Early January, I got a phone call asking if I am interested to attend “Kids Eat Right with Naturel Bento" Workshop on 22 February 2011 (Tuesday) proudly organized by Naturel. This workshop was to encourage mothers to help their children eat right even when the children are away from home. It was a just a great the right time when I was trying my best to prepare for JL healthy food to bring to his school hassle free. I immediately replied and said why not since it is free workshop. I applied my leave and got my leave approved.
Just a few days before the actual day, I found that Anggie and Ruth would be there too. It was great to know we would be meeting in this workshop. I got to know Anggie’s blogger friend Alice who brought her little princess to the workshop too. We gathered at the Curve on early morning as we need to car poll to Bayan Indah Culinary Retreat at Sg Penchala. The place was so green and calm, away from all the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a great short break which I need away from office stress.
The whole event started with a briefing from Ms Tania Lee, the Brand Manager for Naturel with a bring-home message of “The choice of a healthier lifestyle is in our hands”. Naturel cooking oil is made from 100% pure and natural ingredients. Naturel Blend Cooking Oil is a blend of canola and sunflower seed oils. It provides a balanced ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6 and is cholesterol-free, thus making it the healthy cooking oil in preparing our daily meals. Omega 3 and Omega 6 are Essential Fatty Acids (EFA) which cannot be produced by our bodies and could only be obtained from food. It is important for normal growth in children plus in aiding regular cardiovascular and neurogical functions. Besides being cholesterol-free, it has monounsaturates which help to reduce bad cholesterol in the body. Best of all this oil is suitable for vegetarians. Other products under the Naturel group:
• Naturel Canola Cooking Oil
• Naturel Sunflower Cooking Oil
• Naturel Pure Olive Oil
• Naturel Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Naturel Reduced Salt Margarine
• Naturel Reduced Fat Spread
• Naturel Fat Spread With Extra Virgin Olive Oil
The first session was with Indra Balaratnam, the Consultant Dietitian on Healthy Eating. She taught us the practical way of being healthy for the whole family, making me feeling much better and the urge to do better. I learnt a lot of new things plus also getting confirmation on what I had learnt from my own personal reading. She gave us tips on managing the portion stress free. If I would to write all her sharing, it would be a long thesis. Overall, it was worth the time off taken to listen to this. In summary,
1. Never too late to start cultivating good healthy eating because it would be their long life skill
2. We as parents should show the examples (why not since we also should be eating healthily too)
3. The key to eating right is to practice balance, moderation and variety.
• Eat a variety of food by maintaining the portion according to the food pyramid
• Eat a variety of different colors of vegetables.
• An optimum meal serving (variety, nutrition and portion sizes) is difficult to achieve on a daily basis, however, we can look after children’s nutrition intake over a certain period (e.g. a week or a few days)
I am so glad that both JL and AL had no problem with vegetables and we had been talking to them about food. Both of them knew which food is healthy and which is unhealthy. We discussed with them about what to have for meals and get them involved when we go for our grocery shopping. JL would even discuss with us his whole week meal to bring to his school during his break time. I was amazed with the food that he had listed out to have for the week in school.
Back to the workshop, after an interesting talk by Indra, we had a great session with Rohani Jelani the owner of Bayan Indah. Being an experienced mother who had two grown up kids, everyone took opportunity to learn as much as we can and both her kids are eating healthy on their own. Rohani shared that how her kids find eating home-cooked food was more appealing than eating outside food. Both her kids loved bring food from home to school during break time. We had hands-on session and she shared to us simple recipes to assist us in helping the kids to eat right through a healthy and balanced meal.
Everyone was divided into 2 Groups:
Group 1
• Baked Doughnuts
• Prawn & Spring Onion Omelette with Rice Cakes
Group 2
• Rainbow cake
• Pasta bows with chicken & tofu patties
We worked in a pair. I was assigned to work with a lady from local Chinese newspaper to execute Group 1 recipes. Anggie and Ruth were paired up to prepare Group 2 Recipes. All four of us worked at the same workstations so that we can exchange view on Group 1 and Group 2 Recipes.
Initially I was nervous upon hearing the recipes which I need to prepare especially baking because I never bake before plus I did not even own an oven. It was indeed a new experience and eye opening for me. Stepping into a fully equipped kitchen was a dream for me having to be able to work on well designed kitchen including an island and built-in oven. It has always been my dream to own a kitchen with an island workspace and fully equipped yet spacious and airy.
Rohani gave tips on making nicely shaped doughnuts and making a perfect omelette with prawn filling. She shared a lot of great tips how we can modify the current recipes by changing the filling in the omelette and also in the rice cakes. The filling for the omelette and rice cakes could also be inter-change. I also get tips of how to prepare the rice cakes for JL if I need to prepare ahead but consume only at 3+pm since he was in afternoon class. The doughnuts were soft and the omelette was nice. Of course, the interesting rice cake which caught JL’s eye when I brought back home later.
I also got the opportunity to see how Anggie and Ruth prepared the food. The cake was soft and moist. The patties were delicious and one would not even notice that there was tofu inside the patties. The recipes were not as difficult as I thought initially. Rohani made it simple for us. So, cooking and preparing healthy food for family was not that complicated.
After cooking and preparing, we packed in Rubbermaid containers. We had our group photo session and then it was lunch time, yes healthy lunch. Rohani and her team prepared the whole range of healthy buffet lunch all using Naturel Cooking oil and Naturel Olive Oil. We were also provided with a book of recipes for the food prepared so that we could cook for our family too.
Before going home, we each got 3 goodies bags – one with 4 containers of the food we prepared, one (sponsored by Naturel with 1 bottle of Naturel Cooking Oil, 1 bottle of Naturel Olive oil, rice cake mould with recipes books and last but not least was a big bag of different sizes of Rubbermaid Containers .
It was a great workshop and I am sure everyone not only enjoy themselves but also went home with a great knowledge and understanding plus inspiration on how to prepare simple and healthy food for the family. Thanks to all the sponsors and hope for more to come…
This has also inspired everyone to be a part of “Join the Naturel Living” and embarked on a healthier, holistic lifestyle. The Join the Naturel Living (JTNL) campaign is a long-term campaign by Naturel to encourage Malaysians to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle which covers the three pillars - Eat Right, Keep Fit and Beat Stress.
From breastfeeding to cloth diapering and now more into healthy food…what would be my next learning focus? Life is a journey with continuous non-stop learning experience…
Do check out more photos (interesting scraps…) and more interesting write-up from other bloggers:
