Sugar is the root of all evil.
In cooking – there are three flavours that generally that require a balance.
Sweet
Salty
Sour
A combination of this flavour profile will make or break your dish. The choice of taste is subjective and dependent on the person’s preference. For me, I do not have any particular preference except that I don’t like sour. I would prefer if it is sweeter. Hence it requires sugar.
Sugar exists in many ingredients in addition to the tool to create the taste. The most straightforward example is rice, which is the primary vehicle for almost all Malay dishes. Hence a lot of the food where we consume is generally eaten together with some form of sugar. Therefore, when one was to add the total sugar consume for a typical Malay dish, one will realize that there is way too much sugar. I guess I am one of those victims from this.
Sugar has an addictive nature. The more one gets used to sugar, the more they want it. I think of it as a legal drug. The long term effects include obesity and diabetes. It is not easy to eliminate sugar, but one should try.
I am trying very hard to remove sugar from my diet. I acknowledge that I am a coffee addict. In the past, I will always take my coffee with milk and sugar. In fact, since the existence of expensive coffee joints, I started to shift to drink coffee in the form of cappuccino or latte.
I have managed to get used to drinking black coffee. That helps to reduce my sugar intake. The next phase is to remove simple carbohydrates from my diet. As easy as it sounds, this is more difficult.
I have tried many times to go into a low carbohydrates diet, but it seems to have failed many times too!
I still wonder what can motivate me to transition to a healthier lifestyle. There is a saying in Malay:
“Hangat Hangat Tahi Ayam”
The English translation for this is “Hot hot chicken shit”. What it means is that I will go all out for the first part, and then ended up going back to start. It has happened way too many times. I am terrible at self-discipline.
I need to improve my self-discipline. Full stop.
3/30