Olives and Omega Three!

I'm trying my best to change the worst elements of my horrific lifestyle. Well it's not that bad. I don't chain smoke and inhale cheeseburgers, nor to I snort cocaine, chug gin and watch Jeremy Kyle. Things could be worse. That's not good enough though. I want things to be better. So I've started experimenting with my food and the way I treat my body. On the way I discovered 3 great things.

1. Olives

I used to hate olives. But I was desperate for a filler to add to a salad and I thought I'd try something a little different. Olives are full of fat. In fact the internet tells me that up to 85% of the calories found in olives are fat.

Health Benefits

On the bright side though they lower blood pressure and they are packed full of antioxidents, they help prevent cancer (the internet told me) and they also taste really good with poultry!

(If you don't believe me there it is!)
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=46

2. Wakame

My good friend Emi introduced me to this. Wakame is seaweed. The type I have at the moment it the dried version which can be found in most East Asian Supermarkets, all the ones I have been to anyway. All you have to do is soak however much you want in water for about 5-7 minutes and add it to your meal. It has a delicious sweet flavour. I've started putting it on my salads especially when using Salmon or Tuna.

Health Benefits

Wakame contains vitamin E, vitamin K, Iron and Calcium. It's good for your skin, bones, helps your blood to clot and also is really low in calories. It can help flavour food, so richer ingredients aren't needed. I think that was wikipedia talking. On the downside there is a lot of salt in it.

3. Jalapenos

Or if you prefer on a 'steek'.

I can't get that n. It really bothers me.

I'm training myself to handle spicy food. This is kind of helping me and they taste good on cheese and toast, in sandwiches or on salad!

Health Benefits

This is surprising. I was just going to say they're spice-tastic but actually they are good for much more.
They help to clear a blocked nose, stop a migraine, prevent cancer, help with weight loss and stop you looking like a wimp when you order nachos.

Check it out!

http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/6-health-benefits-of-jalapenos.html

Hey I made stuff!
Fried scallops and japanese rice with sweet chilli sauce.

Scallop and olive salad

Wakame chicken salad with olives, kos lettuce and sesame oil. Grilled bread with sesame oil.

I hope I can make more interesting things soon. I'm not the biggest fan of scallops so next time I'll use king prawns or squid!

Bye!

Beautiful?

How fascinating the concept of beauty is. I noticed this as I perused through my sisters cast off ASOS magazine which I snatched up like a magpie as soon as she was done with it. In this magazine there were a lot of models all of whom were striking in there own way. A lot of whom were so striking that they couldn't be called pretty in the conventional sense of the word. These women had large dome like foreheads, large gaps in their teeth and sharp, prominent cheek bones.

Being the possessor of a rather large forehead, I was glad of this. I like these odd looking amazons with their stark, awkward grace. They show me that funny looking women can be muses in high fashion. The only down side to this that they are all very slim. I hate the term skinny like I hate the term fat. When someone calls me skinny it brings forth unwanted images like this....

Although to be fair Skeletor is quite ripped, who am I to insult his chisled masculinity?

Nevertheless I can sympathise with the frustration of women who find that the fashion world doesn't really offer them models who they can relate to shape wise. Most of the bodies that saunter down  the runway are of proportions I wouldn't dream of (mostly because my dreams are currently overrun with pastry). A friend and I was discussing the body shape of women, her being a size 18 and me a 8/10. What was interesting is that we were trying to come to terms with what 'normal' women were. Normal is a vague word, what quantifies normal. I suppose the average size of a female in this country would be the obvious answer. That's a size fourteen apparantly.

It would be nice to see rounder bums and softer lines in magazines and on the runway. Whose to say it wouldn't be a nice change. We should still have thin sexy ladies for other thin sexy ladies. We should just have rounder sexy ladies for the other rounder sexy ladies to look up to. There's a particularly repulsive person who seems to be against this.

Now, this is old news but this man upsets me even if his dresses are quite pretty. It's this type of person that makes us, both women and men hate ourselves. Sure, we should be strong enough to say  'screw you' and ignore the negative words of this one, essentially insignificant individual. However, this man has power and influence over models and designers alike. He gets in whatever way to decide what is beautiful and what is ugly.
If someone is a judge on Australia's Next Top Model, they are in a position of power and, no matter how harsh the reality of the fashion world actually is, their messages filter down into the rest of society. Women might feel they need to live up to certain standards.

I know women aren't stupid and they know it isn't their job to look a certain way or way less than a certain amount. But when we are constantly bombarded with images to the contrary, these messages seep in no matter how watertight we think our minds are. To have someone like this man, insulting these amazons so callously could leave the average woman feeling a bit angry.

There's a criticism and then there's just being a prick.

I know the difference, do you?