That day, I went home with a bag of supersized vegetables, sweet herbs, and more than one type of kale – a rare occurrence for a junk food addict like me.
Dinner that night was verdant greens, with a side of storytelling.
I told my kids about the mum with a secret warehouse farm she was fiercely fighting to save in high-cost, land-scarce Singapore. And for the first time, I did not have to fight with them about finishing their vegetables.
FROM PARTY GIRL TO FARMER
Before she became a mother in 2003, Lim said she was a “big-time party girl” working her way through the nightlife circuit in Mohamed Sultan Road every weekend. When she got pregnant, many were sceptical of the type of mother she would be. She ended up making their jaws drop – in a good way, said Lim.
“I never thought I could love someone so much,” she said of her children. “Because I love them so much, I wanted them to grow up to be strong and healthy.”
Lim wanted to breastfeed her firstborn, but could not because of low milk supply. Wracked by mum guilt, she pored over nutrition and recipe books – 80 to 100 in total.
By the time her daughter was two, she was supplementing her diet with a daily mix of kale powder and water. After she gave birth to two more children, the mother-of-three switched up to fresh vegetable juices boosted with superfood powder containing spirulina, moringa and beet.
This continued for many years until 2016, when Lim chanced upon a magazine article stating that most produce is grown with a lot of pesticides.
“I was shocked and angry because at that time, I was doing my utmost to feed my kids vegetables, green juices and green smoothies. And all this while, I’d been feeding pesticides to my children,” she said.
