Talofa and Good milky Monday morning to you. Sister Rasela here with you this morning, buckled in for another exciting episode in the belly kitchen where each week from 11 til midday we take you on a culinary adventure and discuss all kinds of topics related to food. Sometimes we roam far and wide for our stories and as we speak I’m sure Sister Tes is brewing something up for next weeks show but mostly we like to keep them local and relevant. Yesterday I grazed around the pastural streets of Byron and had lunch in an incredibly conscious café where they have a whole wall dedicated to sharing information about many of the things that we as consumers might take
for granted. One of those things might be MILK. Mothers, powdered, animal, carton, fresh from the udder, however you got it in those first days of your life, we all got it. How many of us still need it ? I wanted to find out.

Excited much !!

Where better to stand but outside one of our local supermarkets. Lots of people rush in to grab a pint or two (next best thing to the pub some say) and i thank you all for paying attention to this BayFM busker. It was me gently nudging a microphone in the happy faces of you shoppers and passers by, trying to get you to part with your voice as well as your thoughts and opinions so that i could get an idea of not only the diversity of you lovely people in the Shire on this particular day, but also the variations of your favorite white stuff. Bottled, bucketed, raw, flavoured, soy, rice, nut milks, skimmed milk, full fat, half fat, homogenised, goats, buffalo’s, a twist of kaluha. You all very gracefully gave your choices and why. Some were educated conclusions and some thought about only once the question was actually asked …

Q. “What milk do you drink?”

A. “Full cream, normal stuff”

Q. “Why?”

A. “Why not ??” was one answer !!

Well, we’ll here from a few other members of our community. One or two people mentioned a brand name and that’s not because I am indorsing any of the brands, I just thought it important to leave it in because they went on to explain why that was their choice which was more what I wanted to get across.

Let’s have a listen to what some of you folk out there in the Shire had to say when i asked the question … What kind of MILK do you drink and WHY ?? – audio

Shake it up baby !!

Did you have tea or coffee this morning with milk ? Did you splash it on your cereal ? Are you drinking a glass of it now ? Are you looking forward to sinking a glass of it later ? If you answered yes to any of the above, then what’s your preference and WHY ?

I guess why is the important word here because when I did some super sleuth secret squirrel investigating, into what milk was available to us here from your average supermarket, guess how many variations of MILK I found ? I bet you can’t …. Ok, I’ll help you.

One hundred and nine !!!!!!! There were 61 on the shelves of the pre packedvariety and another forty eight in the refrigerated section. That’s alot of choice for a town that has a popultion of around 9,ooo.

There is no right or wrong, and if there is, it’s up to YOU can decide what is best for you alone.As a nutritionist and a presenter here on this beautiful community radio station of ours, it gives me great joy to open up little pockets of information that you otherwise may not have known, and give you as much of that information as possible so that you can take control of your own life and make informed and educated decisions on what you put into … INTO … this uniquely gorgeous body of yours.

Blended in with all of that, like a creamy banana smoothie, I’m going to play you some local and Australian music from the likes of Kooii and Kingfisha who were here in town on Saturday night and had me movin and groovin non stop for hours, keeping both warm and fit as their amazing musicianship filled the soul, just as good food does the belly, leaving me feeling very happy.

Here’s a track from Bobby Alu, who provides the percussion side of things for Kooii, and who you may also recognize as the drummer for Oka. He’s pretty hard to miss, my beautiful Samoan brother. This track is called “Love you more” – http://youtu.be/VqlEkbX72F0

I’ll be back to squeeze some fresh drops out of the milking udder and fill you in on what you might not already know about the great white !!