Healthy Living in Singapore

Drink Your Vegetables Today: Quick and Nutritious Breakfast- Maroyaka Kale Powder Green Smoothie

If you missed out on my previous post introducing the Maroyaka Kale powder that is available for the first time in Singapore, click here to find out more about it!

As a quick recap- Kale is one of the healthiest vegetables you can find. It is high in calcium and contains beta-carotene. It’s totally powerpacked with vitamin B6, vitamin C, calcium, potassium, magnesium and chlorophyll. However, Kale is REALLY REALLY hard to find in Singapore and SUPER expensive. They also don’t last long enough. Besides, who in the world has any time in the morning to pluck kale leaves?

Enter Maroyaka Kale powder to help all you busy people who don’t get enough nutrition and eat outside all day, errrrr day. Cheap vegetables not coated in salt and oil are virtually impossible to find in Singapore and now there is a fuss free way to drink all the veggie nutrients you need for the day! I’m also thinking this is a great way to sneak in nutrition for people who hate veggies. I’m planning to use them in baked goods soon and fool some people. Superfood kale cupcakes, anyone? 😉

Anyway, say hi to Squishy-san! He is my penguin and he.. doesn’t look too thrilled about the Maroyaka Kale. Meh, he says. Where is the fish? Want FISH, not veggies!

And this is Enoki-san. He is absolutely thrilled to find out what is inside the box!

*sniff*

I SMELL VEGGIES! *excited!*

The Kale powder is really the most convenient thing ever. They are packed individually into 30 sachets and you can bring them anywhere and pour it over your yoghurt, ice cream (instant nutritious ice cream, hey?) or even drink it straight with cold water.

*nomnomnom*

Here are the ingredients for a very basic nutritious green smoothie. 2 tablespoons chia seeds, 1 banana, 1 handful of spinach, 1 sachet of Maroyaka Kale Powder. LITERALLY a 2 minute breakfast. You can’t get any faster or more nutritious than this!

Put everything into a blender cup. I highly recommend the shimono blender.
(check my FAQs on purchase information)

*excited!*

*looks so yummy and green and deliciousssssss*

*sniff* Can’t wait to blend it all up! 🙂

And there it is blending away! Blend on high for 45 sec or till smooth.

“did you put any fish inside?”

And there you have it! My breakfast! One banana-chia-kale green smoothie topped with silvered almonds served with papaya wedges and a juicy sweet plum!

I guarantee you, with a breakfast like that, the world looks brighter, the people seem nicer and all around there are rainbows and unicorns. You will also have SO much energy and feel so happy and bright! It’s amazing what nutrition can do for you! Don’t start your day with blah food! Start it with the rainbow nature has to offer!

 
Stamp of approval from my herbivore friend! Haha. If you are like Squishy- san and carnivorous by nature… well, JUST TRY OKAY. Better to drink your vegetables in a gulp if you hate them than tortuously chew through them at every meal! Haha. As always, my honest, honest opinion is that no boxed product can EVER beat the real thing. You should never, ever based your health and nutritional needs on a single packaged item. However, this is the best/ most convenient/ fastest way I can think of for busy people who eat out often and don’t have time to think about nutrition to get some form of nutrition! At least get in some of your nutrition in the morning and you don’t have to worry much about it the rest of the day!
With mother’s day round the corner, I would think this would make a lovely gift as well for your mothers! Don’t buy her yet another massage chair or a box of chocolate! Give her the gift of health! My mom hates the real kale but this, blended with frozen bananas and peanut butter, she loves! It’s great for people not yet ready to graduate to the real thing (your vegetable-hating children!) or just beginning to eat healthy!
Maroyaka Kale now retails at selected Guardian Pharmacy outlets. Go get superfood-ed up today! 🙂
 

Okay, so I couldn’t resist ending off this post with a picture of my rabbit dust mitten! $2 from daiso! I love it! Haha. BYE EVERYONE! Remember that it doesn’t matter how big or small your body is. It is just a tool for you to use and love those around you so treat it well and get to loving all those around you already!
With much love, 
grace with a green smoothie mustache 😉

Launch of Maroyaka Kale in Singapore by Yakult Health Foods

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Hola! I’m back from hell week (hehheh, 18+ h work days and too little of my beauty sleep 🙁 ) but by the time you are reading this I’ll probably be off to KL to eatandEatandEAT with people I love so NO PROBLEM- Hell week was WORTH IT 😉

Anyway, today I want to share with you something I’m REALLY EXCITED ABOUT!!!!

KALE POWDER!! FINALLY! Somebody decided to turn my dreams into reality!

If you have been following me on instagram, you would know that I  ‘m a little crazy over  like kale!

I mean, what’s not to love? If you have never heard of kale, it’s achieved superfood status with it’s high antioxidant content! It’s primary nutrients include vitamin B6 (healthy brain function),  (fight infections), calcium (bone health), potassium (water balance and muscular strength), magnesium (mood and appetite regulator) and chlorophyll (detoxifier) etc.

I LOVE IT because other than broccoli (BIG LOVE!) no other vegetable has the ability to fill me up enough to curb the binge eating tendencies I used to have when I was battling my Binge Eating Disorder and Emotional Eating (answers to all your queries on this next time).  It’s PACKED full with nutrients but .. virtually impossible to get in Singapore. *sianfaceemoji.

There was a period of time I was so obsessed with it that my instagram used to be filled with kale updates telling people where to find kale and how much it’s retailing for in Singapore!

Cold storage does sell organic Kale from Zenxin Organic but I dislike it because although it’s ‘pesticide free’ and ‘organic’ there is this strange waxy taste when I blend it in my smoothies and I really don’t like that.

Also…

SIX DOLLARS for 3 stems. Please KILL ME NOW.

Then one day I struck gold and found it at The Organic Grocer at Pasarbella. A whole bunch for $10.99. I must have given it very good business after advertising to the whole world about them because a couple of weeks after I instagrammed it, prices went up by TWO DOLLARS! >:(

(I know I sound like an auntie talking about vegetable prices but vegetable prices are important to me okay, haha)

I was delighted with the bunch of course. But when you are the only grass eater   one who likes kale  in the family, a huge bunch is hard to finish by yourself. While I usually freeze my kale leaves for blending, thereby prolonging it’s ‘lifespan’, I like to eat it other ways as well such as as kale chips (if you have never tried, you MUST. SO CRISPY AND GOOD. It tastes like tao kae noi seaweed). And since it’s such a big bunch, it often turns yellow before I can get to it 🙁

So imagine my pure delight when I received the email to attend the debut launch of Kale powder in Singapore! If you can recall my post on my recent trip to Tokyo, you would notice that this is the VERY SAME product I saw on the pharmacy shelf in Tokyo and contemplated buying but didn’t because I was very suspicious of it’s contents and since my command of the Japanese language is limited to ‘thank you’ and ‘where is the toilet’, I couldn’t read the ingredient label well enough to tell if there were a million nasty additives in the box.
So THANK YOU for this invitation. The event was a blast. Maroyaka Kale is brought in by Abeille d’or Singapore in collaboration with Yakult Health Foods Japan. 

I never knew they had so many other health products as well. Apparently they’ve been selling this in Japan for 20+ years already!

Say hi to Jael, my JC classmate and PW leader who dictated that PW sessions should be filled with lots of chips and movie watching. Haha.

Attended by the heads of the respective companies themselves!

It’s so beautifully green!!

Look at that giant kale leaf! Wouldn’t it be awesome to wake up in the morning and walk into your garden and pluck that out for your morning smoothie?! I didn’t even know kale could grow till that big. AHHHH. I want to live on a farm!

The entire video was about the company’s dedication to health. No weight loss was mentioned at all. I LIKE. ‘Health products’ need to stop being so size obsessed and focus on health instead.

Hehhehhheh. They had a Q&A session for media personnel after and of course, I had to grill them on what was in the box. Additives? Preservatives? Sugar?

That’s the President and CEO of Yakult Health Foods Japan, Mr Hideaki Maruyama himself assuring me that there’s absolutely no sugar/ anything nasty added.

I also learnt that the kale is grown in special soil by contract farmers in the Kunisaki Peninsula in Oita Prefecture without the aid of agrochemicals, chemical fertilisers or pesticides. They actually remove the pests BY HAND. (T.T Japan, why are you so dedicated in whatever you do? T.T ) The leaves are harvested in the morning and transferred to the nearby Yakult Health Foods factory to be squeezed on the same day for freshness.

I’m holding the kale powder on the left and watashi no ajiru “my green juice” made from premium barley leaves on the right. I was gifted the kale powder but I actually bought back the barley one from Japan so I’ll do a review on that when I get the chance to try it! 🙂

And that concludes the event! It was a delight to see the little kids playing with the confetti 🙂 To check out my review of the Maroyaka Kale Powder and recommendations on how to use it for a totally nutritious and fuss free breakfast, click here!