Sugar, oh sugar, sugar

drink
Originally uploaded by 5xmom.

I thought I am the smartest mama on earth. Recently, I bought this booklet on the dangers in canned drinks and the consumption of too much sugar by CAP (who complains about every CAPlang thing wan?) for my sons hoping that they will be more health conscious. I never read CAPlang bulletin from them because I may have dropped dead very much earlier liao because everything is toxic once the things are tested by them. The fears, worries and stress caused by believing what they say are fatal.

Only my kids can believe every word they write. When I bought the booklet, I was hoping it would discourage them to drink less canned drinks. Alright, you may think - hey, you are the mother, you have the final say in what goes into your shopping cart. You should have trained your kids from babies not to take excessive sugars. You should educate them from young. You idiot or what? Aiyoh.. you have a parenting forum and this simple matter you also cannot manage ah?

Oh shaddap, conscience! You think it is so easy to programme children ah? I did try to guide them but how can I win? They will probably listen to me for 2 minutes but they spend the rest of their waking hours hounded by advertisements and TV shows that make drinking sodas (in US, they call canned drink soda) cool. Like Kenan and Kel, The Amanda Show, to name a few. And it is damn embarassing to argue with your grown-up sons who are bigger size than you in the supermarket. Over my dead body will I do that. You know? Those women who loudly scold their children in public over silly matters? And I think my sons are going to abandon me in old age if I build up so much angst by denying them soft drinks. So a little tooth decay (give dentists some business mah) and the RISK of diabetes are small matters compared to the risk of me spending my ah-poh time all alone.

OK, back to reading the booklet. They absorbed the information alright. They know that each can of soft drinks contains 15 teaspoons of sugar, colouring, artificial flavor and ingredients XYZ. But they still slipped in a few cans each time we go shopping. And that's not the end of it. They got smart ideas that fruit juices is healthy. So, they demand freshly squeeze juice. They demand homemade barley drink. They demand thong-sui. Yikes, in the end, they ended up drinking more sugars and I ended up in the kitchen sweating to fulfil their extra sugar cravings. *haih*....

Anyway, auntie would like to provide great tips to make lovely 'thong-sui'.
Grab a big bunch of dried longans, packet of fresh gingko and lotus seed (sold in supermarket cold section), red dates, white fungus (soak till kembang) (and whatever else you fancy like pak hup/lily bulbs, for e.g)

Boil with minimal water, maximum rock sugar and pandan leaves. Do NOT add too much water. Slow boil till all kembang and soft. Leave them as long as you can tahan the drools. Add water only when you want to serve. This will make the longan/gingko/lotus sweet and the water clear colour instead of too blackish.

If it is too hard to do, just come to Penang and eat them at either Kimberly Street or New Lane.

Whatever it is, don't ask 'Will you be my mommy?'