better? And which one is better to avoid?

To understand this, first you must understand that there are 3 different types of fats:

• Saturated : occurs naturally in animal foods such as butter. This fat raises LDL (bad) cholesterol in blood, which can clog artheries, thus lead to heart disease.
• Unsaturated : monounsaturated fats (eg. canola and olive oil) and polyunsaturated fats (sunflower and safflower oils and omega-3 varieties). This fat lower LDL (bad) cholesterol.
• Trans-fat : naturally found in meat and dairy products. Type of trans-fat to watch out for is a synthetic trans-fat, which produced when vegetable oils are hardened in presence of hydrogen.

There are 2 ways of hardening oils:

• Partial hydrogenation : produces elaidic acid (nasty trans-fat)
• Complete hydrogenation : does not produce elaidic acid, but increases saturated fat level

Synthetic trans-fat mentioned above is the one we really have to avoid. This type of fat, raises LDL (bad) cholesterol and at the same time, lower your HDL (good) cholesterol.

In a nutshell, we should not take too much butter, margarine or spreads as they all contain saturated fats and are high in calories.

- Butter : almost 60$ saturated fat, but no synthetic trans-fat. Butter usually has 52 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams
- Margarine : usually has less than half the saturated fats of butter. In order to be labelled margarine, it must have a minimum percentage of unsaturated fats and a limited amount of saturated fat. The level of saturated fat may be as low as 11 grams per 100 grams or higher.
- Spreads : Less overall fat (more water) and much less saturated fat than buter, straight margarine or cooking margarine.
- Dairy spreads: combined butter and liquid vegetable oil, reducing saturated fat content but still higher than vegetable-based spreads. Dairy spreads have 19 to 35 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams
- Cooking margarines usually have 35 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams
- Vegetable shortening (such as copha) may have as much as 98 grams of saturated fat per 100 grams.

So watch out the next time you go shop. Check the labels carefully. But if you still prefer ones that contain high saturated fats, limit the consumption and take it as a rare treat.

List of Foods Having Aphrodisiac Qualities

Apart from satisfying our hunger and taste buds, foods also have fringe benefits to them. Some foods are claimed to be able to increase arousal in both male and female. Here are the theories behind the aphrodisiac potential foods.

Arousal for Men
There are some components in oysters that have aphrodisiac qualities. For one thing, oysters contain varying levels of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that affects the arousal center in our brain. The effect is straight away. Secondly, oysters contain high level of zinc, that is important in raising level of testosterone in men. The effect, though, is not immediate.

Arousal for Women

Parsley and truffles may have aphrodisiac potential, as these food smell like that of androsterone, a pheromone usually responsible for men's musky body smell. This smell can influence arousal in women.

More Arousal
Ginger, cayenne pepper and garlic also can stimulate the arousal centers in the brain. Garlic which has anti-clotting properties can affect libido by increasing blood flow to brain and sex organs.

The smooth texture of chocolate and the cocoa's serotonin creating chemical, tryptophan, contributes to chocolate's aphrodisiac potential.

Happy experimenting potentially aphrodisiac foods! Best served with soft dimmed light or maybe during candlelight dinner. Do share stories of your experiences with these food (^-^)

Green Tea Benefits

I love drinking Japanese green tea, just because it taste nice. I have read many about the benefits of green tea.

However, a recent study published in Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the benefit of green tea is reduced chances of death from heart disease, but not cancer.

In order to benefit from green tea, men have to drink 5 or more cups a day. As for women, 3-4 cups a day.

Go drink more green tea today!

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For Reference
Journal of the American Medical Association
http://jama.ama-assn.org/

Why Herbs Are Not Safe For Pregnant Women

Many Chinese people would take chinese herbs during their pregnancy. My families and my husband families are among those who believe that preggars should consume chinese herbs, to strengthen the uterus and thus the well being of the baby.

Consumption of chinese herbs is prohibited by my obgyn (obstetricians and gynaecologists) in Singapore. According to her, herbs do not have any quality control and thus should be avoided as we are unsure of the quality.

At first, I took some of chinese herbs during my pregnancy, and I fell ill. It was just the regular chicken herbs soup that I always took since I was young. I had stomach cramps. At first I thought it was just a coincidence. Then after the next 2 times I took the chinese herbs soup, I am very certain that the stomach cramp is due to the chinese herbs I consumed. It was in my early trimester of pregnancy. I avoided chinese herbs since then, and ignored what my family and my hubby's family said about the importance of consuming chinese herbs.

And I finally find a more detailed explanation in one of pregnancy books I am reading, on why preggars should avoid taking chinese herbs, or any herbal cures in general. So my preggars friends, or if there is any of you who is trying to conceive, note down this piece of information.

Medicinal herbs are drugs, often very powerful ones. Some are so powerful that they are used in laboratories to produce prescription medicines. Others have been used for generations in some societies to induce abortions, and some have been linked to miscarriage.

Even in a seemingly soothing cup of tea, some herbs are capable of producing such symptoms as diarrhea, vomiting, and heart palpitations. The use of herbal medicines presents an added risk that is not present hen the remedies come from the drugstore.

Herbs are not made under quality-controlled conditions, and may be dangerously strong or imptently weak. They may also contain harmful contaminants, including such allergens as insect parts, pollens, and molds, and even toxic agents such as lead or arsenic.

Considering the above, you should also avoid herbal teas. If you are craving for the taste or smell of herbal teas, just add orange, apple, pineapple, lemon, mint leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves or other spices to your decaffeinated tea.

Want A Baby Boy? Don't Let Your Wife Skip Healthy Breakfast

In Chinese cultures, baby boy is very much expected as they will continue on their generation, carrying the family name. Most of Chinese families would try their best and would not stop conceiving until they get at least one boy in the family.

And maybe now there's good news for those who are trying to conceive for a baby boy. UK scientiests have recently revealed in their studies that a child's sex is associated with the mother's diet. The higher energy intake is linked to males, and lower energy intake is linked to females.

Women who eat low calorie diets or who skip their breakfast at the time of conception, are more likely to give birth to baby girls. This may help to explain why the proportion of baby boys is falling in developed countries. Since in these countries, many young women choose to have low calorie diets.

Although a baby's sex is genetically determined by fathers, it is known that high levels of glucose encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos. The exact mechanism for this remains unclear.

The researchers conducted studies on 740 first-time pregnant mothers in the UK. They found that 56% of those in the group with the highest energy intake at the time of conception had sons, compared with 45% in the lowest group. Meanwhile, intakes during pregnancy were not associated with sex, which suggest that foetus sex is no longer affected by the mother's diet.

In addition to eating high calorie diets, the study has found that women giving births to more males were also more likely to have eaten a wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12.

It was also reported that women who consumed at least 1 bowl of breakfast cereal daily compared to those who ate less than or equal to 1 bowl a week, the statistics of giving births to male went up sharply.

The mechanism for diet affecting sex is not yet understood though.

This latest findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

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For reference
Title: You are what your mother eats: evidence for maternal preconception diet influencing foetal sex in humans
Author: Fiona Mathews et al
URL: http://journals.royalsociety.org