Despite the different personalities, we at MyFatPocket have one significant thing in common, and YES that is our creativity! In fact, we are astounded at how active our creative juices are, that each day we spin up different excuses just to exclude vegetables from our lunch boxes. See if you can out beat us!
Our Top Excuses
This month, we have no choice but to force our creative juices dry, due to some of these nasty issues related to our low vegetable intake.
Bloating
We don’t know about you, but we do know that this is indeed a recurring issue that haunts our beloved Digital Marketing Executive. It turns out, vitamin B1 (richly found in asparagus & spinach) helps to produce hydrochloric acid (HCL) essential for proper digestion. Thus, without sufficient Vitamin B1, the body not only does not have enough HCL to convert pepsinogen to pepsin for protein breakdown, it also creates insufficient enzymes and bile to support digestion of carbohydrates and fats. And yes, all these spell the beginning of “never ending” bloating for our poor colleague.
Credit: Everyday Health
Difficulty Seeing in the Dark
Truthfully, we only realised the real significance of Vitamin A, when our junior web developer shared about her night blindness over our usual coffee talk.
To see the full spectrum of light, our eyes need to produce certain pigments for the cones & rods in our retina to function properly. One of these pigments which is responsible for vision in the dim, is rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is formed from Vitamin A cis retinal, and opsin. Thus, inadequate intake of Vitamin A may interfere with the production of rhodopsin, leading to night blindness.
Credit: Ezyhealth
Before we forget, our body converts beta-carotene into Vitamin A, thus it is important that we also load up on our intake of yellow & orange coloured vegetables to maintain good eye vision.
Frequent Muscle Spasm
This is an issue that I particularly dislike, because when the spasm strikes, it really does strike me hard. Much to my dismay, these spasms are actually due to my inadequate intake of magnesium from the dark leafy vegetables.
Credit: Metal Floss
Both calcium and magnesium work together to control muscle contraction by interacting with actin and myosin. The actin and myosin rely on calcium to shorten and contract our muscles, while relying on magnesium to relax after the contraction. If there is insufficient magnesium to balance out the calcium, our muscles cannot relax, and spasm occurs.
Dry Skin
Dry skin is not uncommon among Singaporeans, however, for the femmes in our office, our condition seem to be aggravated by our low vegetable intake.
Turns out, as we age, the protective barrier in our skin (which prevents moisture loss) breaks down, and this means the skin loses its moisture and become dry. Fortunately, we learn that we can save our skin, by including Vitamin E rich vegetables in our diet. Here, the vitamin enhances the penetration and resorption of skin lipids. Taken together, this means Vitamin E provides a complex regulatory mechanism for restoring and maintain the skin barrier function, and keeping it supple.
Credit: Fashionexprez
The Discovery of Unif Nutrix Mix Veggie Juices
Thankfully, our team discovered the Unif 100% Mixed Veggie & Fruit Juice series just before planning our 2017 resolutions.
The juices contain several important nutrients, including Vitamin A, B, C and E. We were glad to learn that, the concoction is made with 100% natural ingredients, without any added sugar, preservative and fats. The wonderful thing is, with 4 tasty flavours, each targeting at different health aspects, you will definitely find one to satisfy your taste preference and keep your woes at bay.
Top Picks: 100 % Mixed Vegetable & Fruit Juice with Mixed Berry
This flavour which happens to be a new addition to the juice series, is a personal favourite of our junior web developer. She particularly loves the fact that it contains an interesting mixture of beta-carotene and Vitamin A rich vegetables (carrot, celery, beet, purple carrot) and fruits that can benefit her eyesight. As quoted by her, this juice is a simple way to bring her a step closer to fulfilling her daily vegetable intake, and just one packet provides her with 50% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A she needs.
Top Picks: 100 % Mixed Vegetable & Fruit Juice with Green Vegetable
This flavour is a hot favourite among the cooking noobs in our team. With the concoction of 7 different kinds of greens (spinach, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, celery, and Chinese cabbage), their "vegetable consumption" experience instantly becomes fascinating, and not even the chap cai peng uncle can dull it. And finally, they found something that eliminates the need of figuring out how to burn down the kitchen make a decent salad.
For those harassed by muscle spasms (like me), why not tap on the magnesium in this juice to combat the nasty attacks?
Top Picks: 100 % Mixed Vegetable & Fruit Juice with Pomegranate
Honestly, our taste buds didn't know vegetables can taste this good prior to trying this juice. This flavour got many of us excited (especially the vain pots), for it not only packs a healthy dose of antioxidants Vitamin A, C, E which helps in combating the harmful effects of free radicals on the skin, but also we can finally bid goodbye to worrying about bits of greens getting stuck in between our teeth (and ruining our Friday dates).
All we could say is the Unif 100% Mixed Veggie & Fruit Juice Series is a perfect New Year gift for us that not only ends all our “no vegetables” excuses, but also alleviate our woes. Fulfil your vegetable needs with Unif like us too.