Mooncakes!

 It is Mid-Autumn Festival and that means it's time for mooncakes! 

The Mid-Autumn Festival has over 3,000 years of history, originating from ancient Chinese moon worship practices and harvest celebrations. It became an official holiday during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) and is now one of China's major festivals. Popular legends, like the tale of Chang'e and Hou Yi (featured in my new book) are associated with the festival and explain many of its traditions, such as mooncakes and moon-gazing.

Mooncakes are a traditional delicacy of the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are characterised by their thin, pastry crust and sweet, rich fillings like lotus seed paste, red bean paste,  or a combination of nuts and seeds. Many different variations have popped up over the years, and we have tried three of the biggest vegan brands in Hong Kong: Years, The Cakery, and CocoParadise. 

I love how Years and CocoParadise both opted out of the traditional and often excessive packaging used. This packaging includes trays, individual wrapping, boxes, gift bags, with some sets containing dozens of unnecessary items leading to what we call the moon cake packaging problem. This issue is a serious environmental concern and I love that both these companies have reduced their packaging.

The first mooncake we tried is the Pandan Coconut Custard Mooncake from The Cakery. Pandan is a tropical plant from South-East Asia that is used to infuse food and drinks with a pleasant aroma and slightly sweet, grassy, vanilla flavour. A really special mooncake and we really enjoyed this one!

In the Years mooncake box there were four flavours: Uiji Matcha with Red Bean, Chocolate, Low Sugar Chenpi with Red Bean Paste, and Pandan Mochi. We didn't enjoy the matcha one so it didn't make it into the photo, but the Chocolate and Pandan was excellent. I didn't know that Chenpi is sun-dried and aged mandarin or tangerine peel. It gave the Chenpi red bean mooncake a very distinct taste that I am sure many people would love.

The stand-out vegan mooncakes this year for me was The Cakery. I did not like the excessive packaging but the mooncakes were very special and tasted great. In this range they had Black Sesame Lava. As a black sesame fan this was so good, I could have had a whole box all by myself. The Pistachio Mochi was incredible, I really love pistachios so this was an easy win for me.

But by far the best moon cake this year was the Red Date Mochi. Popped in the oven or microwave for a few minutes and it will probably be the best mooncake you will ever eat. The fact that it doesn't have a paste inside but an actual real date, sealed the deal.

中秋节快乐

Documentary Review: The True Cost (2015)

 A stark reminder of Fast Fashion's Toll on People and Planet

A decade after its release, "The True Cost" (2015) remains an essential watch for anyone committed to sustainability and ethical living. Directed by Andrew Morgan, the documentary exposes the devastating environmental and human costs of the fast fashion industry, a system build on exploitation, overconsumption and environmental destruction.

The documentary shines a light on the hidden side of cheap clothing: garment workers subjected to unsafe conditions, toxic waste polluting rivers, and a disposable culture fuelling landfills. Tragically, many of the issues highlighted in the documentary persist today. While awareness has grown and sustainable fashion brands are gaining traction, fast fashion giants continue to dominate, producing at unsustainable rates and driving resource depletion.

Yet, the film also offers home, urging viewers to embrace conscious consumption: buy less, choose ethical brands, and demand systemic change. In 2025, these lessons resonate louder than ever. As climate change accelerates, the need to rethink our relationship with fashion, and the planet, is undeniable. 

"The True Cost" is more than just a documentary, it's a call to action. Revisit it today and let it inspire you to choose sustainability over convenience. A better future depends on it. 

Documentary Review: Before the Flood (2016)

 A visionary wake-up call we still haven't fully answered. 

Nearly a decade has passed since the release of Before the Flood (2016), the powerful documentary directed by Fisher Stevens and fronted by environmental advocate and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In many ways the film remains a hauntingly relevant call to action - a mirror held up to humanity, reflecting the environmental crossroads we faced then and still face today. watching it now in 2025 feels like revisiting a warning siren that blared loud and clear, yet was only partially heeded. 

At its core, "Before the Flood" painted a vivid picture of the climate crisis, blending start scientific evidence with deeply emotional storytelling. DiCaprio's journey across the globe (visiting melting Arctic ice, deforested rainforests, and flood-prone island nations) offered a visceral understanding of the interconnected systems being disrupted by human activity. The film challenged audiences to to confront uncomfortable truths about fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and corporate greed, while also spotlighting solutions like renewable energy and sustainable practices.

Looking back, the documentary was prophetic. Many of its predictions, the intensification of extreme weather events, the acceleration of ice melt, and the rising displacement of vulnerable communities, have become our lived reality. Extreme heatwaves, wildfires, and floods are no longer future threats; they're dominating headlines in 2025. The film's urgency is no less relevant today than it was in 2016, perhaps even more so.

If you haven't seen "Before the Flood" yet, or if it's been a while, now is the time to revisit it. Let's not let this be another decade of missed opportunities. The time to save our world is today. 

Review: Ocean (2025)

 Watching "Ocean" (2025), the latest documentary from Sir David Attenborough, feels like bearing witness to a planetary emergency. 

With haunting underwater footage, the film reveals the brutal reality of bottom trawling—industrial fishing vessels dragging weighted nets across the seafloor, reducing centuries-old coral forests to deserts of broken skeletons. If you haven't watched it yet, it's time...

Every time we choose seafood, we're voting for this destruction. Bottom trawling causes more damage to seafloor habitats than any other human activity, affecting an area twice the size of the continental United States every year. When massive nets are dragged across the ocean floor, they obliterate everything in their path—coral reefs, nursery habitats, and complex ecosystems that took decades to establish, are destroyed in minutes.

The carbon implications are staggering. Bottom trawling releases as much carbon annually as the entire aviation industry, literally destroying one of our most important carbon sinks when every fraction of a degree matters in our fight against climate change.

Deep-sea corals that have grown for centuries are reduced to rubble. Fish populations lose their breeding and feeding grounds. The ripple effects travel up the entire food web, creating a biodiversity crisis that mirrors rainforest destruction, except it happens where we cannot see it.

The persistence of bottom trawling comes down to economics—it's currently cheaper to destroy habitats than to fish sustainably. But this is exactly why we must stop supporting these industries entirely. When we purchase any seafood caught through these methods, we're funding the continued devastation of ocean ecosystems.

The solution is clear: plant-based eating. The same consciousness that drives us to choose organic, locally-sourced foods on land must extend to rejecting all products that come from destroying the sea. Our oceans are not resources to be strip-mined—they're complex, vital ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.

But here's the hope that *Ocean (2025)* also reveals: marine protected areas where sea-floors have regenerated beyond expectations, and fish populations rebounding at rates that surprise scientists. The ocean is remarkably resilient when we stop harming it.

The anger we feel when learning about bottom trawling is justified. Channel that anger into action. Choose plants, not fish. Our oceans have sustained life for millennia. The least we can do is stop destroying them for food we don't need.

The choice is ours. The time is now. And when we choose plants over destruction, we might just have a future on this planet.

Documentary Review: Eating our Way to Extinction (2021)

 Eating Our Way to Extinction: The Food Documentary That Pulls No Punches

This documentary does not mess around. Released in 2021 and narrated by Kate Winslet, it's the film that says what other food documentaries only hint at: our current food system isn't just unsustainable, it's actively destroying the planet.

Unlike feel-good food docs that focus on individual choices, this one goes straight for industrial agriculture's role in climate breakdown, deforestation, and mass extinction. Four years later, watching it feels like reading a news report that's aging way too well.

This film is willing to connect dots other films treat separately. It shows how livestock agriculture drives Amazon deforestation, creates ocean dead zones, and accelerates climate change all at once. The film takes viewers from burning Brazilian rainforests to polluted North Carolina waterways, showing how dinner plates connect to environmental destruction thousands of miles away. When you see Indonesian forests burning for palm oil plantations that feed cattle, the environmental cost of cheap meat becomes impossible to ignore.

In 2025, the film's warnings about accelerating environmental collapse feel unnervingly accurate. The documentary predicted increasing extreme weather, continued deforestation, and mounting food system pressure - exactly what we're experiencing. The film's emphasis on antibiotic resistance from industrial farming has proven particularly prescient. We've continued seeing drug-resistant pathogens emerge from factory farms, just as warned. What's changed since 2021 is that alternative proteins the film highlighted have scaled dramatically. Plant-based meat, cultivated meat research, and regenerative farming have accelerated faster than the filmmakers probably expected.

The documentary's message is stark: dramatically reduce animal consumption and transform agriculture, or eat ourselves into ecological collapse. It's not uplifting, but it's probably honest. The film doesn't just blame consumers - it shows how subsidies, lobbying, and trade agreements created a system prioritising cheap production over sustainability. The problem isn't just individual choices, it's systemic.

In 2025, we're seeing the film's predictions play out in real time. Extreme weather disrupts food production globally, while the solutions it advocated gain mainstream acceptance. Plant-based eating moved from fringe to normal, and even conservative farming communities adopt climate-smart practices. The documentary's argument that food system transformation is essential to climate action has become conventional wisdom, even if implementation remains challenging.

"Eating Our Way to Extinction" isn't an easy watch, but it's probably necessary. It treats food system change as seriously as renewable energy for planetary survival. Whether that message resonates depends on how ready you are to hear it, but in 2025, ignoring this conversation is getting harder every day.

Documentary Review: 2040 (2019)

2040: The Climate Documentary That Actually Made Me Feel Good

I needed a break from climate doom, so I decided to watch "2040" - and it might be the most refreshing environmental documentary I've seen in years. Directed by Damon Gameau in 2019, this isn't your typical climate film. Instead of spending 90 minutes telling you how screwed we are, it asks a simple question: what if we actually implemented all the climate solutions we already know work?

The premise is brilliant: Gameau writes a letter to his young daughter about what the world could look like in 2040 if we scaled up existing technologies that are already working somewhere. No science fiction - just proven solutions applied globally.

It portrays relentless optimism backed by evidence. The film takes viewers to places where climate solutions are already happening: regenerative agriculture in Australia, seaweed farming that removes carbon while producing food, and rooftop solar programs transforming energy access in developing countries. Gameau's approach is refreshingly honest about the scale of change needed while maintaining it's achievable with existing technology. The documentary doesn't pretend change will be easy, but makes a compelling case that it could improve most people's lives rather than requiring sacrifice.

Six years later, many solutions highlighted in 2040 have scaled dramatically. The film's emphasis on renewable energy has proven prescient - solar and wind are now the cheapest energy sources globally. Regenerative agriculture has gained mainstream adoption, and seaweed farming for carbon removal has become a serious area of climate investment.

What I loved was the focus on solutions addressing multiple problems simultaneously. Urban planning for people instead of cars doesn't just reduce emissions - it creates healthier communities. Food system changes don't just sequester carbon - they produce more nutritious food and support rural livelihoods.

Watching it in 2025, some predictions feel almost conservative. Electric vehicle adoption, renewable costs, and battery storage have exceeded the documentary's projections. Nature-based solutions have become mainstream climate policy, and Indigenous land management practices have gained global recognition.The social changes the film envisioned - community-focused development and local food systems - feel increasingly relevant as people build resilience in their communities.

2040's greatest strength is showing climate action isn't about accepting a diminished future - it's about building a world that works better for everyone. The film demonstrates that many climate solutions are improvements to current systems rather than sacrifices. The documentary doesn't ignore political barriers but doesn't dwell on them either. Gameau shows what's possible and trusts that working examples will inspire broader adoption. Six years later, this strategy seems to have worked.

In a media landscape saturated with climate anxiety, 2040 offers something rare: a vision of success that feels achievable. The film reframes climate change as an opportunity to build a better world rather than just prevent a worse one. If you're feeling overwhelmed by climate news or burned out on environmental messaging that makes you feel guilty, 2040 is the antidote. It's a reminder that we already know how to solve climate change - we just need to do it. And doing it might actually make life better for pretty much everyone.

Documentary Review: Breaking Boundaries - The Science of our Planet (2021)

Why this Netflix Documentary Hits Different in 2025

I finally got around to watching "Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet" on Netflix, and honestly, I wish I'd seen it sooner. Released in 2021 and narrated by David Attenborough (because of course it is), this documentary does something most climate films don't: it actually explains what "planetary boundaries" are and why crossing them should terrify us more than it apparently does.

Unlike the usual climate documentary formula of "here's how bad things are, feel guilty, maybe recycle more," Breaking Boundaries introduces a framework that's both more scientific and somehow more hopeful. It's based on the work of Johan Rockström and his team at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and four years later, it feels unnervingly prescient.

The documentary centres on this concept of nine planetary boundaries - essentially Earth's operating limits for things like climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen cycles, and ocean acidification. Think of them as the planet's vital signs, and we've already crossed several red lines.

What struck me watching this in 2025 is how the film predicted we'd see accelerating feedback loops, and... well, here we are. The documentary warned about tipping points where environmental changes become self-reinforcing, and we're watching that play out in real time with things like Arctic ice loss and forest dieback.

The film does something smart by not just focusing on carbon emissions (though those obviously matter enormously). It shows how biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and freshwater depletion are all interconnected crises that need addressing simultaneously. This systems thinking feels more relevant than ever as we grapple with compound environmental challenges.

Watching Breaking Boundaries now, the scientific predictions hold up remarkably well. The documentary warned about increasing extreme weather events, accelerating ice sheet loss, and ecosystem collapses - and unfortunately, we've seen all of these intensify since 2021. 

The film's emphasis on biodiversity as equally important to climate stability has proven particularly prescient. We've continued to see massive species decline, and the connection between ecosystem health and climate resilience that the documentary highlighted has become increasingly obvious through recent climate disasters.

What I found most compelling was the film's explanation of how crossing one planetary boundary makes it harder to stay within others. This cascading effect is exactly what we're seeing play out globally - climate change is accelerating biodiversity loss, which reduces ecosystem resilience, which makes climate adaptation harder. The Paris Agreement goals that seemed ambitious in 2021 now look insufficient based on what we've learned about tipping points and feedback loops. But the film's emphasis on rapid, systemic change rather than individual actions has become mainstream thinking in climate policy circles.

The documentary's timeline suggested we had a narrow window to act before crossing irreversible tipping points. Four years later, that window feels even narrower, but not necessarily closed. Some of the technological solutions the film hinted at - renewable energy scaling, nature-based solutions, regenerative agriculture - have actually accelerated faster than the filmmakers probably expected.

What separates Breaking Boundaries from other similar films is its focus on solutions that work with natural systems rather than against them. The documentary showcases examples of ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy transitions that demonstrate change is possible at the scale we need.

The film's argument that we need to become better stewards of the planet rather than just reducing our harm has influenced a lot of current climate thinking. Concepts like re-wilding, regenerative practices, and working with natural carbon cycles have moved from fringe ideas to serious policy discussions.

In 2025, we're living through what many scientists are calling the "decisive decade" for climate action. Breaking Boundaries feels almost like a briefing document for this moment - it explains the scientific framework for understanding why everything feels so urgent and interconnected.

The film doesn't sugarcoat how dramatic the changes need to be. It talks about transforming agriculture, energy systems, and urban design simultaneously while protecting and restoring natural ecosystems. Watching it now, these transformations feel less like distant possibilities and more like the obvious next steps we're already starting to take.

What the documentary gets right is that this isn't just about preventing disaster - it's about creating a world that's actually better than what we have now. Cleaner air, more resilient food systems, healthier ecosystems, and more stable climate conditions aren't sacrifices we're making for future generations - they're improvements we'd benefit from immediately.

Breaking Boundaries succeeds because it treats viewers like adults who can handle scientific complexity. It doesn't dumb down planetary boundaries theory, but it makes it accessible. It doesn't minimise the scale of required changes, but it shows they're achievable.

Four years later, the documentary feels less like a warning and more like a roadmap. We're already crossing the boundaries it identified, but we're also scaling the solutions it highlighted. Whether we can do the latter fast enough to stabilise the former remains the defining question of our time.

If you haven't watched it yet, Breaking Boundaries offers something rare in climate media: a framework for understanding why everything environmental feels so connected and urgent, plus actual reasons to believe we can still navigate this crisis successfully. In 2025, that combination of scientific clarity and realistic hope feels pretty essential.