vanishing of the bees

if you care about the environment, you must watch this documentary!

beautifully presented (how i wish more documentaries are done this way), this documentary showcases bee colony collapse disorder as encountered by many bee farmers in the united states back in 2007. a colony collapse situation is whereby a whole colony of bees leave their beehive, leaving only a few bees along with the queen. this beehive couldn't sustain itself any more and slowly dies off.

this strange phenomena puzzled the bee farmers as they helplessly see their bee hives falter one by one. this phenomena was later discovered to have been experienced by farmers in europe as well.

much effort later, the most likely culprit is the use of systemic pesticide. unlike conventional pesticides which are applied topically, systemic pesticide is absorbed by the plant and manifests itself outwards on its leave, stem and of course pollen as well. it is believed that the pollen which is then accumulated by bees contain this poison and thus affect the bees so badly that they abandon their hives.


Vanishing of the Bees - Trailer from Bee The Change on Vimeo.

to support this hypothesis, none of the organic bee farms suffer this disorder. so again and again, a lot of the ailments of the modern age is man made!

watch it. learn from it. have new respect for bees and of course, organic farming.

more info from the vanishing bees website.

Our impoverished taste buds...

Isn't it amazing that despite all the tastes our taste bud could experience, we limit ourselves to just a few?

Consider a trip to a fast food joint. You'll be assailed with just 3 types of taste : salty, sweet and fats. Lots of salt in your fries, burger patty; teaspoons of sugar in your soft drink; blobs of fat in your burger/salad dressing...

It's understandable. Inferior ingredients are usually masked with strong flavours and by making it savoury, you'll "think" it tastes "good".

Now in M'sia, the same observation applies to hawker food. Out of 10th stalls I sample, 9 would be guilty of too much salt in the servings. The tenth, unfortunately, suffers from poor business! It seems to me that this is what the public wants.

Many a times, we are recommended to check out some great restaurants. Again, we usually find their cooking to use too much salt. And these restaurants are highly recommended! Also, have seen those foodie shows on TV where the reviewer comments "the food is salty enough". Arghhhhhhh!

So what is this fascination with salty food? Seems like it is a requisite for "good taste".

I long for the fresh taste of a choy sum stalk, the inherent sweetness of a carrot, the subtle nuances of herbs. With quality ingredients, just a dash of seasoning is all you need. A dash of pepper, a sprinkling of sea salt, few leaves of rosemary, few drops of mustard..


Is this too much to ask for?

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