基本篇 － 材料必需品 (BASIC – basic necessities)

古語有雲，開門七件事 － 柴米油鹽醬醋茶，這些是廚房必需品。 在古時沒有商業化，人們沒有所用的大多也比較天然的材料；但現代的社會，這些必需品經過商業化後，選擇已多不星數，在選講時真的要小心一點，小編會在這裏簡單地逐一解釋油、鹽及糖的知識。

In old century, people always said the most essential open seven things (daily needs of the household) : firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. However, people almost got the most natural materials at that time. Although, in todays world, you can have various choices of these items, unfortunately, some are refined, therefore, I hereby, will explain in a simple way of oil, salt and sugar.

油 (Oil)
其實在超市走一轉也發現，食用油真的很多，有花生油、芥花籽油、橄欖油、栗米油、葵花籽油等等等等，但小編只用初榨橄欖油，當然，如果讀者有錢的話，可以選擇椰子油，這兩款油也是比較健康的。
為什麼不用其他油？ 老實話，大部份也是配方油，不是真正的提取油，加上那些花生油，葵花籽油在高溫下會釋放有害物質。

Supermarkets in Hong Kong, you can find so so many types of oil : peanut oil, Canola oil, corn oil，olive oil, etc.. But for me, I’m just only use extra virgin olive oil, this is the most healthier choice. Of course, if you can afford, coconut oil is the best choice.
But why not choose other type of oil? Most of time are just a formula oil, not really taken from real and some oil will release toxic material when heating.

鹽 (Salt)
市面上的鹽一般有粗鹽、餐桌鹽、海鹽。 一般來說，海鹽比其他鹽為健康，因為直接從海水抽取蒸發出來的，而粗鹽及餐桌鹽則經過精製過的。

You can commonly find Kosher salt, table salt and sea salt. Generally, sea salt is the most healthiest salt, it is directly separate and evaporate from sea. However, kosher salt and table salt are refined salt.

糖 (Sugar)
最常見的種類有白糖、黃糖、片糖、冰糖、蔗糖和黑糖，所有糖也是從甘蔗提取出來的。但白糖及黄糖則精製過，沒有了甘蔗本身的營養，只保留甜味，而黃糖是從白糖裏加入糖蜜，所以才有淡啡色。片糖及冰糖也是精製糖，但原裝蔗糖及黑糖則是最天然、最健康的，它保留了甘蔗的礦物質及營養，所以小編會用蔗糖來作煮食用，而黑糖卻用於製造麵包。

There are few types of sugar you can find in the market : granulated sugar, brown sugar, slice sugar, rock sugar, raw sugar and black sugar, all type of sugars are taken from cane. However, granulated sugar and brown sugar are refined sugar, no more nutrition but sweetness and brown sugar is using granulated sugar added with molasses. Slicer sugar and rock sugar are refined combined sugar. Thus, the most natural and healthiest sugar is raw sugar and black sugar, they most remain the most nutrition value of the cane. I usually use raw sugar for cooking and curing and black sugar for making bread.