Year: 2011

SHL Journal – Benefits of Farming

With the food being great tasting, I either eat them raw of lightly cooked with minimal oil and shorter cooking time.  The result, my meals are lower in calories and richer in vitamins – without me having to resort to counting calories and worrying about what I eat.  I am constantly amazed at all the edible vegetation available in Malaysia and how much information on it is unknown.  We are more aware of fast-foods and convenience foods.  It is shame if we lose the knowledge.

Being very hands-on and being a “laborer” on the farm, I get a very good regular workout without having to go to a specific place and wearing special clothing.  What works best is old, comfortable, loose clothing so how is that for low-cost workout.  At the same time, I get to enjoy fresh air, beautiful surrounding and I do not get bored.  There is a variety of activities that I can choose from that can be classified as aerobic or anaerobic, strength training, cross-training and all those wonderful terms you hear at gyms.  Because I am doing something that I enjoy, each “workout” can last for hours without me checking the time to see if I have worked-out sufficiently.  I continue to be motivated to “work-out” as I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor and also have enjoyed over 10kg in weight loss and toned-up my body, feeling better every day.
While I get physical benefits, I also get mental benefits.  I am continuously learning – from engineering to construction to agriculture to business to health.  I get to exercise the creative side of me with various designs from how the farm should be developed, the house, furniture, and business.  I acquire knowledge on safety including on handling tools and machinery.  There is an enormous opportunity for increasing knowledge so boredom is the last thing on the list.  I enjoy being able to continue learning and my brain gets the exercise it needs.  My home library now consists on books covering all these various topics.  I guess I should figure where these books can be donated someday.
By taking the produce direct from farm and selling it directly, I get the opportunity to interact with people from all social levels.  This provides me with the opportunity to socialize and share information while being able to indulge in my love for studying people and culture.  I learn a lot from these encounters, from how I should communicate to the negatives of stereotyping. I also gain more knowledge on “real people, real lives”.
On top of all these, it has also provided me with the opportunity to embark on a spiritual journey, marvelling at all of Allah’s creations and his bounty.  I feel blessed.  SubhanAllah.

SHL Journal – Producing Tasty Fresh Water Fish

From my research, I concluded a few factors.  The first factor is the quality of the water which is dependent on the water source as well as the type and size of the fish pond.  In creating my fish pond, I decided make the pond as natural as possible.  After studying the contour and history of the land, I found that there used to be streams on this property so I decided to use the “stream tracks” as the basis and deepen them to about 1.5-2m depth, creating different depths in different areas of the pond thus having different water height levels.  After all, when you think about it, the river beds are not all one level but have “hills and valleys”.  As the pond was dug out, it hit the water table level so thus ensuring (to a certain point) that the pond will not go dry and in a certain way, enable constant supply of ground water to the pond.  The result is a fish pond that resembled a river flowing through the land – definitely not a rectangular or square shape, which is the home to several types of fish – kelah, tilapia merah and bunga, jelawat, ketutu, keli, tongsan, lampam jawa and kerai, puyu, tengas daun and other types of river fish.

Next was to ensure good, clean, fresh water was constantly flowing into the pond and this was achieved by laying polypipe at the source of water up in the hills and piping them down, which coincidentally also supplies the house, with this quality water.  The pond then served as a dual purpose, one to raise fish and the second as a non-stop overflow to the water supply.  By creating the pond this way, I did not have a need for an oxygenation machine that you will find in stagnant water fish ponds.  Without cement base, this enabled the natural-growing plants and algae to flourish with earth-based “food” readily available for them, which also provided another food source to my fishes.  The fish pond would then provide not only a good home for the fishes but also add a beautiful landscape feature to the farm where one can sit by the pond and enjoy the mornings or evenings without that awful water smell of stagnant water (which at times, as with stagnant water, provide a good breeding ground for mosquitoes!).  I learnt from the Department of Natural Resource that they tested the quality of the water by placing kelah fish and if they survived, the water is good.  Ikan kelah  is a fish which will only live in good quality water.  I am happy to see that my kelah is flourishing.

SHL Journal – Celebrating our eating tradition

Ever wondered why our ancestors appeared to have a healthier life despite not having the modern medical facilities within easy access?  In my opinion, it starts with their food and lifestyle.  I remember my great grandmother, Tok Nek, eating simply, always with “ulam” included for lunch or dinner.  She walked everywhere, miles daily, and not at a creeping pace at that.  I was always amazed at her energy.
Our Malay traditional cuisine is rich with natural vegetables and fresh ingredients which as the years go by has been over-run by processed foods and decline in freshness.  Take our curry, more and more, people are using processed coconut milk, processed spices, days or weeks old fish or chicken or beef and for some, they love adding food-flavor enhancers.  Sometimes, due to our lifestyles, it cannot be avoided but I always read the labels.  I try to avoid ingredients that contains items that have numbers and difficult to pronounce content.  More often than not, our reason for going for these expedient ingredients is lack of time.  However, if we plan our meals, having fresh, less processed food does not take any longer than the current alternative.


Selection of ulam

 Our “ulam” culture have also fallen by the wayside with many preferring to opt for salads, which in my opinion is not as rich and nutritious as using our many ulam  to create a salad.  Maybe it is because more information is available on western salads and also the “glamour” associated with it.  But have you noticed how expensive these salads are which contains mainly lettuce and tomato?  An alternative which is much cheaper and nutritious is doing your own salad which contains fresh leaf baby spinach, ulam raja, kemangi, ruku, selasih, daun salam, bunga kantan and seasoned with limau kasturi and salt and pepper to taste.  You get all the great stuff – vitamins A, Bs, C and K, and protein, beta-carotene, calcium, and iron to name a few – all at a fraction of the cost.  These leaves also contain other benefits such as sources of traditional treatments for diabetes, cholesterol, heart diseases, tension and stress – all the illness that is prevalent in today’s modern society.  Celebrate all the greens that we have!!!!


2.4 kg Keli

 As the years go by, I tend to eat more and more fish as opposed to chicken or beef.  Somehow, the idea of chicken that has been given antibiotics does not seem to appeal to me as much.  The same goes for eggs that come from this “processed” chickens.  I am blessed to have alternatives – I have a healthier egg source which comes from the chickens that I rear that eat all those natural food from the farm supplemented by corn.  I also have a fish source – the fish from my pond which is constantly getting fresh, clean water from the hills and fed with shrimps (that is in the river naturally), other small river fish, keladi leaves, banana plant stem center and supplemented by fish pellets, albeit not that much as they have so much food naturally.  A big no-no is carcasses or animal innards.  It makes a huge differences to the quality and taste of the fish and there is no need to wash the fish “to death” to remove the smell.  Prior to having my own fish pond, I had tried fresh water fish like keli and tilapia and I found them to have a smell and also a “muddy” taste.  It left a marked impression on me and I always avoided fresh water fish thereafter.  Now, I realize the importance of fresh flowing water and feed for quality and tasty fish – many of the fresh water fish producers have stagnant water ponds and some feed them carcasses as a cheap alternative fish feed. Yuck!!!!!  Our ancestors ate fresh water fish that ate natural food so why do we lower our standards?  For cheap food?  Remember, we are what we eat so while it may be cheap in the beginning, it may turn out to result in expensive medical bills :).


Misai kucing flower

 For drinks, I enjoy drinks such as limau kasturi juice, teh misai kucing, teh kemangi and teh serai, which you may find served as a speciality drink at some restaurants at a rather high cost such as RM 10 per glass for teh serai.  So, I create my own at a fraction of the cost.  I was amazed to see how much a box of 10 sachets of teh misai kucing costs so I make my own using only the flowers and its flower stem, and the leaves – none of the leaf stems – which results in a nice golden brown tea that has its own sweetness and rich taste.  These drinks also have a nutritional value as well as being traditionally used in the treatment of diseases – it can also help prevent these diseases.  The axiom “Prevention is better than cure” holds true.  Celebrate our traditional drinks!!!!


Pisang lemak manis

 Traditionally, we have also eaten our local fruits as snacks and as desserts after a main meal.  Bananas, papayas, watermelon are some examples.  Where bananas are concerned, there are so many varieties to suit many different taste such as pisang lemak manis, rastali, udang, embun, berangan, emas, telor, raja, awak and abu, to name a few.  They are what I call the orinal variety that have not undergone genetic modification.  I am a traditionalist in this aspect, I feel we shouldn’t mess with Mother Nature where it is not necessary and to leverage on natural forms of fertilization such as composting as well as regularly turning the soil so that all the organic material returns to the soil to further improve the quality of the soil.  Bananas and papayas are great at breakfast as they help with our digestion system much better than taking laxatives.  Celebrate our fruits!!!!
Chemical pesticides and fertilizers were also not widely used then and today, this is the easiest way for many vegetable producers to ensure plentiful produce.  While we may wash the vegetables carefully, to my mind, it will always be present within the vegetable so although we may consume minute amounts, over time, this can be quite substantial.  At the same time, this will pollute the land.  Since I enjoy “grazing” as I walk on the farm, these are banned items which drives the guy that works for me crazy as it makes it more work to control the weeds which thrives on the rich soil.  It is a never-ending battle but at the end of the day, I think the effort is worth it.  So, let us all celebrate our eating tradition 🙂