nutrition 27
AUGUST, 2018 | The HEALTH
nutrition 27
Fittie Sense reinvents healthy cuisines
ANGSAR born and bred, Victor Yap embarked
B on his new passion project, Fittie Sense hoping to reinvent the Malaysians perspective of what it means to eat healthy without having to sacrifice our taste buds. With an aim of creating food that is still edible, founding member, Victor creates dishes that comes off as comfort food but also with balanced nutrition on the plate. Prior to opening Fittie Sense, Victor surveyed the market and realised most place offering healthy meals were done on the basis of meal preparation or on a fast food style for those with a busy schedule. Victor however had set up Fittie Sense in order to provide a dine-in experience for the similar group of people.
“ My idea of healthy is different than your idea of healthy. I want to put out what we believe is healthy in a non-preachy manner,” said Victor with a concept of creating tasty dishes which just so happens to be healthy.
As per the requests the café received last year, Fittie Sense also caters to those who are in need of specific dietary supplements.
This year’ s trend being keto and vegan, Victor said he curates his menu to offer a variety in order to cater these requests.“ There’ s always a bit of something for everyone.” One example given by him on how he reshapes the food he loves into something healthier, is by trying to achieve
a similar flavour but with healthier ingredients. Part of eating well is knowing where your food comes from, with his sea bass coming all the way from Kuala Selangor and his red meat arriving from the pasture raised grass fed beef from Australia.
Adopting a similar fashion to salad bars, he offers his customers an experience of curating their own meals with the‘ Piece Meal’ service.
“ This will allow them to calculate their calories and macros as well” he said, hoping the additional service will also appeal to those with a tighter budget as each ingredient is priced separately.
Piece Meal menu designed to cater for those who are fussy about their food and would also like to count their macros.
Veganism on a budget
OFTEN glamourised by magazines, veganism is a trend that is picking up in the city. However going organic in the city centre has a price to pay but is it really sustainable in the long term?
CrossFit coach and marketer, Jonathan Nyst( pic) spoke to The HEALTH on the documentary that changed him, how almond milk is still the fancier and the best blood test results he has gotten.
Walking down the aisle of any high end grocery store looking for the right products to add into your vegan diet can empty your pockets at quite the rate. However, Jonathan said otherwise.“ You don’ t have to constantly enter high-end stores to fill your fridge. Malaysians are fortunate to have access to the“ pasar malam” and all the cheap vegetables you can buy”.
With existing Chinese and Indian restaurants offering vegetarian dishes, it certainly provided him more choices compared to when he was back in Belgium and the only viable option he had was white rice. Being a vegan in a country like Malaysia also means the need to be flexible. Jonathan said that there are times you can’ t help but end up eating Indian food cooked in ghee, however he does try to request his food to be cooked a certain way when possible.
Being vegan in Malaysia
Prior to his move to Malaysia three years ago, Jonathan was a bank consultant in Belgium who wouldn’ t go a day without red meat in his diet. So what had him entering a practice that was the complete opposite of his daily menu?
“ Documentaries reflecting the reality of the cattle industry got to me. Reading and researching more cemented the need to become a vegan immediately,” said Jonathan making the choice initially based on ethics and environmental consciousness.
Health benefits
Having done CrossFit for over five years and training every day, Jonathan said its part and parcel of the routine to experience pain but with slow and hard recovery, it made training a lot harder as well. Going vegan had him paying extra attention to his food and over time, his wellbeing got better. In return, it allowed him to train more as he was able to recover more as well and the change in diet was visible in his blood test as well.
“ It was the best blood test results I have received!” claims Jonathan.
It also showed that his protein levels were at a suitable level defeating the constantly argued‘ where do you get your protein? arguments by meat lovers.