1: Record EVERYTHING!

The problem with visiting the doctor just once per year is that you’ll only catch the state of your health at one point in time. It’s far more useful to have regular information on your body metrics, so you can observe fluctuations and any changes that might indicate you’re moving toward a disease state. Even keeping track of simple things like your weight, temperature, and appetite can be helpful in alerting you to impending or underlying illness.

Since many health care providers don’t communicate effectively with one another, you are also your own best data repository. Keep all of your health records in digital form and in a place where you or a trusted family member/friend can easily access them. Informing a doctor of which medications you are taking, medication allergies, and your medical history could be the difference between life and death in an emergency situation.

2. Be bossy with your doctor

You should always be nice to your doctor for obvious reasons, but don’t be afraid to be your own health advocate. A good way to start is to request a baseline blood test including measures like fasting lipid profile, C-reactive protein, comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP), complete blood cell count (CBC), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and hemoglobin A1C that will give you a better understanding of your current health state. Do you have high cholesterol, abnormal levels of inflammation, or nutrient deficiencies? These are all risk factors that can alert you that it’s time to become more proactive in managing your health. Every time you visit the doctor, make sure to request your records from the visit to add to your personal health archives.

3. Stop taking your vitamins

As someone with a giant bottle of Vitamin D and multivitamins at home, this one came as a bit of a shock.  The basic message here is that the body is a complex system, and hitting it with one concentrated vitamin may not be the most effective way to get your nutrition. First of all, the vitamins found in supplements may not be easily absorbed by the body relative to those in natural foods, so at best may be ineffective. Second, anyone living in a developed country (read, almost everyone in the US and certainly urban Chinese) will get more than enough nutrition from their food. Third, some vitamins have even been associated with an increased risk of cancer. WHAT?! Yup, especially vitamins that are touted as antioxidants. When the body needs to fight cancer, the immune system uses oxidation as a way of killing cancer cells, and too many artificially concentrated antioxidants in your system may block this process.

Of course, those with clear nutrient deficiencies can benefit from taking multivitamins to get back to baseline (relevant for some on vegetarian and vegan diets or pregnant women), but the optimal method is still through a diet rich in whole foods, not through pills and extracts.

4. Eat real food

This is just an echo of Michael Pollan’s “eat real foods, not too much, mostly plants”, but it is SO TRUE. It’s amazing that it requires a recommendation from a famous scientist to get our attention, but take a look at your own diet and you might be surprised by the ratio of processed to natural foods in there. The science is so numerous on the health benefits of including whole fresh fruits and vegetables, or “eating the rainbow” everyday that I’ll leave that for another post. But suffice it to say that eating this way will decrease your risk of disease in the long run.

This rule also applies to some “health” foods. Consider fresh juices for example, is it natural for the body to eat 10 carrots, 5 apples, or 8 mangos all at once? If your answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t be drinking juice on a regular basis. What’s more, when you separate the juice from a fruit, especially through blending, you immediately oxidize much of the nutrients in there and lose some of the health benefits. You also remove the fiber so the sugar in the fruit hits your blood stream all at once, causing a spike in blood glucose levels (Read: BAD for those at risk for or who have diabetes). Fortified foods can also loose nutrients over time if they sit on the shelf too long, so it’s probably not a good idea to rely on that fortified breakfast cereal to get your daily vitamins and minerals.

There is some good news, a glass of red wine everyday is good for you!

5. Wash your hands and get a flu vaccine 

Inflammation is a natural part of the body’s response to warding off foreign invaders and healing after injury, but when chronic it can turn deadly. Chronic inflammation is linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and accelerated aging, and it only takes 2 weeks of a bad cold to trigger an “inflammatory storm” that can lead to increased lifetime risk of these diseases!

Luckily, reducing our inflammatory load can be as simple as washing our hands regularly to avoid catching colds. I used to think this was over-hyped, having lived in China for several years I fancy myself an immune-warrier after having gotten sick so many times. However, I think I’ll take more care to avoid that sneezing person on the subway next time. You can also reduce your inflammation by avoiding sports and activities that might lead to repeat injury trauma (a.k.a. football), taking statins (for older people if a doctor thinks appropriate), and taking an annual influenza vaccine. For those with cardiovascular conditions, the influenza vaccine alone can reduce the risk of death from any illness!

6. Take your next meeting on a walk

A 2009 study in Britain of over over 40,000 men and women showed that the most common cause of death was not hypertension, smoking, or even diabetes and obesity, but rather a “low CRF”, which basically is a measure for being out of shape.  For those of us stuck in an office all day, this is especially relevant, as we tend to underestimate the level of physical activity we get. One easy strategy to get more fitness in your life is simply just taking your next meeting on a walk. Getting to the American Heart Association’s 10,000 steps per day walking (about 5 miles) has been demonstrated to lower your risk factors for disease. If you walk one step per second you could reach this goal in about two and half hours. In just two meetings then, you can make huge improvements both for your own and business contacts’/colleagues’ health.

As additional motivation, a study of older adults showed that strength training helped  muscle cells get back to previous youthful states, meaning exercise may even help reverse aging!

7. Get a standing desk

As someone who exercises religiously each morning, I was slightly dismayed to learn that even vigorous daily routines don’t matter if you sit all day at work, which can be just as dangerous as smoking. People who sit for more than four hours have twice a high a risk of dying, being hospitalized for heart disease, and having high levels of C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) than people who spend fewer than two. Woman are more at risk than men.

An easy solution is to buy a standing desk. Not only does this lower your risk, but you also burn several hundred additional calories per day. As a bonus you can look as cool as this lady on Taobao:

Standing desks, sexy for your health

8. Stick to a schedule

The body loves to be on a schedule, both for sleeping, eating, napping, and exercise. Missing your normal noon lunch and the body jumps to conclusions, releasing the “fight or flight” hormone cortisol because it thinks you’re now starving, and need the additional burst of energy to find food. The same goes for too little sleep and erratic napping. The body is constantly fighting hard to maintain a state of balance, or homeostasis, and every inconsistency in your daily schedule causes stress, which is pro-inflammatory. I’ll never forget my mom’s advice to me on children, which is that the easiest way to keep kids happy is put them on a strict schedule and never deviate. From a young age, our bodies respond best to stability and predictability.

9. Sleep more

Along with exercise, sleep is a miracle drug for the human body. Just to list a few of the benefits:

“Sleep can dictate how much we eat, how fast our metabolisms run, how fat or thin we get, whether we can fight off infections, how creative and insightful we can be, how well we can cope with stress, how quickly we can process information and learn new things, and how well we can organize and store memories.”

Sleep is also a critical time when our bodies release growth hormone, which helps renew and regenerate our cells. On the flip side, people whose jobs lead to erratic sleep schedules may have higher risks for certain cancers.  Sleep is not just a luxury, it’s essential for our well-being! For those struggling with weight issues, sleep can also be a huge factor. Getting too little sleep will throw off our balance of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, and can actually increase our appetite during the day. Too little sleep has also been linked to obesity.

Note that the key to sleep is regularity and quality rather than absolute amounts. Trying to make up for a crazy week on the weekends can actually disrupt our circadian rhythms. Some people need more sleep than others, just make sure that you wake up feeling rested each day.

10. Skip the medicine

When we get sick we tend to want to take medicine to give ourselves assurance that we will get  better, whether or not our body actually requires external aid to heal. A classic example is the overprescription of antibiotics and even IV’s for colds in China. Even patients told they have a viral rather than bacterial infection will often demand that the doctor 开药 (write a prescription). This is not to say that you should avoid medicine altogether, but we live in an over-perscribing century where doctors in some places have financial incentives to dispense drugs to patients. The next time you feel under the weather, it might be helpful to take a close look first at your stress levels, exercise, sleep habits, schedule, and diet.  If all of these were optimal would you still be feeling crummy? Consider too that almost no medicine is without side effects. Those same anti-biotics might kill off the friendly intestinal flora that help you digest nutrients and lower your risk for certain types of cancers.

2013 New Years Resolutions

The suggestions in this book are not revolutionary or technically complicated. On the contrary it sounds a lot like the advice my grandmother would give if asked to summarize her health beliefs. However, when I evaluated my lifestyle, it was apparent that in the sleep and sitting categories especially, with a little effort I could make huge improvements to my overall health.

In the words of the author: ”Without your health, you have nothing, but when you do have good health, pretty much anything is possible.” If you are making some New Years Resolutions right now, these would be great ones to include to get healthy this year!

Step 1: Cut the pomegranate in half along the “equator”, so that flowering end is left intact. Don’t cut the flowering part in half! It sometimes contains bugs and pollen that will fall into your bowl if you do. You can put some tape over it to make sure nothing unpleasant gets shaken out. Note, in the video he just scores the outer edge and then twists to open so he doesn’t cut through any of the seeds, but if you feeling lazy you can just cut directly in half.

Step 2: Turning the pomegranate at a 45 degree angel in your hand and holding the bottom over a bowl, slap around the edges with the paddle (aka spatula) using brisk strokes.

Bad pomegranate!

Step 3: Dig out remaining pomegranate seeds that haven’t yet been dislodged, and eat!

I always wondered how they made pomegranate juice when pomegranate seed extraction seemed so slow and labor intensive.  At first I was picturing thousands of automated paddles on an assembly line in a juice factory, but according to Pom (CA pomegranate juice brand) it is not quite that exciting (their “from tree to factory” video here).

]]> http://www.suluku.com/pomegranate-magic/feed/ 0 http://www.suluku.com/gluten-free-treats-in-beijing/ http://www.suluku.com/gluten-free-treats-in-beijing/#comments Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:10:53 +0000 admin http://www.suluku.com/?p=1655 As a relatively gluten-sensitive person (a.k.a no bueno for my digestive track) I’m constantly on the look out for non-glutenous treats in Beijing.  Below are some of my favs. Not all necessarily “healthy”, but good for a bit of indulgence

Traditional Treat (Tsinghua University)

I can’t remember this restaurant name, but it’s right inside the Tsinghua campus near 双清路. I marked it here on Baidu. This dessert is basically roasted steaming hot sweet potato topped with coconut milk and crushed peanuts. So simple, yet so delicious, also extremely healthy as as far as desserts go. They might sneak some croutons on the plate for garnish so just remember to ask to leave it off.

Mrs. Shanen\’s Gluten Free Bread (Shunyi)

Made of sorghum flour with a chewy texture and slightly tangy taste, a great substitute for regular bread.  Note that it does contain milk. Call two days in advance to order (8046-4301).

Sweet Spot (Guomao, China World)

This is one of the first cake shops I’ve seen in China with dedicated gluten-free options.  This one also happens to be sugar free, although not sure what kind of substitute they used.  Also contains dairy. Look for the label that says 无面筋，无糖

Bean House (Multiple Locations in Beijing)

My go-to place for vegan ice cream and freshly ground soy milk of all flavors. Dairy free and gluten-free (except for one or two flavors that use grains in the soymilk).

Homaroma (Online)

I’ve only tried the almond cake but was in heaven. Delicious variety of baked goods from a local Beijing catering company.

Wagas (Sanlitun Village)

A satisfying almond & orange cake that Wagas will warm and serve with cream (optional). Not sure what the ingredients are so if you have egg/dairy sensitivity make sure to ask just in case!

DIY

Of course, the easiest way to go gluten-free, especially for people with extremely strict requirements for celiac-friendly diets, is to cook/bake at home. I post gluten-free recipes on Suluku from time to time. April Gourmet, Jenny Lou’s, and sometimes BHG also carry the “Bob’s Red Mill” brand of pre-prepared dessert mixes with a good selection of gluten-free.  For more inspiration check out this delicious Coconut Banana Pudding Cake  on SerenityKitchen.com (and yes, I am the sometimes-vegan girlfriend mentioned in the post

Check out SerenityKitchen.com for the recipe!

Do I miss anything good? Leave a note below to share your favorite gluten-free Beijing dishes.

Credit for this amazing recipe goes to my friend Ali Retson, who I hope will soon also have a food blog to showcase her amazing culinary creations! For now, another cooking show must suffice:

Video Instructions:

Ingredients (Crust):

• 1 cup yellow corn flour
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp vinegar

Ingredients (Filling):

• 1 jin large hongzao (dates)
• 2 cups water (enough to just fully cover dates in the pan)
• 5 egg yolks
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp cornstarch or potato starch

First make the crust.  Mix all crust ingredients together.  When the dough forms a ball, does not stick to the sides of the bowl, and does not stick to your fingers when touched, it’s ready.  If the dough is too dry, add more water, 1 tbsp at a time.  If the dough is too wet, add more corn flour, 1 tbsp at a time.  Using your fingers, gently spread and press the crust along the bottom and up the sides of a round baking pan.  Place the crust in the fridge for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, remove from fridge, poke holes in the bottom with a fork (this is to let steam escape so your crust doesn’t bubble and crack), and bake at 190 deg. C for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool while you prepare the filling.

Remove seeds from dates.  Place pitted dates in a pan on the stove and add 1 to 2 cups water until the dates are just fully covered.  Turn on the heat and bring to a boil.  While the dates are coming to a boil, mix the remaining ingredients in a large bowl (egg yolks, brown sugar and corn/potato starch).  When the date mixture boils, remove from heat.  With one hand, begin mixing small circles in the egg yolk mixture and with the other hand slowly stream in the water from the dates.  Take care, move slowly, and never stop mixing.  You do not want to cook the egg yolks.  When all the water is added, mash the dates with a fork and add those to the egg yolk/water mixture.  Pour filling into prepared crust and bake at 190 deg. C for 30 minutes.  Test to see if it is fully cooked by inserting a fork or toothpick in the middle.  If it comes out clean, it’s done.  If it is not done after 30 minutes, continue baking, checking every 5 minutes.

This tart tastes best warm.  Heat leftovers in the microwave before eating.

I have to admit, I was pretty lazy with the batter and just bought some Bob’s Red Mill pre-made mix from April Gourmet. There are cheaper, DIY mixes that I will explore in the future.  One package of Bob’s lasts many pancakes though, so if you are short on time it’s not a bad alternative.

Part 1

Part 2 on Weipai

Ingredients 材料

• Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake Mix 1/4 cup 美国无面筋煎饼粉 (可以在北京的April Gourmet 超市买，50RMB／包，一包可以用座50张煎饼左右）
• 1 egg， 1个鸡蛋
• 1 spoon olive oil 一小勺橄榄油
• 1 spoon soy milk 一小勺豆浆

To garnish your pancake: 加在煎饼上：

• Raw Honey and your choice of fruit
• 蜂蜜和你最喜欢的水果

Nutrition 营养

• Eggs are actually a great source of protein, calcium, Vitamins A, B6 and B12. I try to buy from farms like Little Donkey or Mrs. Shanen’s that use more sustainable/humane animal husbandry practices.
• 鸡蛋里边有7克的蛋白质，和较高含量的钙和维生素A, B6和B12
• Natural raw honey is known for having anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.  Choose brands that have non-transparent appearance from suppliers that you trust, organic is optimal as well.  The brands with transparent appearance have usually been heated, processed, watered down, and in China sometimes additional additives get thrown in.
• 自然（生蜂蜜，没有加工／加热过）有抗菌，抗病毒的特性

China Survival Guide: providing detailed information on food safety threats and how to respond.

The “China Survival Guide” app and “Throw it out the Window” site are two great new tools for understanding food safety issues in China and informing purchase decisions.

A recent story by Salon highlighted two great new tools for the safety conscious consumer in China:  China Survival Guide (app) and Throw it out the Window (website).

“China Survival Guide”, created by a Kingsoft product manager and released under the developer name 可牛网络 (ke niu wang luo) in May, helps catalogue news on food safety scandals, allowing you to search for updates by food category, “risk level” (危害), city, and food brand name. The app has gotten 5 star reviews consistently, and I think a user review on the iTunes store summed up the general response to the content well: “在中国活着是个奇迹！” (“In China, staying alive is a miracle!”)

The most recent headline under the milk category (奶制品) posted on June 12th, 2012, warns consumers about “unusual”  levels of mercury (汞 gǒng) in Yili’s (伊利) type 2, 3, and 4 milk powders (乳粉 rǔfěn).   Disturbingly, while these products have been recalled in Carrefour and Jinkelong supermarket chains, they are still available on Taobao.

Yili Milk powder tainted with mercury has not yet been recalled on Taobao

The app goes so far as to suggest avoiding any Yili milk powder until further updates.  I have to wonder how food producers in China will react in light of this new level of transparency and consumer access to information. It will take some serious damage control to help restore consumer confidence in the brands that show up in these reports.

“China Survival Guide” also lets you sync with your Sina and Tencent Weibo accounts to help forward stories of concern (especially useful for the Suluku weibo…) as well as email and text them to friends.  The app guide says there should be an English version as well, although I haven’t been able to locate it yet.

"Throw it out the Window" catalogues Chinese news reports on food safety scandals

“Throw it Out the Window” is a site that also helps consumers navigate the seemingly endless reports on food safety issues.  In addition to being able to search by location and food type, you can also browse stories related to different contaminant categories (i.e. mercury, melamine..). Te database is the result of a crawl of all available web stories from 2004-2011, and also relies on netizens to submit new stories.

A general takeaway from the site, if you are not familiar with and/or trust the farm where your dairy and meat products are produced, avoiding these products may be one of the best ways to reduce exposure to contaminated food:

Wu ["Throw it Out the Window"s creator], whose studies focus on modern Shanghai and are unrelated to food, said his crash course in contemporary food problems has steered him away from meat and milk, which seem plagued more than others by quality issues.

While both the website and app are a great resource for consumers, Salon highlighted that they may not always tell the full story on food safety:

While shining an unflattering spotlight on China’s food problems, both the Kingsoft app and Wu’s site rely on government sanctioned reports from state-run media. A more daring approach would be to do fully independent testing or reporting on food, but attempts to do that have been shut down.

Still, they are immensely helpful in empowering consumers to make better purchase decisions, and that is a great first step!

Wokaishi.com, founded last year by an American and Chinese team last year in Beijing, re-launched on June 1st with a new site design and features.

Right now the site is simple but fun. Videos from 2-5 minutes feature elementary exercises manageable for beginners.  The key, according to co-founder Anna Tsui, is for videos to not overwhelm those new to exercising. Some are original productions from the Wokaishi team while others have been aggregated from public sources across the web and translated with Chinese subtitles.

Completing a video earns you points so you can keep track of your progress.  You can also share the videos you like on Weibo. As a exercise video fan, I like the concept of being able to have a searchable repository online where you can catalogue the routines that motivate you or that you find fun. My only comment would be that when routines are spliced into such short time segments, they lack continuity and it’s harder to get a well-balanced workout.  For people just struggling to get off the couch at all though, it may be more important to just start moving, and worry about the fine tuning later.

Wokaishi raised a small angel round recently and set up headquarters in Tongzhou.  They have a Weibo following of about 16k fans right now, so the site seems to have gained some traction with local netizens.  One exciting opportunity for wanna-be fitness celebrities, they are seeking talent for their Tongzhou studio!  If you want to try your hand at fitness instruction for an online audience, get in touch with the Wokaishi team at info@wokaishi.com

Icy Cool Non-Dairy treat for Beijing's summer

Bean House first caught my eye in the dead of winter.  I was perusing the snack offerings in Jianwai SOHO when I wandered into a tiny hole in the wall shop making fresh soymilk.  The tastiness is in the simplicity, they have a giant fridge full of beans and grind them up in a blender with water and sugar if you like it sweet.  You can get plain for 5RMB or mix it up with flavors like black sesame, matcha, walnut, or jujube for a couple extra kuai.  It was a nice, natural alternative to the place next door selling “milk” tea made out of powdered glucose derivatives.

Recently though, Bean House upgraded to a larger shop in the same complex and expanded its product line into FROZEN YOGURT!

Bean House Franchise

15RMB buys original flavor with choice of one topping, or 20RMB for matcha (green tea) flavored.  Toppings include nuts and several sauces.  The refreshing thing about both flavors is that they are only mildly sweet, so won’t induce a nasty sugar crash. According to the Bean House materials, they take great care with product safety and ingredient quality:

According to Bean House, the key nutritional value of mature soybeans includes: dietary fiber, Vitamin A, carotene, niacin, Vitamin E, calcium, iodine, and zinc. With the exception of calcium and zinc, this assessment is at odds with the USDA’s nutritional assessment of soybeans, which are reported as low in Vitamin A (and therefore probably carotene), very low in Vitamin E, low in niacin, and with no iodine content. However, it is rich in some other types of nutrients. (For more info, check out this site). 

I can’t vouch for the truck, but the store is very clean looking.  All of the employees preparing beverages wear masks and the ingredients are refrigerated. They take great care to remind you to drink your soymilk fresh within two hours to prevent risk of spoilage.  I was a little worried about the green powder they use to make the matcha flavor (you can hide so many interesting things in powders), but they *say* it is imported from Japan.

I like the Bean House business model.  They focus only on type of product and do it well, their materials are cheap, the stuff on their menu is fast and easy to make, and they have high customer churn. They currently have around 20 locations around Beijing and are still expanding, so keep a look out for Bean House in your neighborhood!

View Healthy Beijing in a larger map

 Photo Courtesy of INBAR

 Bamboo’s rising reputation as a trendy design material is a fad we can all feel good about. It’s a relatively renewable and sustainable resource, and is fast growing. Tropical bamboos may be harvested after 3 years, whereas timber forests may require two to six decades to reach maturity.

A bamboo forest is rarely clearcut.  Rather, the root systems and often surrounding foliage are left intact, only a few plants are culled at a time, and in some cases the soil is left untilled.  This preserves the delicate soil ecosystems and slows the rate of nutrient loss.  Therefore, bamboo requires less chemical fertilizer inputs relative to other crops.  It also requires relatively little water*, and in some cases no irrigation at all.

 Photo Courtesy of INBAR

The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), also takes advantage of another of bamboo’s unique qualities – its proximity to the world’s poor.  Bamboo is predominately grown in the sub-tropical regions of developing countries.  As bamboo gain traction as a global commodity, it has the potential to lift communities out of poverty while also helping mitigate some of the impacts of climate change. Since these same communities are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, INBAR’s mission is especially critical.

Bamboo forests are carbon sinks. Perhaps more importantly, substituting bamboo for traditional forest products like paper, building material, and fuel helps slow the rate of deforestation, another major driver of climate change.  Dr. J. Hoogendoorn shared startling statistics about deforestation in Africa, the home of many of INBAR’s member countries.  Ethiopia currently only has 4% of land cover as forest, but it is disappearing at the rate of .8% per year.  A driving factor is the predominant use of firewood as cooking fuel.  In response to this problem, INBAR devised an innovative program to process bamboo into charcoal, and a stove particularly suited to burning this charcoal.  This has sparked a new industry in Ethiopia and Ghana, which now have over 1,700 small producers of bamboo charcoal as well as small-scale stove manufacturers.  Furthermore, bamboo has the potential to generate badly needed income for rural farming households in Ethiopia to sell to the city.  The bamboo charcoal is also cleaner burning and may help alleviate some of the health problems suffered by women who spend time cooking indoors.  The market for charcoal itself is huge in Southern African countries. In Mozambique alone, a study has shown that over $200 million of charcoal and firewood is sold in the town and cities where it is principally used for cooking.

Bamboo Coal (Photo Courtesy of INBAR)

INBAR hopes that the substitution of bamboo will not only help bamboo farmers, but create sustainable livelihoods for those involved in the industry as well.

Bamboo products are generally processed in the country of origin and often times close to the place bamboo is grown. Unlike natural resources that are shipped abroad in their raw form, bamboo has the potential to enrich surrounding agricultural communities and country of origin through value added processing.  In China alone, bamboo represents a $14 billion dollar market with an 18% annual growth rate. INBAR has overseen several innovative trials to help communities close to bamboo agriculture take advantage of this growing market, as well as preserve biodiversity.

To summarize some of their findings:

• In Sichuan, INBAR found that placing fertilizer selectively in bamboo stumps after harvesting helped improve the productivity of the bamboo forest, saved farmers money, and helped improve soil biodiversity.
• In Hunan, an experiment examining mixed bamboo forests found that leaving native plant species intact actually improved the productivity of the bamboo forests and helped boost biodiversity. The local community developed a set of certifications to promote sustainable bamboo forestry and help farmers differentiate their products.
• In Yunnan, education programs put on by children in the local schools helped improve awareness of an endangered bamboo species (qiong) and the benefits of sustainable harvesting, leading to more sustainable harvesting practices and the perseverance of the qiong for the long-term benefit of the community.

The key to INBAR’s programs is to engage key stakeholders in the community. Each of these projects carefully tied the impacts of the program not just to biodiversity, but to the benefit of the local community so they have an incentive to carry forward the changes.

 INBAR’s stories are some of the most encouraging I’ve heard about improving agricultural sustainability practices for small land owners and farmers in China.  I hope to see more like them in the future! Have you heard of any other similar programs targeting systemic change for small farms in China?

You can learn more about INBAR’s programs at their website (http://www.inbar.int/).  Also, check out SparkHer Beijing to stay updated on their ongoing events!

*Note from INBAR: This depends on the individual species.  Some species can grow with very little rainfall/irrigation (e.g. Oxytenathera abyssinica (lowland bamboo). In Africa, the savannah woodland where annual rainfall is less than 1000 mm.

Lejen in her Shunyi Restaurant

After hearing my friends rave about Mrs. Shanen’s bagels the past few years, I finally ventured out to Green Cow organic farm to find out how Lejen Chen, a native New Yorker, established a great brand in Beijing while also upholding her commitment to organic food and sustainable farming.

This story is a summary of a conversation I had with Lejen in the Winter of 2012.  I encourage readers to check out the restaurant too if they have additional questions about her wonderful food!

Lejen’s, a.k.a. Mrs. Shanen’s, story is already well known in the Beijing community. She moved to China in 1989, before most international food staples had found their way to Beijing. The lack of good quality bagels at the time inspired her to start her own factory in 1996, and her bagels have since become a local favorite.  Mrs. Shanen’s restaurant opened in 2004, and she started Green Cow farm with her husband in 2005 to help secure a supply of hard to find organic salad greens.

 Green Cow Farm

 The farm itself is a green oasis of cereal crops, vegetables, traditional greenhouses, and animals.  On just 12.5 American acres, Green Cow supports 10 milk cows, over 200 chickens, geese, and ducks, and 35 large pigs.  Animals mainly eat extra vegetables, grass, and grains grown on the farm, left-over food from the restaurant, and have part of their diet supplemented with corn and grains from surrounding farms.  Lejen’s goal is to create a closed loop ecosystem that reduces waste, with the restaurant and farm supporting each other.  Many farm products are recycled back into the system to reduce the need for external inputs.

  Plant refuse, woody materials, and food scraps can be recycled into compost that over time becomes a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer.

The Clivus Multrum Composting toilet

 Produce and grains are all grown organically.  Rosemary is planted around the greenhouses to naturally repel pests, and in the spring flowers to help attract beneficial insects.  Since they do not apply pesticides to the plants, in the summer they take larger bugs off by hand (in the winter, the cold naturally discourages bugs).   She also has a homebrew spray consisting of garlic and peppers that works as a natural pesticide.

 Natural bug repellent.

Lejen is completely self-taught when it comes to farming.  Her secret to success is a combination of seminars she attends on trips back to the U.S., consulting experts in organic farming, and of course, YouTube.  She also learns from the workers she hires at Green Cow, all of who are migrant workers from other provinces.  According to Lejen, many farmers in China still use traditional organic techniques to grow the food they keep for themselves, but for sale crops they have adopted conventional pesticide and fertilizer inputs to boost farm productivity.

 Green Cow is not an officially certified organic farm. The regulatory bodies in China are complex and certification is expensive, especially for small family farms. However, Lejen feels that the best certification she can get is that which comes from customer trust and a transparent system.  Twenty families currently participate in the CSA (community supported agriculture) produce delivery program, and most of them spend time working on the farm each year so they can understand the system. Lejen encourages Mrs. Shanen’s customers to visit Green Cow and check out the farm to see for themselves how food is produced.  She also tests the soil and water every three years herself to make sure that chemicals from the air, rain, or surrounding farmland have not contaminated Green Cow.

 The safest farm is a transparent one.

While organic farming is labor intensive, Lejen says that the satisfaction of having good clean food to eat makes the project worthwhile. Reflecting on a recent trip back to the United States, she felt that even the produce in New York and Toronto, which in the winter must often be flown in cross-country, left something to be desired when compared with Green Cow products.  She and her husband also like to pass on the value of having fresh and hygienic produce to their customers at the restaurant.

The cost of organic farming in Beijing

In 2005, the rise in average salaries and job opportunities in Beijing meant that fewer people from the surrounding villages were willing to farm. Unpredictable changes in market demand and weather also made farming an economically precarious occupation.  So when Lejen went to find a plot of land near her restaurant in Shunyi, she found a relative abundance of vacant lots and reasonable rental prices. The farm she chose had been used to grow Chinese dates and sweet potatoes, but had become unprofitable for the previous farmer.

Nowadays, despite locals’ disinterest in farming, hopeful urban farmers will find it difficult to rent land in the suburbs.  According to Lejen, “In this area, you could not afford to rent farmland now, because real estate developers have taken up everything that is close to the city. Only 25% of the families from the village where our café is situated are still left after recent demolition and takeover by developers.” She manages her relationship carefully with the local village that owns the rights to her land, but there is a risk that the farm could be sold to a developer who comes along with the right price.

Farming also requires an intensive capital investment, even for small organic farms. State of the art greenhouses needed to extend the growing season in Beijing’s cold fall and spring can cost up to $500k USD.  Even the more traditional kind of greenhouse made from bricks and adobe used at Green Cow can cost up to $8,000 dollars each.  Labor costs are rising for farm labor as well as the supply of farm laborers dwindles. Farming requires arduous physical labor, and many young people increasingly prefer to seek work in cities. On Green Cow, for example, the average age of farm workers continues to rise.  New young recruits are difficult to find these days.

 Animal Welfare

Green Cow is a member of the Model Farm Project (MFP), a non-profit based in the UK.  The mission of the organization is to create sustainable and humane animal farming systems that can scale and ultimately improve the type of meat available to consumers.  MFP members make two trips to Green Cow each year to certify the ethical treatment of the animals.

Lejen takes care to make sure that animal slaughter is hygienic and humane. Local Muslim butchers specializing in Hallal practices manage cow slaughter, although they need only two cows a year to supply beef for Mrs. Shanen’s hamburgers.  Chickens are also slaughtered onsite so Green Cow can monitor the process.

 Green Cow animals are truly free-range.

Green Cow Products

If you haven’t tried any of Mrs. Shanen’s products, you are missing out!  Below is just a sample of the ones I’ve tried:

Gluten Free bread!  To my knowledge Mrs. Shanen’s is one of the only bakeries in the city that provides gluten-free bread, and it was one of the best I’ve ever tried. It costs ~35RMB for half a loaf, but it was sooooo worth it.  Order ahead if you’d like some to take home.

 A rare wheat-free treat for those with gluten intolerance.

I don’t indulge in animal products that often, but I made an exception for the homemade butter, ice cream, and latte, all using organic dairy produced on Green Cow farm.  The butter has a delicious cheese-like tangy flavor, and the soft serve puts locally available brands Baxi and Nestle to shame. 

Green Cow milk is low heat pasteurized but un-homogenized.  The heating destroys most microorganisms and improves the safety of milk that is not drunk fresh, but the fat has not been mechanically distributed to create a smooth texture. Normally, larger dairy processors homogenize milk to make it more palatable to consumers, provide a more consistent product, and give it a longer shelf life, but it also loses the rich flavor and texture of un-homogenized milk.

Another product that’s special is Mrs. Shanen’s peanut butter.  Aflatoxin, a carcinogenic fungal growth that occurs when peanuts and core are stored improperly, is still an issue in conventional Chinese peanut products.  Green Cow grows its own organic peanuts and sells freshly ground peanut butter in the store. Lejen said she was originally inspired to offer the product when salmonella contaminated peanuts were recalled in the U.S., but not from foreign grocery stores in China.  She had also visited peanut butter producers in China only to find that they often included steamed carrots in the mix to reduce the cost, an alteration that was hard to detect for unsuspecting consumers.

Clean, green, peanut butter machine.

Mrs. Shanen’s also offers soap nuts!  Lejen had some interesting trivia on this environmentally friendly cleaning product.  Soapnuts are produced from soapnut trees in Fujian and have traditionally been used in Southern China to wash clothes Northern China has a variant of soap nuts that grows in bean pods, also on trees. You can still see this type of tree growing in Beijing if you know how to look for them.

On shopping for safe meat and dairy products in Beijing:

Green Cow produces much of the ingredients used at the restaurant, but sometimes Lejen must supplement her supply of certain off-season vegetables, mushrooms, grains, and dairy and eggs from other farms.  When she finds farmers whose own practices live up to her own, she forms long-term relationships. For example, an organic farmer in Inner Mongolia now supplies many of the potatoes served at Mrs. Shanen’s.   Her menu is very transparent about ingredient sources. Anything on the menu labeled “organic” are only products she has grown herself or from farms she has visited in person to inspect.

Despite the success of some of her partnerships, high quality organic meat, dairy, and produce are difficult to find. Lejen shared common food quality problems she’s encountered in China and how she identifies them when inspecting farms:

Asbestos – Asbestos are still a common building material for shingles used in the roofs of animal housing in Northern China. When shingles fall into the animal stalls, they pose a danger to animal health as well as the safety of the meat and manure that is produced. Manure is especially worrisome since farms may sell asbestos-containing manure to other farms as fertilizer. Lejen says that she has even seen certified organic, biodynamic farms in Beijing that use asbestos in their building materials.

Confined animal spaces – “Free range” is a term liberally applied to many animal products in China. Often this means a small door in the animal housing leading to an outdoor pen that is not used or inaccessible.  While most people don’t consider this a deciding factor in their meat purchases, it does impact meat quality. Pork, for example, tends to be mushy if pigs do got get sufficient exercise.

Antibiotic use in animal feed – When animals are raised in confined spaces, antibiotics become essential to prevent the spread of disease.  For this reason, most grain-based animal feed in China includes pre-mix of antibiotics and vitamins. When Lejen visits a farm, she always asks to see the animal feed and takes a look at the ingredients.  More often than not, even organic farms will have unwittingly purchased grain feed that includes antibiotics.  She also looks for discarded needles in the animal manure on a farm.  Antibiotics administered via injection must be delivered frequently, and often the cartridges are disposed onsite.    These antibotics are also passed to humans via meat consumption, and are contributing to the rise multi-drug resistant bacterial strains (like tuberculosis) in China.

Fertilizer use – For those wishing to avoid produce grown with synthetic fertilizers, look for the presence of animals on a farm and inspect the manure for the presence of asbestos or needles.  Lejen has visited farms that claim to offer completely organically grown produce, only to discover no animals or source of natural manure on the farm.

Feed quality –Grain by itself is not sufficient to produce optimally healthy meat products.   On Green Cow farm, chickens get a mixture of greens and bugs from foraging in addition to their grain diet.  Cows also get a fair amount of greens in their diet from grazing.  This affects the nutritional value of the meat and dairy products.  Lejen said that truly organic eggs should have variations in the color of the shell and yolk. Look for cartons of eggs that include differently colored shells and have brightly colored yolks.  Uniformly colored eggs and pale yolks are indicators that the chickens are eating a uniform, grain-based diet.

 The variety of shell color in Green Cow’s eggs can only come from chickens fed a rich and nutritious diet.

For those who don’t have time to get to a farm in person, Lejen recommended La Frommage de Pekin and Wondermilk as two trustworthy brands for cheese and milk products.

Get involved

Green Cow farm offers a CSA program for 18,000RMB/year that delivers a huge basket full of seasonal, organic vegetables once per week, 50 weeks a year, to your door.  CSA members are expected to provide hands on support at the farm for certain events like the Harvest Festival, and many volunteer their time to help out on the weekends.  You can apply for membership through the Green Cow website. A word of warning from Lejen though, only sign up if you love vegetables! The baskets are quite generous and include a mix of Chinese and Western favorites, so CSA members should be willing to experiment with unfamiliar produce.

 Beautiful organic Green Cow produce

I am also hoping that Mrs. Shanen’s opens up in central Beijing someday, since the Shunyi store can be a hike if you live within the 2^nd or 3^rd ring road.  According to Lejen, a new location closer to the city center is a long-term goal, although they have not set a definitive date.

Green Cow also hosts a variety of educational events each year that also feature other high quality food vendors. Check out the Green Cow website for updates!

A big thanks to Lejen for taking the time to interview for Suluku, and share some of Mrs. Shanen’s delicious food with the author!

Map for Green Cow Farm