jaliljamil.com – Page 2 – My thoughts. My views. Any topic apart from politics, race, religion.

Happy New Year 2018!!!

January 8, 2018 No Comments

The new year is already a few days old and I have not wished my readers a prosperous, healthy and wealthy new year. An oversight I beg your forgiveness for. I wish for all of us, a very good year indeed.

For Malaysians, we will have a general election soon. Could it be the most hard-fought elections ever? I pray that we as a nation have a safe and uneventful election. For whatever it’s worth, my advice has always been to study the incumbent and choose according to their ability to serve the electorate fairly, and without any racial or religious bias.

Malaysia is a small peaceful country and its citizens wish to continue living in peace.

To a wonderful year ahead.

Food & Health

Malaysian breakfast specials – Getting value for money [Opinion]

May 4, 2017 No Comments

A good Malaysian breakfast of 2 eggs, toasts and coffee

It is said that a good and proper breakfast is important to start a day. We should eat like a king for breakfast. I personally try to have a good breakfast before work. On the odd occasions that I do eat outside, I would have a breakfast special at any of the chain restaurants available. Usually, a breakfast special would combine different dishes and are priced slightly less than the items individually. That is a common practice here in Malaysia particularly.

Recently I went to a local restaurant chain which charges RM8.88 (before GST of 6%) for a breakfast special of toasted bread, 2 boiled eggs and beverage of coffee or tea. That I thought was also value for money. I then went again after about 2 weeks, and I noticed that the menu had changed. A new menu has been introduced. When I asked, I was told that the old menu was out of date as they have introduced new food items and taken out some less popular items from the menu.

As I thought the breakfast special was good value, I asked for a breakfast special. I was told that the special is still RM8.88, but consist of a main dish and a beverage. To have 2 boiled eggs as an add-on, we have to pay an additional RM2.00. Now, that sounds like a price increase though nicely hidden, so as not to be too obvious! The staff said some people complained there was too much food in the breakfast special, so they decided to change it but served it all day long. So it is now just a special meal.

This a common trick used in restaurants whenever there is a price increase. Usually, a restaurant hides its price increase by subtly reducing the portion sizes of the food items. In this instance, they couldn’t make the toast any smaller, nor could they make the eggs any smaller! So, they package it differently!

I am sure that the people who complain are such a small number but it was just an excuse for them to do what they intended, i.e., have a price increase. So I am going to check out other local restaurant chains if they too have changed their pricings for a breakfast special.

Food & Health, General

Do we eat healthy food?

November 18, 2016 No Comments

In this modern world, we often have to eat out. However, for home cooked meals, we have to be sure the ingredients are from a reliable source. There are several ways for us to ensure the choices we make are healthy ones.

We often wonder if the food we eat is nutritious and that it would make us healthy and keep us healthy. We would naturally prefer foods that are sourced from naturally grown, pesticide-free produce and animals fed with natural feed meals. However, when humans decided to produce food based on quantity rather than quality, most farms have become manufacturing plants, i.e., mechanising their processes. Since then, food has become overly processed in order to allow for a long shelf life, which minimises production costs due to optimal production size and ensuring larger profit margins.

We also live in a time when we are unsure of the food that we eat every day, whether it is real or fake. We read of artificial cabbages and eggs from China. We have unclear food labelling of products from the United States. It has the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) which is supposedly meant to protect its consumers. However, producers often circumvent these rules by saying half-truths, i.e., they are not absolutely lying as it falls within the limits of the FDA rules. Some so-called healthy food choices are not, but since their sugar content falls below the minimum, they claim to be. Often fructose is added too.

As a man in the street, I suggest we choose free-farmed meat and poultry. Free-farmed products remain on pasture from birth to market. Cattle raised this way thus, consume a natural diet of legumes and grasses of their choosing.

Beware though that sometimes terms such as ‘free-roaming’ or ‘hormone free’ are used to express the products are safe, although they may not be. ‘Hormone-free’ and ‘antibiotic-free’ only guarantee the meat or poultry product had undetectable traces of antibiotics or hormones at the time of slaughter or processing. These are readings made which use samples of the products at that point in time, and may not represent all that is actually produced.

I suggest we use common sense to check our food that we buy. Some tests include smelling the items to be bought and choosing products that have shorter shelf life, meaning the product is as close to being in its natural form. For example, when we buy milk in the grocery store, and their expiry date is another year or more than six (6) months, I would think that it has been processed so much to allow milk to stay fresh for so long. So we should choose milk or milk products with shorter expiry dates.

As a rule of thumb, if the product has a longer shelf life, it means it has been processed extensively.

In summary, we should do the following:

Smell the item. If they are vegetable produce, smell the items to be bought.
Check the expiry date. As I said earlier, shorter expiry indicates a more natural product.
Read labels for additives and preservatives added. They are usually better if none are added.
Check that the ingredients used are from natural sources.
Check for sugar and salt content, if provided.
Check the fat used is not trans fat.

Good luck in your food choices. Do not eat too much of a certain food. Be moderate always.

Business 101, Who Am I?

My Oxide Green Diary

May 3, 2016 No Comments

I met my son after lunch recently. I have not met him for a while. The first words my son spoke to me were not the usual salutations we exchange as Muslims. Instead he asked, “What’s with that bright coloured diary?”

My son and family know me as an ultra-conservative, reluctant to try new trends in fashion and usually dressed in plain colours like grey, blue and earth shades. My wife tried to change that and bought me a dark green material for a shirt. Well, I duly got it made. My daughter felt I wasn’t quite comfortable with the dark green colour, and chose a lighter green material also some time back. Well they are both made into fine shirts and are still in my cupboard, looking quite pristine! J

So, bright green is a colour not associated with me.

So now I need to explain to my son how I ended up buying a green coloured diary.

As is a common denominator among businesses, earnings are quite important. Non-profit organizations and such likes often claim to profit marginally, although we are all aware of many cases where charity is a money making process! I shall not go into that.

If a company has strong mass appeal and its main clientele are the glamorous people of this world, than a product may only be worth RM200, but is sold at RM2000 to a strong base of purchasers.

These are the top brands of the world such as Apple, Microsoft, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Louis Vuitton, etc. Now look at brands such as Olay, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Lancome which pays millions of US Dollars for their Brand Ambassadors. Does it not make you wonder how much they really make?

As a consumer, I refuse to be forced to buy products which are greatly over-priced. Do you think I am being a cheapskate? Whatever you may believe, I try my best to buy things at less than the actual recommended retail price.

So, as I explained to my son, I have always used organizers and diaries so I would not be hassled by unexpected events. These items can be expensive unless one buys the generic ones or one at Daiso. Daiso diaries are in Japanese, so one has to guess what is actually printed on the diary. So the cheaper diaries won’t do. Thus, the expensive ones are usually the better ones.

I used to follow the Franklin Covey system when I was working. These I found were extremely helpful. They have daily sheets for every day of the year. Franklin Covey sells yearly diaries and 18-month diaries which either starts in July or January. Often I would go in September or March to buy them as they would be at a discount. Often the discount is as high as 50%. Thus I would be paying half price for an 18-month diary. That means I pay for at a value of a 9-month diary for use for 15 months! Is that not worth it?

Now, as I get older I do not have appointments every day. So I use other diaries. But still the same principles apply when buying a new diary. So two weeks into January I went looking at those slightly more expensive diaries. Alas, they don’t have them in my favourite colours anymore. Well I need to be organized so I bought my bright oxide green diary at half its original selling price, two weeks into January!

Two thoughts come to mind.

One is as an individual my concern is not to waste money. It doesn’t mean being a cheapskate, but getting the best value for what one pays.

Another is as a businessman. One must maximize one’s income and the pricing mechanism is key in a business success. One doesn’t sell an item RM110 if its production cost is RM100, because the selling price needs to cover for advertising, packaging, transportation, storage and many more.

I shall write articles for these two thoughts in two websites:

jaliljamil.com for my personal opinions, thoughts, etc., and
vibrant-pro.com for my business ideas, systems, etc.

Feel free to comment on these sites.

First uploaded February 2013.

General

Happy New Year 2016

December 31, 2015 No Comments

This video is about how forgiveness is being treated as a disease, claimed to be a factor in causing major diseases such as cancer. It has been shown that those with cancer can be improved and sometimes cured by forgiving and not bearing grudges.

The year is coming to an end. Let us bring in 2016 with a clean slate and forgive those who have hurt us so that we can move forwards on with our lives.

I have learned a lot this past year and know that regret is the worse thing for us to endear. I have had a mixed year, although it is better than the previous years.

I have read more books this last year and I have found re-reading some older books have not only enlightened me, it has made me see things differently from my initial reading. Although early in the year I was rudely told not to waste my time reading books by Robert T. Kiyosaki, because it will not make me rich! I can’t remember which one I was reading at that time, but I did not respond. I just smiled.

Moving forward, my mind has become more like a sponge this year by reading favorite books and articles on business, healthy lifestyles, etc.

May there be more health, wealth and joy for all my friends here in the coming year ahead.

Happy New Year.

Who Am I?

Hello!

November 24, 2015 No Comments

I’m new to blogging. I enjoy reading. I have written. I was an award winning Bulletin editor for two years running, for a weekly newsletter of a Malaysian NGO with International links.

Stay close, as I will soon be filling these pages with my personal thoughts on aging, business, health, coffee, football (specifically Liverpool F.C.) and hopefully many interesting topics.

Obviously, no politics, no racial issues, no religion.

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