Just Eat Just Produce

‘Fried noodle, no veggies please,’ 

That is my default answer when ordering food. I was never a fan of vegetables. 

Recently, when I decided to keep a check on my diet I thought, why not?

I read a book about healthy eating, thanks to the pandemic and it mentioned that our diet has to be water-rich and by no way, it means drink water till you are bloated. By definition, a water-rich diet means one has to consume a meal that contains about 70% water given the proportion of water our body carries. This means filling in your plate with fruits and vegetables. 

I love fruits because they are colourful, tasteful and crunchy. Its properties befit a healthy dessert and tantalize your palate with a spectrum of sweet and sour. When it comes to vegetables though, it is not the same. They taste like leaves (what was I expecting, meat?) and some taste like there’s an extra ingredient - soil.

I guess another reason for me not to eat vegetables is the idea that they have direct contact with soil - call me picky, whatever. Fruits on the other hand do not sprout out from the ground. The optics for vegetables are not as interesting to me. Worse, when it goes into cooking, everything just looks dead, soulless and where is the greenery after that?

Even when made into a salad, I can’t be sure if the vegetables are washed as clean. If the vegetables are imported elsewhere, who knows the places it went through on its way here?

I have been watching documentaries on how our city is moving into a self-reliant production of fresh produce, 30 by 30 vision where 30% of our fresh produce is to be produced by 2030. Interestingly, this includes vertical hydroponics farms with technologies to alter the indoor climate via light and temperature control to augment the freshness and taste without the use of harmful chemicals or genetic modification which has been controversial.

The last thing you want to know is that your assumed healthy vegetables are pumped with polluted fertilisers and modified genetically.

This week, I found out that Just Produce ticks the checklist of being hydroponically grown indoors - free of soil, fresh in taste and better in flavour. 

Just Produce is a homegrown business producing just that. They serve both B2B and B2C segments as such you’ll know as a consumer you are getting restaurant grade ingredients.

The vegetables are superb, perfect to munch and crunch when you feel like it. Now with the pandemic, I think most of us binge eat a lot! So why not make a healthy snack?

This is terrible but, when I tried the vegetables back home I forgot to wash them as mentioned on the label! Somehow, I was not too worried because there’s no soil contact and I trust our factories and vertical farms are pristine clean.

No matter, please do not do that! Washing your fresh ingredients is always a good practice as bacteria might stick along the way on its trip to your table!

Here are the three vegetables you should try! Just Sorrel if you love something tangy and sour yet nothing too overwhelming to get rid of fishy tastes. Just Ice Plant is great as a snack of its own as it is not only succulent but flavourful as it is grown and infused with Himalayan Salt. If you love wasabi, Just Mustard is just the one vegetable you should have in the fridge.

They can be found online via Shopee, Singapore Food United and of course, our heartland NTUC FairPrice. Check them out and tell me what you think!