Life in the Philippines

So this has nothing to do with living in the Philippines but it has everything to do with living in general.  Every day there seems to be something new regarding the studies done on various diseases and how to avoid them.  I was looking today for info on some Low Carb plans because I do know low carb eating works better for me.  In my searches I ran across a web site with info on the effects of low carb diets in mice and how equated to a decrease in risk for Alzheimers.  I’m not debating the study. I don’t know enough to debate it but the whole topic just struck me as odd. Exactly how do you know a mouse is exhibiting symptoms of Alzheimers????

If  you’re a fruit lover this is definitely a place you’d enjoy.  The markets are full of fresh fruits year round and in restaurants you can order a fruit shake from  many different flavors.  Mango is a favorite for the folks in this house. You might have guessed we were when I posted the mango and orange  juice picture earlier. 

Mangos are plentiful. You can even get them in different varieties including mini sized ones, these were less than the size of a small pear.

Not exactly a fruit, but still in the sweet food vein, are the sweet potatoes here. The sweet potato is known as Ube. It is purple in color and is used for a sweet sticky cake about the texture of a thick but hardened pudding.  It is also used in ice creams and in halo halo or as a flavor in sweet breads or donuts.  I have not tried baking one like we do American sweet potatoes but it is on my list of things to attempt.  Ube is also sold as ube jam. We bought some in Tagaytay thinking it would be jam. It’s not jam as we think of it but more of a sweet item to eat. You can’t spread this on toast as far as I can tell! More to come about fruits in future days as we are always trying something new.

On Monday I’ll do another blog about the cost of the items I pictured last week (See blog here) but let me tell you about my lesson learned while grocery shopping yesterday.  Grocery shopping has always been my thing to do alone. It is my chance to be out on my own, enjoy the time, plan our meals and just get away. That ended when I arrived here.  First, before you can even think about shopping you have to think about parking. Many stores don’t have readily available parking and I have a tough time backing into a space. So I wind up waiting until someone can take me to the store and drop me off.  Second, most stores won’t have everything I want so meal planning goes out the window and you wind up just buying something in hopes of figuring out what to make from it. 

Yesterday, Chris wanted sandwich meat.  You can find liquor at the grocery store but not sandwich meat.  Well at least not what we are used to.  Remember my “accept it, adapt and move on” motto? Well that was the plan. I chose to go to a small grocery store close to the deli which has ham we like.  It’s expensive ham but that’s the adapt part.  The decision is not which ham or which store, it is “do I want to spend this much on a sandwich?”

The small store has limited items but a good meat selection so I was able to grab some ground pork and boneless chicken breast for meals this week.  Several times as I passed, a young lady asked would I like to try the fresh squeezed orange juice. I am not a big OJ fan so I passed the first two times. The thrid time I just said, “sure I’ll take two bottles.”  Now, these juice bottles are a couple of cups of juice. Oranges here run about 10 pesos a piece and labor is not expensive at all.  I had just grabbed a new Minute Made juice which is mango and orange. It was a one liter bottle and was 50 pesos. I thought, ok the smaller bottle might be the same price since it is hand squeezed.

I was shocked to see the smaller bottle was priced 170 pesos. TRIPLE the cost of the big bottle. So I paid $3.40 for a small bottle of juice and I had asked for TWO.  Ouch - Cost of groceries in the Philippines - lesson learned: Ask how much before you decide to buy!

Ariel celebrated her birthday last week. Hard to believe she has grown up so much from the tiny premature baby she once was. It’s funny how I used to worry about her lack of speech and now I wonder if she can learn to be quiet Ariel loves the pretty designs on Red Ribbon Cakes so for her birthday we had a Black Forest Junior cake. We only had the junior one because we bought a second one (Cookies and Cream) for our anniversary which is the same day. No picture of that one though, didn’t think to make one. Here’s the Birthday girl celebrating #9

Here’s a guessing game for you. I picked up a few things from the store today and thought I’d give you the chance to learn about food prices here in the Philippines.  These items were bought at Cash and Carry store in Manila.  I am giving a couple of pictures because I am going to ask you to line them up in what you think is the highest to lowest cost item.  Add your list as a comment to this thread.  I’ll come back on Monday the 17th and reveal the prices and explain some of the reasons for prices being what they are.

Picture 1: The group of items:

Picture 2: Up close of the items in the Wok

Here’s the list of the items, in no particular order:
Dole Bananas: there are 6 in the bag
A single size lays chips bag
Oreo Cookie single serving pack, has 3 cookies
Oreo Minis pack
Bag of Walnuts, 2 1/2 cups
Energizer Batteries 4 pack AA
Orchard Fresh Lean and Light Four Seasons Juice Drink, single serving plastic bottle
The Wok it all sits in
A Kilo of Medium level ground Beef (probably equates to an 80/20 in the US) and a Kilo is 2.2 lbs
1 Litre of LowFat Milk
1 Ocean Spray CranApple Juice
1 Bottle of Lemon and Lime Gin (about the size of a wine bottle and yes I bought it at the Grocery store!)
1 500 gram (100 cup serving) Coffee Mate

So there’s the list. Line them up in price order and if you want to take a guess at how much they cost, feel free to do so.