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Musk it out

Many females out there are mesmerized by the smell of that nice musky perfume, and cant wait to get your hands on a bottle of it. The males out there are equally knocked-over by the musky-sweet scent emitting from their female partners.

But before you put on one more spray of your favourite perfume, do learn more about how the musk in it came about.

Picture: A musk deer

Musk is an aromatic substance that was originally known as a glandular secretion from animals, the most common of which is the musk deer (and that explains its name). Other animals that secrete similar musk-like odour includes the musk duck, muskox, musk shrew, muskrat, African civet and in some reptiles. Most of the animals are endangered.

To obtain the musk, the animal is usually killed in order to extract the “musk-pod” that contains the much prized substance.

It was not until much later that people considered looking to plants to obtain musk-like substances as a more humane substitute of animal musk. And with the advance of technology, it was later possible to create synthetic musk sometimes known as “white musk”.

So before you give in to temptation to get a bottle of that sweet-smelling fragrance, ask if the musk it contains came from a nature-friendly source. It’s just so simple to show your commitment to our Earth, and to yourself.

Gong Xi "Fa Cai"

The Lunar New Year is approaching for the Calendar Year 2013. To the Chinese, a festive celebration is hardly one without good food and everything auspicious.

A sumptuous dish of the black moss (known as “Fa Cai 发菜”) would be familiar to many as a must-have during the lunar new year feast. Few traditional families could resist the name of the ingredient as a homophone for “strike it rich” in the Chinese language and the Cantonese dialect. 

 

Black Moss known as "Fa Cai"

A dish of "Fa Cai"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much obsessed in starting a new year with a good and prosperous beginning, few of us will question the origin of our food and the benefits it brings – and thus, whether it is so worthwhile consuming it afterall.

Not known to many, the black moss is a photosynthetic moss found in the grounds of the Gobi Desert and Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China. To harvest the moss, the land has to be overturned, causing severe damage to the top-soil and its inhabitants. The land would inevitably be subjected to soil erosion and desertification. It will be many years before the upturned lands recover from such geological damages. 

It was reported that China has banned the export of “Fa Cai” since year 2000, listing it as an endangered species (Yahoo Entertainment: “Fa Cai Is Not Quite So For Mother Nature”, 11 January 2013). This has caused the price of the available “Fa cai” in the market to sky-rocket, and for unethical businesses to invent the adulterated form of the actual black moss.

Environmental consciousness aside, are there other compelling reasons to stop this tradition of consuming the auspicious ingredient? Research on the black moss has found it to contain a toxic amino acid that could affect the normal functions of nerve cells and could lead to degenerate diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and dementia. On a different basis, however, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore has declared the ones sold in the market here is safe for consumption.

 
Being harmful to the environment, pegged with an exorbitant price and with no real nutritional value whatsoever, the “Fa Cai” cannot be too auspicious afterall.