Final book review

I will talk about the book I chose, which is "My Vegetarian Diet Genie."

What I liked best about the book: was that the English the author use in this book is fairly easy to be read and understood. Besides, the contents are well organized so that helped me understand as well.
Some of the book's flaws: when it explains the benefits of being vegetarian or when it tells about the specific ingredients, like vitamins, same terms were used too often. Thus, it was a bit tiring to read  that part. Maybe it can't be helped because there are no synonyms for those terminologies.

Having read the book, I have actually gotten some kind of knowledge about vegetarianism in the end.

I think the part the book suggests how vegetarians could shop at a supermarket and prepare meals for children was quite interesting. Basically, you should try to complete grains, leafy vegetables, beans, and nuts.

You could cover calcium, vitamin B12, iron, and protein, so you should not worry about those nutritions.

Then the profits from being vegetarians are that you would be at low risk for cardiovascular diseases (because of low cholesterol diet), hypertension, diabetes (because of complex carbohydrates, and low in fat), cancer (because of low rate in fat, high in fibre, and betacarotene).

At the end of the book, it says that do not be afraid of new things.  

So, I might as well try to apply the knowledge that I have gotten from the book to my daily life!!

Quality Assurance Evaluation

Today's blog is about restaurant evaluation!

I've been to a restaurant called Mame-cha in shibuya with three of my other pals tonight, so I'll introduce the restaurant and how I evaluated it. 

Actually, we were planning to go to another vegetarian restaurant in Shibuya, however, we couldn't find the place itself! Then, found a nice looking restaurant but not too posh around there. As I mentioned before, I am still piscatorian, so we decided to go in there.

Firstly, I need to be honest we were pretty excited about the whole restaurant evaluation thing and bright-eyed even before reaching the entrance at the restaurant. So, we might have been a bit noisy. But the staff was waiting for us smiling, and the first impression that the staff gave us at the welcoming was very good. Smiling, being polite, but not too much.

Since this restaurant takes a Japanese style, we were required to take off our shoes. Maybe because of that, floors were pretty clean and hygienic.

As we were asked if we have decided what we want to order by a staff (she was a different staff from the one at the entrance), I asked if they have a proper meal menu for individuals rather than dishes for sharing because we were very hungry by that time. Then, surprisingly, she brought us another menu for a course like the picture below.

The menu itself looks very simple with only 3 courses, however, the actual dishes looked amazing like below.

I ordered the piscine course for myself and it looked like this.

Don't they look delicious?! And yes! they WERE delicious!

The grilled cod was very well flavored with Miso and went really well with the white rice! Of course other dishes were also remarkably brilliant!

After we finished eating, the staff came to our table to serve some more hot tea several times, which was for free! That made me relieved because it meant they didn't want us leave as soon as we finished the meals. So we were able to be very relaxed, in fact, we stayed there for two and a half hours even though we planned for only one and a half ish hours.

Just before we left the restaurant, we all went toilet. The cleanliness was okay. There weren't any dreadful dirtiness standing out, but it wasn't that clean either. In fact, if I wasn't mistaken, it smelled like pea a little in the restroom. But, it was okay.

As for price, we paid ¥1,800+tax per person, which is absolutely not bad for that kind of quality at all!

Thus, after all, we were all very happy that they have the quality food, staff, cleanliness, ambient, yet not got smugness. And we all said we would definitely come this restaurant again personally or as the same group some day in the near future.

I have put my evaluation sheet below, in case anyone wants to see it.

Cheers!

The Wall Street Journal

Hi!

Reading news paper is not really my cup of tea since it takes long time for me to read...

Anyway, I've chosen 3 articles that have some kind of connections to foods from the newspaper on Nov 26. 2015.

1.  For Pets, It's Fat Thursday With Pies, Dressing Under the Table (A7)

Pets get special treatments on Thanksgiving holidays under the table. But, that makes them fat and it's getting a serious problem. More than half of all dogs and cats are almost obese, but not always the owners realize it.

As human gives their meals to their pets on the special occasions, the pets kind of tend to get addicted to it and it's difficult for them to get back to the normal pet's foods.

There's a funny part in this article.

Even one of the owners of fat pet tried to lose his cat, apparently, "The only thing he ever not eaten was diet cat food."

So, whoever keeps pets in their house need to be careful with the weight of the pets.


2. Thankful for Private Property (A10)

Thanksgiving day has its roots back in 1620 when the first Pilgrim immigrants arrived from England.

Since then, they had to find a way to survive by themselves and that was a huge problem, but it got solved in 1623 thanks to the native Americans who share their foods and knowledge of cultivation to the Pilgrims.

Having read this article, maybe Thanksgiving holiday isn't just one of the boisterous holidays but the day we have to think about sharing needs.

3. A Roy Rogers Thanksgiving Lesson (A11)

This article is also about immigration to America. 

When the author's grandfather came in the United States and first saw hamburger restaurant in 1980s, he thought it was a sign of great bounty. Also, "He commented that if the Soviet people, who often must wait in line for goods saw U.S. supermarkets, 'there would be a revolution.'"

Basically, America has been "a country that other people are literally dying to reach." 

However, this prosperity of foods couldn't have happened without accepting immigrants and foreigners, or sharing foods, like their ancestor did.

So, maybe it is important for us to be reminded of the importance of sharing foods to break the ice.

For Blog assignment...Food for All & Second Harvest Japan

Common & different features

The two organizations both try to help people who are in difficult circumstances in their society such as homeless people or socially excluded people. Also, they both are funded.

But the difference is that FFA aims to train those people so that they can help themselves with the skills they learn, while SHJ tries to help them by distributing foods.

What are the main activities or events that these groups carry out?

FFA held events in London, Bristol and West Wales, where the members and trainee serve the meals together.
SHJ also serve the meals at a park helping each other, and distributes foods that are supposed to be disposed of yet still edible.

From what you saw on their web sites, what surprised or interested you the most?

The idea of training them to enable the socially excluded people to service by themselves with skills. That way, I felt the organization really care about those people and that leads to a better society.

If someone wants something, it is easier to just give them straight than teach them how to get it by themselves. Because such efforts required, trainers cannot do careless work. I really think this is a great idea to commit this kind of support.

How would you be able to offer help to either organisation -- as a volunteer or supporter?

I have personally been thinking of participating in a volunteer event. It is because volunteer can see what is actually going on at the site, so I would like to be a volunteer.

Which group seems to be more active? Why do you think so?

FFA seems more active since they have the food serving event Monday – Saturday.

Hi guys,

for today's blog, let me introduce a chapter from the book I chose.

It's about the types of vegetarians.

This chapter told me that there are 4 different options that you can take as a vegetarian.

1.  Strict Vegetarian/ Vegan

They are the ones who do not have any kinds of animal products whatsoever. This could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and being obesity, however, you need to be careful with lack of vitamin B12 especially if you're pregnant. It is because otherwise you might become anemic during pregnancy. You could avoid that by taking supplements.

2. Lacto Vegetarian

This type of people have milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, but not eggs. This is popular in India because of Hinduism. Hindu think that they could be affected by what they eat and this style is apparently suitable for them. This is also good for those who want to control their level of cholesterol. But, again, you should take vitamin B12 supplements.

3. Lacto Ovovegetarian

They eat dairy products and eggs but not meat. This could lower the rick for cancer. This is the more common style in Western culture. You do not have to search exclusive vegetarian restaurant because most of the mainstream restaurant have vegetarian menu, which implies this style most of the time.

4. Flexitarian

The name itself includes "Flexible" in it, so as you can guess, they occasionally eat meat. Some people argue that they should not be included in vegetarians category because of the consumption of meat. However, it might be a good way to become a vegetarian gradually rather than suddenly cut the consumption of meat and feel frustrated. Also, the benefit they get is that they can get essential protein and that leads to less vitamins & minerals supplements.


After reading this chapter, I found that there are 4 types for vegetarians. However, I guessed there were more if all the types that had been omitted out of the list here.


Where do you guys think belong for yourself? or which one do you want to try?

Hi guys,
I just took the food culture quiz here, and my score was terrible ;P

I only got 36% correct. It was very difficult!
Surprisingly, the average score of their readers is 70%!!!! Unbelievable!


For example,

Which is not technically a berry?


・Banana
・Strawberry
・Blueberry
・Watermelon







The answer is...

STRAWBERRY!!!

The person who made this quiz did not want us to answer correctly but wanted to trick us quite obviously. 

However, thanks to the creator, I actually have learnt some new stuff from the quiz, like parsley is a type of root vegetables!

Click the link above and take a shot if you are interested in :)

Sorry for the delayed post.

The story is that the book I have chosen was taken by somebody at the library ;(

So I could not read the book last week, but I put the video that I wanted to share with you last week below just in case anyone wants to watch. I chose it only because it seemed interesting, not because I agreed with everything in the video.

Caution! This video contains strong language and religious topics.

Anyway, since I haven't got the access to the book at the moment and am not really sure whether I will have it regularly in the future, I've chosen another book.

The name of the new book is "My Vegetarian Diet Genie" written by Darby Vitale and published by Cooking Connection in January 21st, 2015. It has 173 pages.

This book tells us from vegetarianism in religion, how is being vegetarian for your health, to how to shop at a supermarket. 

Having read the beginning of the book, it did not contain very difficult explanations, yet it seemed very interesting. So, I am looking forward to getting some knowledge about vegetarianism!