I've been splurging on healthy fruits and snacks since early this year - due to my constant hunger, probably *boredom* of staying alone most of the time at home and being extra health conscious. I don't eat-out as much as I used to (due to being at home at least 6 days a week), I make home-made foods and I'm having fun experimenting.
Things I learned :
- I eat fruits with yogurts for snack and smoothies for breakfast - almost every single day. So I mix and match a lot.
- I slowly changed from flavored yogurt to natural and sugarless yogurt (which I hated months ago). It takes time, and a LOT of fruits to wash the yogurt's natural taste.
- I learned that local banana is tastier and sweeter but don't last as long as imported bananas.
- I learned that if you received several boxes of strawberry (especially if someone that just came back from Cameron Highlands) - keep the strawberries in the icebox/freezer right away, just keep some of them down to eat as snack or with yogurt, or they will rot in 3-5 days.
- Berries are weird - you don't have to eat them fresh, smoothies always work with berries.
- Oat, granola and seeds are a nice addition into your yogurt - they give a bunch of mixed taste and crunchiness.
- No longer buying Boost - because it is much cheaper to make one at home and it tastes the same depending on which fruits you have at home. You can make 3-4 juices/smoothies for 2 people and for several days with the same amount you spend at Boost.
- Local/tropical fruits are always the best, sweeter and juicier : Over-riped guava, jambu air, mangoes, rambutan, jackfruit, watermelon, dragonfruit, mata kucing, papaya, mangosteen etc - but they are not so smoothies/yogurt friendly. You can always eat them as snack tho.
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Here are some ideas to help you start eat healthy :
Early morning smoothies consists of :
- Watermelon
- Red apple
- Green apple
- Chia seeds
- Flax seeds
or
- Frozen banana
- Milk
- Frozen berries
- Chia seeds
- Flax seeds
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Morning breakfast / Tea-time snack consists of :
- Natural / greek yogurt
- Oat
- Granola
- Chia seeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Fruits of the day on top (apple/watermelon/kiwi/berries/grapes)
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Night snack (usually around 10pm) :
- Easy to eat fruit of the day (apple/watermelon/mango/guava/dragonfruit/jambu air)
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To Buy :
Local fruits are much cheaper, need to go to weekly pasar malam, they are usually great for daily snacks (to be enjoyed just like that) but not so suitable for smoothies or to be eaten with yogurt, they also stay fresh for 3-5 days so you can't buy a lot at a time. The trick is to buy the seasonal fruits during the season - not after or before the season.
Imported fruits are usually more expensive, you can get it anytime at the supermarket, fresh for longer time and you can also put them up in the freezer for smoothies.
I buy both - local fruits every week, imported fruits probably every 3-4 weeks. I think at this point, I spend around RM 50 per week for fruits.
Apps/websites I tried to buy fruits or healthy snacks or fruits :
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Some of thoughts about the things I've tried :
1. From Amazin'Graze : I really love their Hazelnut Blackforest Granola that you can put on top of your yogurt or overnight oat. The granola tasted like chocolate so it balances out the fruit taste in my yogurt, and there's no refined sugar in it. I first bought it in JayaOne last Feb and enjoyed it so I bought 2 packets online with Super Seed Butter (my first try) this month during the promo season. During my first order I received free stuff and shipping.
The Super Seed Butter consists of sunflower seeds, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds, with no palm oil, no salt and no refined sugar. Af needs less unhealthy fats to lower down his blood pressure and cholesterol level, and I need to control my sugar intake. Although it is much expensive than my favorite peanut butter and jam, I think I need to start putting on extra thought on what I'm really eating every day - so why not. The verdict : it tasted decent with bread, not as I imagined combined seeds would taste like, a bit less sugary and less oily. I might try their other nut butter options in the future.
2. The Frozen Mixed Berries that I ordered from HappyFresh (Aeon Equine) : These frozen berries are very nice for our morning smoothies but not so nice for yogurt/overnight oat - the taste is just different. They are frozen fruits, more brittle and not that fresh anymore - so I just add them up in our morning banana smoothies.
First buy from HappyFresh, ordered early in the morning and arrived at 11am on the same morning. The strawberry that I ordered were sold out, so the buyer asked whether I would want a change in different strawberry (a bit more expensive) - I said yes and apparently it was then credited in my account after the purchase was made (I thought there was no extra charge because he didn't mentioned it) :
3. From MBGonline : The blueberries that I ordered were sold out while they were processing, so I got free upgrade to a pack of seedless grapes - I think they played the right card here because I like their services since then. You can also wait for seasonal/promo items here, because sometimes they are much cheaper than the ones in the supermarket.
4. From SignatureMarket : Most of the seeds and nuts that I bought since last year were from Signature Market. Seeds are mostly cheap, nuts are crazy expensive. I usually need 3 things : chia seeds, sunflower seeds and flaxseed. You can sprinkle chia seeds/sunflower seeds on almost anything : smoothies, yogurt, overnight oat. As for flaxseed, you need to grind it - so I usually only add it up in my smoothies or juice. Nuts and dried fruits are luxury items bought every 6 months.
How long will this fruit-craze phase stay ?
I'm not so sure - I've always think about fruits as luxury foods because they are expensive. But this year I'm giving my body what it wants :F
Did my skin cleared up ?
I'm in a hormonal phase - so I can't be sure. The small acnes on my face come and go, my skin is still oily like a teenager. But, the small bumps and rashes on my arms are gone (like chicken skin, but less).
I don't know whether this past 6 months changes anything in my body, roughly I still feel the same even though my diet changed a lot. But I think I'm staying in this course as long as we can ♥️I didn't even drink coffees or tea - no daily/weekly caffeine anymore.
