20.12

It’s still 12 days to 2012, but I figure out it’s ok to just make a New Year plan now.

Unlike the previous years, I do feel like making more than just one plan… including a plan to have a break from work, something I already had thought last year but haven’t got the chance to do it until now.

So what would I do during that break?

I’ve always wanted to do something like young Che Guevara did in his Motorcycle Diaries. But since I’m not that expert in riding long-distance so I’ll just use my car, a 2002 diesel Toyota Kijang MPV that can run around 8L/100km highway (10L/100km combined) that I’ve been driving for more than 5 years now. I think that will not hurt my pocket, plus the decent size and power will give me extra safety than a mini-MPV that might have had better fuel economy.

My destination is Central Java, somewhere between where I am now and my hometown.

I’d like to revisit Borobudur and Prambanan (to make up for my useless first visit there when I was 9) as well as exploring the other smaller cities across the province like Pekalongan (famous for its batik) and my friend Ba’in‘s hometown, Banjarnegara. Semarang would be interesting too, since I’ve only just stopped by there overnight on my way home from Jakarta in 2002—so I practically know very little about the city, which according to my grandmother is the origin of her grandfather, or in other word, my ancestor. The food there is also famous, and as a food explorer I surely won’t want to miss this.

There’s also the famous Temple of Sam Poo Kong, in regard to the famous Ming Dynasty’s Admiral Zheng He who visited the city in the 1400s and started the spread of Islam in Java. I didn’t even know about him before my former writer, Rina, visited there 6 years ago during its 600 years commemoration. Poor me…

From Semarang, there will also access to the nearby regencies like Demak (the capital of the first Islam kingdom in Indonesia after the fall of Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit), Kudus, Pati, Jepara (the hometown of Raden Ajeng Kartini, a popular women’s education figure in the late 1800s, and the home of many arts and crafts), Rembang, Lasem (that has old architecture and batik), as well as to the nearby Island of Karimun Jawa that has a national park. Semarang is also close to Salatiga, and Ambarawa that has an old train museum, which I would probably keen to have a look. And the best way to travel without fixed itinerary like this is by car, that’s why I think I would love it. I would stop for a day or two, or more, if it’s interesting and drive on when I’m done. No fixed schedule.

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My other trip plan is East China, to Hangzhou and Suzhou via Shanghai like I posted earlier, which I hopefully be able to do it sooner, like next spring.

If the timing allows, I might be able to watch Shanghai Shenhua as well as enjoying the city and hopefully the fast train to Beijing. From Beijing, I will stop by in Hong Kong to visit my sister and her fiancée before returning to Jakarta. But if I’m more comfortable staying longer in Hangzhou and Suzhou then maybe I’ll go to Hong Kong straight from Shanghai.

To add one more big plan, of course I would like to finish at least one advertising work that can be my work for the year.

Next, the small plans.

Wow, I think there are quite some of them…

To start with, perhaps a plan to significantly be less active at Twitter and Facebook, and allow more time for blogging.

There are 3 blogs I’d like to start next year. The first is a long-postponed new blog to replace my current portfolio web, which couldn’t accommodate videos :-( It’s kinda hard to let it go since the overall look is clean and tidy, but I do need to upload videos, and rather than have 2 separate portfolio blogs I think I’d prefer just one—since I still have some other blogs outside my portfolio. Besides, the operating system takes too long to just display one image, while blogs run faster to display many images at once. So yes, I’ll be migrating.

The second blog is a blog I’ve long promised my writer to make… some kind of library of the DVDs I’ve been collecting intensively since 2009 (plus a few more I’ve bought earlier). I looove films, and it just won’t hurt to have a blog about film. I would probably meet new friends that have the same interest like me, and at least I would just share the films that I have, that you probably have never heard about. That sounds nice.

The third blog would be something that I want to start with my mother, and hopefully she will continue later. It’s a blog about food and cooking, something I admire so much about my mother which I think may have been better if also shared to other people—since me and my sister don’t seem to be able to “preserve” these family recipes. Hopefully with a little luck there’ll be more than just recipe, but also photos and videos. It depends on how successful I can persuade my mother to perform on camera, hahaha… It would be fun, I guess.

Another small plans for next year are to reorganize my room, maybe getting a smaller table for my slim computer and remove many stuffs I no longer need… and I would also want to finish 1 book every month. It would be nice if by January 2013 I can read 12 more books. Regardless the knowledge I would gain, I probably just want to learn more about commitment. It’s something so far I’m very lack of… being too comfortable in the free zone, floating here and there with no destination, maybe this free zone—without I realize it—has turned into a comfort zone. And I need to move on.

Food Crisis

Funny how a country like Indonesia can have a food crisis. But no, I’m not talking about hunger or the ridiculous rice import, it’s the government’s call.

What I think more important is not about having enough food available, but having enough healthy food available. It’s a problem I think we, as private sectors and citizens, can and need to solve without the interference of the hopeless government.

My handicaps in carb and dairy products can be a case study, as I am sure it also represents some, if not many, people’s nutrition problem as well. I also just found out actress Zooey Deschanel is also someone with allergy towards milk and eggs, and in USA eating disorders have been an important issue since the research by the film Supersize Me (2004) about how every 1 in 4 Americans have obesity because of their food culture. Lately there have also been calls about how hard it has been to eat healthily because of the very limited supply of healthy food, and how it has cost more expensive than the unhealthy ones—a finding I read a few months ago and have found some similarities with the condition in Indonesia, particularly with myself.

During my considerably intensive diet the past 14 months, I have found it hard to find many enough menu to combine in a week. I often had to eat the same menu only after 3-4 days, and sometimes I broke my diet program not because my body wasn’t able to obey it, but because I got bored having had to return to the same menu too fast.

Some of my friends who also have overweight problem have more concern on the cost. They still couldn’t adapt to the taste of healthy food, having used to eat food rich in carb, meat and anything fried, and having had to pay more for it makes little sense to them.

If only salads and fruits in supermarkets are cheaper than the pastas and meat, I suppose people like my friends here will have more willingness to try (and adapt), knowing it can economically benefits them as well. But so far you can get a quarter of a roasted chicken for less than IDR 20k (USD 2.25) while any salads would cost you IDR 22-26k (USD 2.50-3.00). A quality local orange costs IDR 30k (USD 3.50) per kilogram in supermarkets, an amount equal to six oranges that will last only a day for a family of 4 or 5… 6 days for a single living person like me. They call it mango season, but supermarkets sell freshly-diced mangoes for IDR 30k (USD 3.50) per bowl, quite a slim amount to be served as dessert for a family of 4. The most absurd are coconuts in restaurants, at a staggering above IDR 15k (USD 1.75) per glass of serving, or around half of the coconut, while on the streets warungs still sell at IDR 5k (75 cents) per glass of serving, or IDR 5-10k for the whole coconut if you want to cut it out at home.

Luckily bananas and papayas remain inexpensive, but they’re the only affordable options for those who don’t want to spend too much on fruits.

The same goes to snack. You’ll have more luck if you live near traditional market like my home in Surabaya, you’ll have access to fresh traditional snacks. But if you depend all your food needs in the supermarket, then you will consume a very large amount of food color and preservatives—two of some factors that can accelerate the chance to have kids with built-in ADHD. Other than food color and preservatives, the amount of sugar on some snacks and drinks is also ridiculously high. A friend of mine got this information about how the first ingredient mentioned in the packaging is the most dominant ingredient in the food, and so many snacks—chocolate bars, biscuits, etc—mention sugar as their first ingredient. So if you eat that kind of bar of chocolate you can now know that you’ve just put spoons of sugar into your mouth, probably double or triple of the sugar portion for a sweet iced tea. And that still hasn’t include the flour (carb, that will be digested into sugar), which the snack is made of.

You’ll also be surprised if you try to find snacks with no dairy ingredients in a snack alley of a supermarket… almost all the biscuits contain milk. Even some biscuits you thought was salty, sometimes it uses milk. I got tripped once and got some acnes grow.

I am still not sure what made food manufacturers produce such food. It can be taste consideration, like what happens in chocolate-based confectionaries, it can also be price consideration. Let’s hope it has nothing to do with milk and sugar manufacturers.

I am also unsure what made the food distributors (the supermarkets) to do such policy of expensive healthy food. They may not have enough cheap resources, or they can simply be selfish, taking advantage of the situation. Let’s hope it’s not the latter.

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There are basically two ways we can try to anticipate the crisis.

The first would be to produce more options on the healthy food, whether increase the farm and supply (quantitative) and improve more menus (qualitative). The more alternatives, the cheaper the price should be, like what has been happening in the unhealthy ones. In the meantime, people like me who doesn’t own farmland or food factory but work in communication business can help to promote healthy food, encourage low-carb and low-dairy diet, and I’ve been doing so, starting with my family and closest friends. Hopefully by reading this you readers will be encouraged to pass it on, or even read more or do more research to perfect the current findings.

The second, the bigger step, would be to plan a food culture revolution. It will need participation from those more expert in food and nutrition, like food scientists, nutritionists, doctors (supported with the facts about the increasing number of patients of diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, stroke and cardiac problems), food journalists and writers. We need a longer term strategy to reduce our dependency on carb, sugar and dairy. Not only it will increase overall health and reduce the number of people suffering from blood-related disease (diabetes-cholesterol-high blood pressure-stroke-heart disease-obesity), it may also contribute in solving the nation’s problem with self-sufficiency on agricultural supply. Distributors will probably find it harder to dictate the rice price, and some other people will need to find another field to do their corruption.

Let’s just say it’s the same spirit like the film Supersize Me, only in a 2011 way, by no longer blaming the institution and wait for them to fix the problem, but by starting to act by ourselves, no matter how small it is. If someone can change two people, then the numbers may multiply. Like population.

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Some articles you may want to read, pardon if some are in Bahasa…

• Peter d’Adamo’s Blood Type Diet by Wikipedia

• The price of fruits and vegetables climb faster than inflation by Reuters

• Rice production in Indonesia by Wikipedia

• Imported rice from India coming in December 2011 by Detik

• Indonesia’s rice imports reached IDR 997m until September 2011 by Detik

• 200,000 tons of Sumatran rice for export by Detik

• Controversy around East Java Logistics to import more rice by MetroTV

• The trade volume of rice supply between Indonesia and Vietnam by Detik

• Row between Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Trade around rice imports, May 2011, by Cuplik

• Farmers in East Java to oppose rice import by Kompas

My peace with food

I used to think I’m unfortunate of having such a sensitive skin. I’ve been in and out skin center since I was 14, I think. The first 2 years were doing fine, I had probably the best facial skin among the other boys at my age, a friend of mine once made this metaphor that my cheeks are like an apple.

But to maintain such a good skin during puberty was very expensive and painful, I had to face the needles like once or twice every month, sleep with facial cream to heal the wounds after needling and prevent acnes grow. And everytime I came a few days late than what the doctor said I had to return, she would be mad at me. I can understand that without such discipline it would be impossible for the program to work, like if you’re having a diet program, so I don’t blame her for that, she’s just doing what she’s been paid to do. But it felt like a prison to me, so entering my second year of high school I finally gave up the skin care program. I felt so free trashing all those acne creams I had to apply almost every night. I grew my hair longer.

But it didn’t take long until the acnes started to grow, and when I started to feel stressful on my third year in high school—which caused my performance and grades extremely dipped, from 2^nd spot at an average 8.5 to 19^th spot at an average 7.4—the acnes went wild. It even developed to another problem on my scalp. After getting several doctor’s opinion, a dermatologist who specialized in scalp problem finally diagnosed me with a protein allergy. I had to take 10 weekly injections plus several other prescriptions for the following 3 months, and had to completely stop eating eggs and seafood. That was when I first got introduced to wheat bread, and I ate plenty of them during the following 1.5 years recovery from the allergy. So from prison my life had another shift to hell. And finally I returned to the skin center, facing the doctor that was extremely shocked to see how my facial skin had terribly worsened in just 2 years. It was one of my lowest points in confidence, being only 19 but had such a bad look and an eating handicap inside, while many of my friends enjoy their best times of their life. The only entertainment was sport, I watched and played more football, and I started to go to the gym.

My second stint in the skin center worked, though the result was never going to be like the first, and I continued in and out skin center with different clinics until I moved to Jakarta. It needed some laser procedures to recover many of the acne marks, which I haven’t done until now, that’s why it still has most of the “history” from the high school days :-)

It wasn’t until around 2 years ago until I discovered that the actual cause of my acnes, apart from the stress factor, are dairy products and high-cholesterol food. It began when I read in Wikipedia about chocolate, one of my favorite food, that chocolate didn’t cause acne and it was the sugar and milk which the chocolate had been mixed (and most of the times dominated) with that caused the acne. It made sense since the actual taste of chocolate was bitter, like a high percentage of cocoa in dark chocolate, and without the mix (and domination) of milk, and later sugar, it would be difficult for the majority of people—especially Asians and kids—to like it. This interesting fact encouraged me to do a little experiment with my body, by eating the 80% and 99% dark chocolates and stopping any kinds of dairy products—including cheese, butter and snacks with dairy ingredients. To my surprise, the acne didn’t grow, even though I finished the bar in less than a day.

This finding encouraged me to do another experiments with roasted plain peanuts (without any flour coating) and mangoes, two of the most forbidden food by the dermatologists, and I was very very happy to find that they were not as dangerous as told, though the peanuts could still grow acnes when eaten a large pack at once. It was the pork that didn’t pass the test… as well as any food with high cholesterol like egg yellow, squid, shrimp, lamb, duck, ribs, coconut milk, and snacks with extreme sweet and spicy taste.

It still leaves me with many handicaps, since milk and cheese are very popular ingredients in any bread, cakes and biscuits, and pork is one of the most popular ingredients in Chinese food… but I still have the chocolate, the peanuts and the mangoes.

My other handicap has almost nothing to do with acne, but with my blood and overweight. It’s a problem that many people also suffer from, though most still don’t make anticipation, which is carb intake.

As an O blood type, I am not recommended to eat too many (or even a normal portion of, like other blood types) carbs—rice, bread, potatoes, flour, noodles—as my blood wouldn’t digest these carbs easily. It will make it easier for me to get overweight, though it is also not suggested that I stop taking carb at all.

The hardest part of living in Indonesia, and perhaps many Asian countries than Japan, is the fact that our culinary is so rich in carb… so many menus made of carb, even double, triple, or quadruple carb combo. If we go to rice warungs, apart from rice as your staple food you can get spicy potatoes, noodles, and perkedel (potato meatball) or bakwan jagung (corn meatball) all in your plate. Fried rice and fried noodles are very popular food, and they are best eaten for dinner. Sweet martabak (giant pancake) is a popular street dessert, which is also best eaten at night, even late night. Salted or sweet rice cakes, glutinous rice cakes, layer cakes, green bean cakes are also very popular snacks, and somehow due to their freshness are healthier option than many preserved snacks in supermarkets, but they are all carbs too. When O blood type like me eat it like normally other people do, I will easily get overweight, so I had to really limit it, and find substitutes like peanut and soy-based food, or fruits.

Tough, eh?

Well, it is. But despite all those limitations, I’m still very happy to have my body. I never get sick after eating on the streets—like some of my friends who have extreme sensitivity towards food hygiene. I can still freely eat at warungs, which is still one of the best eating experience which only exists in Asia, especially Indonesia.

Let’s just say obeying those handicaps is the way I make peace with food. Besides, it didn’t hurt much if I broke it sometimes :-) Perhaps it’s nature’s way to put a brake pedal in my behavior, otherwise I would easily get diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure like many baby-boomers who were late or never deal with their eating handicaps.

I’ll be back to the skin center to do the laser someday. Meanwhile, the past one year I’ve been able to reduce my weight to 75 kg, 12 kg (25 lbs) less than September 2010. Still need to reduce a little more to reach the ideal number, but so far so good. The last time I checked my cholesterol level last month the number showed 140, pretty ideal compared to over 200 around 2 years ago when I was still at 87 kg.

I feel light, and ready to make up for that lost years of youth.

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Some readings, pardon if some in Bahasa…

• Peter d’Adamo’s Blood Type Diet website, blog and interview

• Change Your Genetic Destiny, a book by Peter d’Adamo

• Relation between carb and sugar with acnes by American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

• The popular belief about chocolate and acne by Wikipedia

• Some articles about chocolate’s health benefits by Cleveland Clinic, AllChocolate.com and Stuart J. Adams, consultant nutritionist via NutraSmart

• Finding on milk by Dr. Hiromi Shinya, an enzyme and gastrointestinal specialist and founder of Shinya Medical Clinic

• PETA on cow’s milk