Eat Drink KL: Stay-Home Cooking #8: Vegan Mayo by Dr. Shaun Kuan, Savor Of Life

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Stay-Home Cooking #8: Vegan Mayo by Dr. Shaun Kuan, Savor Of Life

What does a physician who launched a health and wellness service make to eat at home? Shaun Kuan, co-founder of Savor of Life, shares this fuss-free recipe for vegan mayonnaise that would be a wholesome companion for bread, salads, chips and even other spreads.

Ingredients:
1 cup soy milk
1 piece firm tofu
1 whole lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
Pinch of salt and pepper

Method:
1. In a blender, blend all ingredients until smooth.
2. Serve as a spread or dip.
3. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

More about Shaun and Savor Of Life: Shaun specialises in lifestyle medicine, channelling his efforts to curbing and reversing problems like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and high blood cholesterol.

Savor Of Life is a Kuala Lumpur-based service that seeks to ease the complexity and effort needed for anyone to plan and execute the right lifestyle. It provides free physical and mental health screenings, as well as themed talks at corporate events, working spaces and organisations. It offers virtual health coaching on the Savor Of Life app and also delivers whole-food, plant-based therapeutic meals across the Klang Valley. 

For these trying times, Shaun has some practical suggestions for how to stay healthy:

1. Watch your food intake. It’s tempting to stock up on snacks, instant and highly processed foods. But these are very bad for both your body and mind. Focus instead on purchasing whole foods - fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, beans; things you can create yummy nutritious meals out of.

2. Keep active. Get a couple of friends onto an online call and do exercises together.

3. Relax. Turn off your phone when you sleep. Leave the social groups that keep sending you things that worry you. Slow down. Focus on your family, friends, people around you. Your pets, the plants, sounds of nature in the morning.  Constantly being in a state of stress is not worth it."

4. Many people need to mindful about how important getting into gear first thing in the morning is. One of the easiest things to do is to be unproductive, especially now that we spend all day at home. Learn to get started on your tasks straightaway and always do the easiest things first - get the broom from the storeroom, reply that message, open that book. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to have that momentum spill over. It’s the same principle with making your bed first thing in the morning; it kicks you into gear and stops you from wasting time.
Make that simple decision to get started straightaway - you’ll be surprised at how much your mood will improve. You will feel better about yourself and people around you. You'll tend to eat better, healthier. You'll  tend to be more positive about circumstances in your life.


Savor Of Life is certified by the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine and partners with many clinics in Malaysia and the Philippines. Signing up with its virtual health coaching gets you access to medical advisors, personalised coaching plans that suit your health goals, and the ability to track your  progress on an app, all for RM300 a month. This could help facilitate your ability to become healthier at a fraction of the cost of in-person hospital visits and consultations.

Savor of Life also offers healthy plant-based meals delivered to your doorstep daily, Monday to Friday. Different options are available each week. Some Tuesdays, you might get the Asian-style poke bowl; other Tuesdays, there could be spaghetti with cilantro-and-spinach pesto waiting.

Every individual meal is valued at RM18, but you can save by subscribing to a meal package, starting at RM112 for seven meals, up to RM447 for 28 meals, with larger subscriptions also granting access to free health consultation and one-to-one coaching. Check out the possibilities here.

Savor Of Life is currently also on a campaign to provide free meals for healthcare workers in Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Hospital Sungai Buloh. It is raising funds on Simply Giving, where you can track how much has been raised and how many people have been helped: https://www.simplygiving.com/appeal/coronavirus-malaysia

So far, Savor Of Life has raised more than RM120,000, with a target of raising RM250,000 to help feed frontline workers until 1 May 2020.

During this time, Savor Of Life is also offering to send free meals to the elderly and to people at higher health risks. Contact them if you or someone you know needs this assistance.

Images and information here are courtesy of Savor Of Life.

Savor of Life:
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