I just think that one day I am just going to rattle when I walk!! LOL. It’s a struggle, I am only 37 years of age, some people understand that and some like my parents in law seem to think at times it is some sort of competition involving who takes the most medication!
I must admit that I do have to giggle to myself at how funny it is when we are at their home when it its time to take medication. There almost seems to be a whole fanfare placed on it, like it is some sort of club. Mother in law has to pull out her basket of goodies while deciding what she will have with her tablets and Father in Law has to get his glass of milk or buttermilk and then I am asked what would I like with my tablets!!! Mind you I have generally discreetly taken my medication and they are some what shocked that I have already taken mine. Perhaps we should have done a chant, 1, 2, 3, slam em down!!! It’s one of those things where you have to be there to see it
They forget that I am only 37 and they think that because they take the same amount or more then they are sicker. What is a very massive difference is what is taken. Now I take medication purely for pain that I have utterly not control over, there is very little that I can do to make things better and anything that can be done to make things better I am already doing. Whereas they have total control over their mediation intakes and why they take it, far too often they are taking medication a lot longer than is ever needed. I am forever saying the importance of speaking to your doctor on a regular basis and be vigilant about what you take. It is also something that they have been well educated on because of their heavy reliance on the medical system. Often quicker to demand the need for a doctor or a specialist than trying to alter something simple. There is no need bellowing at your doctor demanding that you need a repeat for medication for an injury that is long since healed. I find that it is very important and it is whyI am always saying that if you can lessen the need for the medication that you are taking you are taking a step in the right direction.
We were blown away to hear Henk say how “healthy” he was as he could just take a pill and eat and drink whatever he pleased. Needless to say both Bill and I were shocked at this very irresponsible statement and needed to hear more about this utterly absurd notion. Yes we do have some entertaining conversation, conversations that really only they can be a part of of! We were under the impression that if you are healthy you do not need medication. We also understand that medication can only help so much and if you live sedentary and eat poorly you will not be healthy. I cannot understand why someone will do very little to help oneself yet persist in talking about every single illness that pops up. As was explained to us, some people are just happy in the rut that they are in and they are happy. This really is what does make the world go around and the differences we all have!
Although some things we honestly do not understand the logic really, I know that if I had the opportunity to not need medication by doing something as simple as looking after my diet I would,. One day in the car on the way to yet another infamous trip to the hospital because a parental is yet again been admitted. We were talking about health and nutrition of which we received the usual bellow of “booo hooo it’s all to hard”, I tell yah now we very much know where Charlie gets the WOOOO OOOOO OOOO’s!!
The conversation was about a member of family on my side who is the exact same age as them but far healthier. In fact significantly healthier!! Pien used the well worn line “It’s genetics’” we would love $1 for every single time that “genetics” is used for all their woes. I responded with, “if you are pre-disposed to be unwell would you not watch what you are eating over the utter opposite?. Meaning you just told me that the reason why you are diabetic is not your fault but it’s because of your “genetic’s”.But if you are destined to be a diabetic why eat lots of sugar all the time and the massive quantities that you do?? I added that “It would not matter who you are if you ate poorly and lived poorly you are going to be unwell” For the rest of the car trip there was dead silence, LOL! I guess that there was a nerve hit. Hahahaha!!
So sorry Mum and Dad , aka Father in Law, Mother in Law we are going to use you as fine example regarding ”You are what you eat and how it impacts on health” as you are the best example of this….
We are ever so amazed to watch the olds gobble down ( yes GOBBLE)rich, salty, sugary, fatty, oily foods all the time. I have never ever in my life seen people eat the quantity that they eat and seriously it is astounding that they are not a lot fatter and sicker than what they already are! I guess that with all the constant abuse that they have given their bodies their genetics are rather good!!
We went to Yum Cha one day for lunch, we arrived rather late so only had a very short time to eat. I ordered some Gyoza dumplings, which are a favourite of mine, I barely had one bite on and looked up and the whole tray was gone, they wolfed it down in less than a blink! It was like watching what I would imagine a castaway who had not eaten for days eating, gobble, snort, gobble snort, gobble…. Henk and Pien have great pleasure ridiculing me at all the time about what and how I eat. You see I can’t shovel my food, nor can I gobble my food, I actually like to taste my food and enjoy it. I do not understand why this is so worthy of ones entertainment to be honest. Sadly that day I hardly ate a thing but Henk and Pien were as usual bursting at the seams they had wolfed tray after tray after tray of food in less than an hour. I would not have believed it till we got a rather hefty bill for what was consumed. I did not like some super sweet sugary fried pastry thing, I took one bite and the greasiness and sweetness was too much so I handed it to Bill. Pien thought this to be hilarious and even exaggerated (as per usual) my reaction about them to her friends on the phone later. I have since found out that these things that happen to be her favorite food and she can consume a few of them at any given time are a whopping 300 calories each!! WHOA!! That’s like an entire meal in a few bites!!!!
For diabetic, heart attack and high cholesterol patients (and heck knows how much more cos we just can’t keep up) they are the ones whom should MOST be looking after their diet. I/we wish that we had the utter luxury to be able to do something as simple as alter our intake and that would guarantee that we would be well. If the doctor told me to go for a walk and I would be pain free I would do it in a flash!!
You see they just do not do that and it is ever so frustrating when we are yet we are on the receiving end of the latest disaster.You see it is not because we don’t care, it is because we do and when a person moans you want them to feel better but when they do nothing about it you become annoyed. It is mind boggling that a person should talk about how sick they are all the time yet do utterly nothing to better the situation. What we do know is that for the blatant disregard of medical advice they are in fact incredibly lucky… I just cannot and either can Bill consume the massive quantity of food that they eat on a regular basis.
We are also shocked at how they start with something that is exceptionally healthy and good for you and destroy every possible nutritional value that it may have had. Whilst it is all wonderful to tell your doctor that you eat meat and vegetables, you need to say that those vegetables are mush and the meat has been twice killed! You cant say you eat salads all the time when you have it with jam sandwiches, you can’t say you drink a lot of water when it is in fact cordial and sugary carbonated drinks…..Never had Bill and I laughed so hard in our lives when we were on our most recent trip to Holland and a family member said that all our parents ate was, fresh fruit, salads, lean meat and vegetables and another honestly believed that there was no fresh vegetables in Australia 40 years ago! Oh what a smokescreen had been made! Distance really does cover up a lot!!
This brings me to talk a bit about the types of food that they still eat and the foods that we were both served as children by our respective parents and the impact that it had on our health and well being. It is not just Henk and Pien that cook in this manner, it’s a lot of people but because they are the most closest example and probably the best example we are using them!! There are a lot of people of the same generation gap that do just as they do. If my mother was still alive today there would be just as many things to talk about. I have a lot of memories of a beautiful plump leg of lamb being placed into inches of lard and baked till it was a third of it’s size!! LOL!
As always when we visit the olds there is a “routine” that is almost followed. I do have a bit of a giggle about it as both Henk and I are Taureans, creatures of order and routine! So Henk would have cut up the bits and pieces for a “snack” and then left it out on the bench for a few hours till we get there. It could very easily be wrapped with a bit of cling film and placed in the fridge but it never is. This is generally cheese and cold cuts so pretty much not what you should leave out and something that has been explained hundreds of times but they refuse to alter this unhealthy unhygienic habit (although should there be guests other than us there will most certainly be a fanfare placed on ensuring food goes back into the fridge). So we just make sure that we drink a bit extra wine when we are there, help sterilise things a bit.
Anyhow it always begins with this rather large plate of nibbles that is often followed by a plate of Rokewurst that has been boiled in the bag so that all the fat is retained. It is then sliced in chunks and served with mustard. It is rather tasty but only when it is piping hot because the very second it cools you then taste the fattiness of it. Bill and I have never ever been fans of this oily fatty meat but it is nice to have a bite on rare occasions. It’s certainly not something that we would eat regularly due to how unhealthy it is! So already we have begun the evening with more than what a person “should” consume, in an entire day let alone an afternoon “snack”. Bill and I are very mindful to only have a couple of pieces as we now know that there is always a LOT more to come. So Henk and Pien generally gobble down the lions share! LOL. They do love their food and lots and lots of it!!
What makes us laugh every time is that already they have both eaten what most would consider a days worth, but the feeding is not yet over people. Pien within seconds of wolfing down an already massive amount of food is demanding that Henk put the “Aperitif” on cos she is hungry and is wondering when the “food” is going to be ready. I am sure that this woman was born hungry, or it is very much an attention seeking bad habit, because the moment one mouthful is finished she is asking for the next 10. So many can attest to seeing her to be so obsessed with the game of what she is going to eat next whilst she is already wolfing down a feast! She can often be akin to a spoiled child when she does not get her own way with food, something that she has carried with her all her life. It is hilarious when her brother in law whom is very healthy and knows the good things to eat tells her that she should refrain from gobbling down her next conquest!! We could not stop laughing when she told us all about her trip to Sumatra and how she was told not to eat the copious amounts she wanted to eat. The booo hooo hooos when on for ages and all I could do was giggle and tell her that her brother in law is right, and he is!! I cannot tell you HOW much respect I have for him, his wife and the unbelievable amount of knowledge they have in this area. They are so very focused on health and healthy living that on our trip on late 2009 they showed us such a wealth more. It was the same childlike production at dinner in Holland in 2006, Pien was expected (as she should) to do the right thing and during the meal both Bill and myself looked up towards her as we noticed that there was a bit of a spectacle starting. She had just packed away a decent sized meal and was staring like a hungry orphan at everyone elses unfinished meal in a bid that she could get their remains!!
On our most recent visit we learned that Henk and Pien had just discovered lamb back straps. They are a wonderful piece of lean meat that really just a small amount of seasoning a bit of garlic and rosemary placed on a hot grill, a couple of minutes either side, then placed on a bed of baby spinach, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, olives, salt reduced fetta and a dollop of light natural yoghurt….. MMMMM… Get that thought out of your head cos we are not talking what the majority of the population and what they would do, we are talking the olds so what did we get… severely overcooked FRIED lamb back strap with cheese on top! (WTF!!!) Bill did try to rescue this rather expensive innocent piece of meat from further destruction by gently explaining to his dad as he was frying the life out of it that the lamb was very much cooked. So in true arrogant, ignorant Henk form, he ignored his son, turned the heat way up and fried it for 10 MORE minutes, he then smeared cheese on top because he realised that it had gone dry and hoped that the cheese would ad moisture. (huh?) He even gloated to his son that he did this finding his own ignorance in fact amusing. As per usual the meat in this house is to be served with the usual mushy grey beans that were once a healthy bright green tossed in dollops of butter. This is also alongside boiled to an inch of their life then roasted vegetables also swimming in fat !! *giggle* Henk sliced his portion of lamb seeing that is was of course exceptionally overcooked, he proclaimed that every other time he has cooked it perfectly. Mind you Pien had just finished telling us this was the second time they had this cut and they did not know what to do with it. I had explained a nice Greek salad or a pita wrap or a lean souvlaki. *giggle* If he had in fact listened to his own son it would have still been very overdone but not so dry that it was barely edible. It is sad that he ignores the advice of his own son, sadder than he finds amusement in that ignorance too. But as we know now as Henk has said many times, “When you are 70″…. yep you will ignore everyone and everything and you will know all and you are better than and greater than and ……………yep we heard it all. Hahahaha, we don’t think so!!! Dessert is fruit salad, yet again this is quickly served after the main meal, well before the tummy has even settled. Like I said gobble gobble shovel shovel, gobble snort……. It’s the same routine EVERY time, we say wait, Pien shoves it in your face! It’s because SHE wants you to eat NOW and cannot comprehend that other people eat at differing paces. So as per the norm beautiful fresh pieces of fruit are smeared with great big lashings of cream, of which because 100% of the time we know the cream has been sitting out for hours we do not eat. We both have suffered enough stomach upsets at their hands than to put our hands on a hot fire again! The above is the norm, the way they normally eat and they way that Bill knows them to eat, after all he has known them all his life!! The above is used as it was a recent example but not unlike the norm it’s probably the best example as it is fresh in our minds…
Bill was telling me how when he was young he has a lot of stomach pains. He would be utterly doubled over in excruciating pain, he was experiencing some of the worst constipation and he had gone to so many doctors and specialists and they just could not find a thing wrong. You see what we have found so fascinating is I too and my sisters had similar problems, I too was in hospital for stomach pains and constipation!! We were talking one day and we compared notes on what each our parents cooked….. Pien would get a chicken out of the freezer and plunge it in hot water to defrost, my mother would do the same thing. They both would leave that same chicken out for hours before cooking it in fact this festering lump would be out all day to “defrost”. This alone is a wonder that they each did not kill us with salmonella!! Both parents cooked the utter life out of any vegetable that they prepared, cauliflower in my house was almost grey and as well as mushy, in Bills house is was cooked as a whole piece and had a white sauce smeared on the top. Beans were always grey and so was broccoli, they each cooked to the point that there was nothing nutritionally valuable in them. Seriously a take-away dinner would have held more nutrition. Bill has said of his two most hated vegetables as a child. One was spinach, Pien would buy the frozen stuff, for the life of us both we do not understand why the frozen stuff was bought when there is an abundance of exceptionally good quality fresh stuff available. In fact in those days it was strange for anyone to buy processed vegetables as fresh was so readily available. It would have been more expensive to buy the processed rubbish than fresh ingredients !! Bill explained how it would begin with this bright green frozen lump of spinach and plunged into boiling water and boil and boil and boil and boil it then drain and slop onto a plate. What was one green now resembles a grey slimy lump that has as no nutrition at all left, well unless you count the box which might have substantially more!! I know the product and cannot understand why one would boil the life out of it as it is clearly written on the box that it is cooked, you only really need to warm it up. This product is actually good to make spinach and ricotta parcels but you just defrost and drain, there is utterly no need to cook it. It can also be used in Cobb loaf dip recipes where yet again it is just defrosted and drained of excess water and mixed. It is in fact a great product and is packed full goodness and it is very much close to its fresh counterpart. Well as long as the life had not been cooked out of it!!
Wiki Answers says; Overcooking vegetables will most likely burn them, which will not taste very good. Also, too much heat will dry the vegetables out and make them undesirable to eat to most people. Read any packaging available to see the preferred way of cooking. Over cooking vegetables break down many of the vitamins and other good things in the vegetables, so they lose much of their nutritional value. Boiling them will also leech many of the vitamins and minerals out of the vegetables and leave them in the water. In fact only looking very quickly at various articles on how best to cook vegetables you will find that boiling vegetables is the worst way to cook them. Boiling them robs them of all essential vitamins and minerals, a fact most of us will remember learning in primary school, most of us should remember the healthy diet pyramid!! It’s interesting that so many people cook the life out of food, its sad when Henk serves expensive lamb cutlets that have been destroyed, once plump and juicy become flat and crisp, not only do they get cooked to extra extra well done but twice extra extra well done! They only need a couple of minutes on each side and they most certainly do not need added fat too cook them especially in a non stick pan!!! It’s funny when he says he does not know what’s wrong and every time we say the same, “you have overcooked them” so as always he ignores that advice an cooks them longer next time. What a waste of good, expensive food!! Bill also told me all about the “pressure cooker” the pot that would begin in the morning with beautiful colourful vegetables and wonderful chicken pieces. It would boil and boil and boiled and boil for 8 – 10 hours and then the what can only be described as swill would be served as the end result. He would know when it was “swill day” just by walking in the house and smelling it. Not one bit of nutrition was left in this meal at all nor was there any life or colour to it either!! Reminded me of stew day at my place or aptly named “spew day” I do not know nor do I want to know what method what used, what I do know is I and my sister knew that it was “spew day” well before we got to the front door it smelled so bad. It was a congealed mess of potatoes, carrots and fatty meat chunks that had also been cooked for hours and hours and hours. Yet again a meal where all the life had been cooked out of it!! This is where we understand why we both had the problems in the fibre department, we just were not getting any!! Anything that did have any in it was cooked out of it or so heavily processed it no longer had anything in it. I guess we now understand that what we ate as children was not that good for us, it was more than likely a big contributer to why we had the tummy pains that we did. We were just not getting the amount of fibre that out bodies needed. In saying as adults looking around us I think that all too often today too many convenience foods. Heat an eat of add water and so on. I think that my “spew day” dinner was probably better for me than a McDonalds fry up of a KFC binge! Bill and I were amazed to watch a visibly overweight child ordering a large upsized meal at McDonalds with an extra sundae and thick shake on the side! YIKES! The burger alone is more than what any person should be eating for and entire meal let alone part of it and more especially a young child. In fact looking at the nutritional information sheet that you can feely download from the McDonalds site the meal that we watched this child wolf down in minutes was over 2000 calories! Vital health Zone says that a boy 7-10 years old should have about 1970 Calories per day and a boy 11-14 years 2220, so basically this child ate almost if not over an entire days worth of food in one sitting! I hope that there is something in his life that helps him understand that these habits are not healthy before he becomes an overweight adult and things become even more difficult. What was sadder was the younger child was eating a Happy Meal with coke and fries and an extra sundae on the side.
