Wunderlich

Malaysia is situated in south east Asia and is rather unusual in that one part lies south of Thailand on the south east Asian peninsular, with Singapore at its tip. This is where the capital, Kuala Lumpur, is to be found. The other part lies across the South China Sea and forms the northern one third of the island of Borneo, surrounding the Sultanate of Brunei.

Malaysia has a mixed history which reflects in today's cuisine.

In the 15th Century, the southwest (April to October) and northeast (October to February) monsoons brought the ships of the Arabs, Indians and Chinese who traded in spices, silk and precious stones. Many of the traders remained behind and married local women. A slow conversion to Islam began, which meant that pork was excluded from the Malay diet.

The 16th Century saw the arrival of the Portuguese, who brought chillies with them, the Dutch and the British, all of whom remained for some time to rule the country.

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain established colonies and protectorates in the area and brought in more Indians and Chinese to work in the tin mines and rubber plantations. Many of these Asians stayed too and from all these influences, current day Malay cuisine evolved.

Originally, Malay cooking consisted of fish flavoured with shrimp paste, pepper, ginger, turmeric, lemon grass or tamarind. Rice was always a staple in this area and being a major part of Indian and Chinese food too, remained as central to the diet. Muslim Malays excluded pork and Indian Hindus excluded beef but delicate Chinese flavourings, Indian spices and herbs from South East Asian made an appearance.

Nasi means cooked rice in Malay and Nasi Goreng, that well known Indonesian dish, is cooked rice, usually fried with flavourings for breakfast. For special occasions it has a fried egg on top. But I digress, Malay Nasi dishes include Nasi Kander, much influenced by Indian cuisine and consisting of both fish and meat curry, rice and hard boiled eggs. This dish used to be bought from an itinerant salesman who carried his wares in baskets suspended from a pole over his shoulder (kinder means shoulder in an Indian dialect). A bit of everything would be placed on a banana leaf and the sauce dripped over the hard boiled eggs.

The Malays adopted some Indian recipes and in return the Indians started to add galangal, lemon grass and coconut to their food. Then came the food of the Nonyas which resulted from the marriage of Malay men to Chinese women which introduced Chinese seasonings such as star anise and salty soy sauce.

The resultant cuisine is a pleasant mix of hot and spicy with mild and perfumed.

Liz Canham:

As well as a love of Asian cooking as you can see in her Asian Food and Cookery website, Liz seeks to help newcomers to the world of internet marketing with tools, tips and training from her Liz-e-Biz website.

Hair loss or baldness is a condition in which hair does not grow on the scalp after hair fall. The most common form of baldness is the development of a hair thinning condition called androgenic alopecia or male baldness which occurs in adult males.

The nature of hair loss or baldness can vary greatly. These are the types of hair loss

1. Androgenic alopecia: Loss of hair in men is called as androgenic alopecia.

2. Alopecia areata: Here hair loss occurs in some portions of the head.

3. Alopecia totalis: In this the hair loss occurs over the entire scalp to an extreme limit.

4. Alopecia universalis: This involves the loss of all hair from the entire body.

The other less common kinds of baldness are:

1) Traction alopecia: This type of hair loss is mostly observed in people with ponytails who pull their hair with excessive force while combing. Wearing a hat for more than 8 hours also causes hair loss. The scalp should breathe at least 7 hours in a day.

2) Telogen effluvioum: Hair loss some times occurs due to causes like major surgery, poisoning, child birth, chemotherapy severe stress etc and such condition is known as telogen effluvium.

3) Mycotic Infections: Mycotic infections can cause massive hair loss.

4) Alopecia areata: This type hair loss is known as spot baldness and is caused due to autoimmune disorder.

Prevention Methods

A variety of treatment is available for hair loss. However, even today the treatment for alopecia has a limited success rate. Prevention is better than cure is very much applicable to hair loss. It is much easier to prevent the falling out of healthy hair than re-growing new ones. Regular exercise can help keep androgen levels low naturally and reduce falling of hair. Stress reduction can stop hair loss. A balanced and nutritious diet reduces the falling of hair to a great extent.

Find more about Hair Loss on http://www.LeanderNet.com/Hair_loss/Hair_loss_treatment.php . More useful content on LeanderNet - http://www.LeanderNet.com