Saying NO to Food Supplements and Herbal Alternative Medicines

The latest craze among my health fanatic friends is Life Oil Moringa after they’ve seen it being featured in one of our local news report. The cost per tablet is 16.50 pesos (0.3 Euro) and everyone is planning to take it every day for the rest of their lives. Everyone that is except for me. Why? Because I’m plain cheapskate and I’m a bit wary on products that says “NO APPROVED THERAPEUTIC CLAIMS”. I’m no expert on what this line exactly means but if I’m going to use my precious earnings on this tablet, the least they could do is NOT give me a disclaimer that it’s not approved for anything really in the first place.

Thankfully, I’m not alone with my views. I asked for a second opinion from another fitness buff whose main goal by the way is to reach 100 years old and the advise was:

DON’T TAKE FOOD SUPPLEMENTS!!!!!

It’s not needed and a waste of money. If you have a diversity on food you normally eat then it is not needed. It’s better to eat healthy as try to compensate bad eating habits with food supplements. The only winner is the pharmaceutical industry and often, you harm yourself in it with some side effects like harming your liver.

 

What about you? Are you a believer of all these herbal alternative medicines like life oil?

Speaking of Moringa, our delicious snack of the day is Malunggay (Moringa) Pan de sal for only 2 pesos per piece at Badung’s which is located somewhere in Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City. This I like because it’s within my meager budget.  Nyahaha.  Pan de sal is a kind of bread that I often see being sold in our local bakeshop and according to Translate.google, it is a Spanish word for Salt Cake.

P.S. Life Oil Moringa picture was taken from The Philippine Beat

Easy Ride Tour Siquijor

As soon as we arrived in Siquijor, Siquijor, our first agenda was to buy a boat ticket in advance for the next day bound for Dumaguete via Jaylan this time at 120 pesos fare still. Next is to eat our lunch which we already planned to be at Coco Grove Beach Resort. The question is how to get to Coco Grove Beach Resort? Simple, since we already planned to hire some sort of transportation to tour us around Siquijor, we made arrangement with our driver to take us to Coco Grove first before starting the tour.

For the transportation, I suppose one can hire a motorbike, a bicycle, a tricycle or a multi-cab that is commonly known in this part as Easy Ride which is what we did for 1,800 pesos on account of comfort and speed since there were 6 of us in total. Our driver is no other than Mr. Vergilio Rubio, president of the Easy Ride Union, and true to his dedication with the Tourism agency, he went the extra mile in helping us on our accommodation trouble without trying to haggle more money from us for his assistance. Truly, we were very grateful to Kuya Vergilio ( the old guy in orange).

I don’t know who the other guy is. He happened to see us and knew Kuya Vergilio so he came over and made a pose also for the picture taking.

After our lunch at Coco Grove, the first place to see for our Easy Ride Tour in Siquijor is Capilay’s Spring Park where several people rented a table and enjoyed the cool water of the spring in a hot summer day.

For the other places we saw on this tour, check out the following:

Balete, Church and Convent of San Isidro Labrador

Bloody Cambuhagay Falls

Salted Egg with Tomato and Onion Salad

Being a slave to my hormones, I tend to crave certain foods. I’m like a pregnant woman every month really. So, I’ve been daydreaming about salted egg, tomatoes and onions all mixed together for days now and was happy to finally get this over with.

Next in my list: cucumber, onions and tomatoes with olive oil and apple cider vinegar with a dash of salt and pepper. I’m learning to enjoy salad!

Lunch at Coco Grove Beach Resort

Where to eat in Siquijor? Ace recommended Coco Grove Beach Resort because according to her, the place is beautiful and offers huge servings of food at a reasonable price based on her previous experience a few years ago but obviously, things have changed.

Upon arriving at the gate of Coco Grove Beach Resort, we had to wait for a few minutes while the guard checked if the resort could accommodate us. When we were given the go signal, these girls were so happy that they cheered which I find unnecessary really because it’s not as if we’ve been informed that we could now pass the pearly gates of heaven. Nyahaha.

I would have preferred ordering and paying for oneself because there’s a kiddie set meal available at 135 pesos which would have been enough for me and me alone but since the idea of NOT SHARING is usually frowned upon in this country, someone thought to just order foods and share it with everyone. This would have been a good suggestion if only we consume the same equal amount of foods and have the same drinks. I mean, I have an appetite of a kid compared to these women where every meal is like their last supper on earth and for drinks, I ordered a liter of bottled water only because it was cheaper at 40 pesos while some girls enjoyed pineapple shake at 85 pesos but the bill was equally divided by the number of heads. Where’s the JUSTICE in that?!@

These are our orders:
Beef in Mushroom at 250 pesos
Gulay sa Gata at 180 pesos
Sweet and Sour Fish at 260 pesos
Plain rice at 40 pesos
French fries at 95 pesos
Sinigang fish soup at 115 pesos
Mineral water at 40 pesos
Pineapple shake at 85 pesos

Total bill was 1400 pesos or 233.33 pesos per person which is OK i suppose but just look at the picture below! The soup was served in a freaking CUP!!!

Finally Siquijor

Although Siquijor has 3 ports (Siquijor, Larena and Lazi) but at that moment of time when we were falling in line at Dumaguete Port Terminal, Jaziel was the only thing available for us that we took it right away without second thoughts. It is supposedly a fast craft that will take us to Siquijor, Siquijor in 1 hour and 15 minutes but as I tried to get this confirmation, all I received was “uhm, around that time, yes”. I guess “AROUND” means +/- 1 hour and in Philippines, it’s usually PLUS 1 hour. GRRR

It shouldn’t have been a problem but our trip departed at 10:15 and we arrived around 12 and it was so hot and we were very hungry already. And with the kind of girls that I’m with, being hungry is never to their liking.

My advice is to buy tickets a DAY before so you can choose your schedule and boat well.

Jaziel cost us 120 pesos plus 15 pesos terminal fee. I like the port terminal in Dumaguete City. It’s huge so I don’t feel like I’m in a box and it even has a special place for the elderly, pregnant woman and kids. The facility could be more improved of course but it’s good enough for me.

I find Siquijor a bit remote than what I’m used to and I don’t know what the other ports are like but I’m glad that we made our landing at Siquijor, Siquijor. It’s the center for one so we have more options to choose from I guess.

The port terminal in Dumaguete City

Our boat Jaziel that will take us to Siquijor, Siquijor for only 120 pesos.

The ladies got busy taking pictures in the ferry but they have hidden agenda. They wanted to have a picture of this guy in green because they find him cute although I don’t see it. They have noted everything about him from his Billabong shirt, Nike short, Adidas shoes, North Face bag and even the brand of sunblock he uses which is Derm Plus. WOW! Girls could be one heck of a scary spy.

Ruby is Anal – yzing Sherry