Alishan ‘Alishan Staff Blog’ Category

If you happen to be living out in the countryside, or limited to shopping in your local supermarket, you may find it difficult to find anything other than white bread to eat. As a Brit, brought up to believe that white bread is the source of all evil, this is a bad state of affairs and I’ve been looking around for alternatives. Of course the bread we sell here is fantastic but if you’d like a little more variety, there are alternatives. Here’s a list of bakeries in Japan which offer a wide range of bread – including wholewheat varieties – and ship throughout Japan.

Lapin Noir
I sometimes buy their bread from my local natural food store and they have had a stall here at our market day. Dense, flavourful. Some vegan, some not.

Wonderful World
Bread made with natural yeast.

Paysan
European style bread made with natural yeast.

La terre 
Organic bread and cakes

Hachi Hachi infinity
Natural yeast bread

Eats Art
Japanese bread and sourdough.

or… rather a Nuclear Free future. The focus of this event was raising awareness about the perils of nuclear power, what has gone wrong in he past and ways we can cut our energy consumption to remove the excuse of needing the many nuclear power plants scattered over the whole of Japan. Nuclear power on the surface has many advantages over other power sources, mainly in the carbon footprint it has in comparison with traditional power generation techniques, but once unleashed, radiation has a deadly outcome , and unlike other illness causing forces in the world, is invisible and unpredictable where and when it will strike once mixed with the elements.

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From Jack ( who attended both days of the event):

A number of us attended the Anti Nuclear Power Conference last weekend at Yokohama. I was impressed with the number of attendees and also with the number of regular police, plainclothes police and riot police in the area. It shows how nervous the government is about the people of Japan awakening to the fact that “safe nuclear power” is a nonsensical statement.

Alishan donated daily snacks and refreshments for the organizers in the weeks leading up to the event and served Alishan Cafe Curry at the event reception. Both acts were very satisfying for us.

I found many interesting talks at the event. Daily contract workers at the Fukushima TEPCO plants discussing their jobs. Their salaries are nothing special, ¥15,000 daily was not unusual. Their dream assignment was to get picked for a two hour assignment in a high radiation area for ¥10,000. Sobering.

I have been involved with anti nuclear demonstrations and conferences since my college days. I found the collection of posters on display to be stimulating, good looking and numerous times emotionally strong. To see more please see the slideshow above

I feel “cautiously optimistic” that we in Japan have a golden opportunity to follow the German example and phase it out. It will take twenty years but first we have to make the government agree to the desires of the people. I ask what are you doing to help that happen?

Valentines is rapidly approaching; if your loved one happens to be vegan we have three raw chocolate bars which taste fantastic (it’s not great in baking though). Or how about the Fair Trade Company’s bitter chocolate? Great as it is and delicious in baking too.

If you’d like to try your hand at making a chocolaty treat this year here’s a nice easy recipe you can try using our new fair trade cocoa powder:

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＜Ingredients＞

• 1 cup dates
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (softened at room temperature)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• scant pinch salt
• rum (optional, to taste)

• Coating – anything you like: cocoa powder, coconut flakes, kinako, macha powder, crushed nuts etc.
  

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＜Method＞

1. Remove the pits from the dates (or use pitted dates) and mix in a food processor to a rough paste. This can be done by hand but needs plenty of elbow grease!
2. Mix in other ingredients. Again, a food processor is easier if you have one.
3. Leave in the fridge overnight until firm.
4. Roll or shape, coat and eat! Whoops, no, and give to your loved one
   

There have been a number of reports in recent years on the health benefits of cocoa. Here are a few of the choice top news items

“New research published in the open access journal Chemistry Central Journal demonstrates that chocolate is a rich source of antioxidants and contains more polyphenols and flavanols than fruit juice.”

“When they compared the amount of antioxidants, per serving, of dark chocolate, cocoa, hot chocolate mix and fruit juices they found that both dark chocolate and cocoa had a greater antioxidant capacity and a greater total flavanol, and polyphenol, content than the fruit juices.”

“The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI.”

So there seem to be a great many advantages to eating cocoa. However, the main point in all of these studies is that it is the cocoa bean in all it’s bitter glory that is good for you and NOT chocolate. Even cocoa powder minus the sugar is still lacking in a lot of the health benefits which are removed when the cocoa is processed. Still, I’m sure there is even just a small amount of goodness left in cocoa if not in milk chocolate. If you’d like these health benefits try to make your warming cup of cocoa with hot water and a dash of milk/soy milk/oat milk rather than straight milk. Go easy on the sweetener too. If you’re craving chocolate go for a small amount of bitter dark and not a bar of milk. As with any food small, sensible servings will do you far more good in the long term.