My Food Environment

It has been nearly three weeks my family and I were back in Malaysia. We are now settling quite well here in Kuantan, alhamdulillah. What I cherished so much being in my home country, besides having my family and friends within reach, is the availability and accessibility to ready-to-be-consumed halal food. Now I am free from food deprivation, kahkahkah! I know my wife loves it too, as she doesn't need to worry so much about what to cook. Just go out and get it, ready-to-eat!

For lunch, one day, we had rice with a bowl of siput sedut masak lemak, (or siput chot-chot as I called it when I was small because of the sound), a cat fish or ikan keli with cili kicap, ulam raja and kacang kelisa/botor with sambal belacan, and  mixed vegies. When the rice was served, I thought I will not going to finish the portion because the plate was so full. However, my taste bud had detected the long lost enjoyable sensation of those food I've mentioned above it automatically sent a signal to my tummy to expand a lil bit, by-passing the sense of consciousness in my brain. The outcome; all plates and bowls were cleared!

Night Market

Locally known as pasar malam, they are available most nights in different areas around Kuantan. In Sydney, there were no more businesses after 5pm. All shops will be closed, except for some pubs and restaurants. When we first visited the night market here in Kuantan, Aiman was a bit shocked by the crowd, I guess. Normally he would prefer to walk and run around, that time he was so quiet and even asked me to hold him up. Now he already knew about it, asking me to buy blue rice (the nasi kerabu) from pasar m alam.

Jalan-jalan cari makan

Food is one of the basic human rights. So there is nothing wrong going around looking for a good place of nice food. We did that while we were in Sydney, and if the place and food was good, we will recommend it to our friends. The different is in Sydney not all food outlets are halal, and you may need to travel  across a few suburbs just to get the best, for example, nasi ayam or kebab, even Thai food.

Picture: Sedang membaham Iskander Kebab di Auburn buat kali terakhir. Aiman pun suka.

 

Now the search has started again. Besides the well-known Tanjung Lumpur for the ikan bakar petai, we have discovered a number of well-priced good-food restaurants and food stalls. Not to forget, the wife also had black-listed some places, including the one right in front of our house. I am hoping to find a good Lebanese or Turkish restaurant, bet there are some in KL.

The food changes

Been away for more than four years, I have noticed a lot of differences in Kuantan. As the development and urban sprawl continues, so does the food environment. More food outlets are now within reach from housing areas. There are a lot more food outlets in the city, be it stalls, medan selera, kopitiam, restaurants, and all the food franchise businesses. The good thing is people will not have to worry about cooking during their busy days. The bad is the prevalence of eating out or having a take-away food will increase, closing down the operation of households' kitchen in producing home-cooked meals. Fast food outlets are now opening 24hrs, 7 days a week. Some research  have reported that obesity is related to the availability of fast food outlets in the community.

What worries me is, as the easy accessibility to cheap unhealthy food and the portion size of meal increases, in ten years time, the percentage of overweight and obesity will surely increase. I just want to make sure that I am not included in the statistics, heh!