Final Food Project

Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of butter
3/4 brown sugar
2 eggs
2 and 1/3 cups of banana

Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
  3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
Analysis:
Banana bread is a healthy treat. It's simple to make and a healthier alternative to banana pudding. It can be eaten for breakfast or dessert. 

There wasn't a lot of sugar involved and the banana is what gave it a better taste. The only part of the food that was processed was the butter and the salt. The rest was natural. The banana bread had around 186 calories per serving, 6 g of fat, 25mg of cholesterol, 172mg of sodium, and 2g of protein. The carbs and fat will cause weight gain but also a lot lipids to fight of viruses. Carbs provide our bodies with energy for the day.

 The process of starch digestion starts in our mouths, where amylase in your saliva snips the large starch molecules into sugars called glucose. As the bread moves from your mouth to your stomach and finally to your small intestine, additional amylase secreted by your pancreas digests any remaining starch molecules until only glucose remains. The protein in bread undergoes digestion in your stomach and small intestine, where stomach acid and protein-digesting enzymes cleave the protein molecules into single amino acids. The small amount of fat in bread gets digested in your small intestine, where lipase splits each fat molecule into three fatty acids and a glycerol.

The food that traveled the farthest was probably the bananas. A lot of bananas come from Latin America and it's possible that they traveled the farthest. I'm sure there were preservatives on the bananas to keep them from getting mushy. The preservatives help the banana stay ripe longer. This meal probably costs around $10. The most expensive ingredient was the bananas. Everything else was relatively cheap. I don't think there would be any negative ramifications. All of the ingredients can be purchased at any local convenience store. A lot of the products involved dairy products. Unless I had a farm with a cow or a goat. I wouldn't be able to come across these dairy products on my own. 

Personal Reflection:

This unit has been focused on diet and health. With a larger focus on the Western diet, most of this unit’s purpose was to inform us about how unhealthy America’s diet is, what would make it better, the complications of an unhealthy diet, and how to prevent future health problems. Most Americans, myself included, eat an excessive amount of fatty foods. This leads to such a high level of obesity in the United States. I’m not obese but I could be healthier. When my mom used to make all of my meals I definitely ate healthier and now that I’m becoming more independent, I’ve been making bad decisions. This unit helped me realize how unhealthy my food choices are, it also increased my knowledge on what a healthy diet consists of.

 

One of the most helpful warmups were the ones that informed us on the definition of organic. I think that when people heard “organic” they just thought of healthy food but didn’t really know what it meant. What we learned that there are different definitions of organic. Relating to food, organic means produced or involving production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial agents. We also learned that organic foods aren’t always healthy. 

 

Some food changes that I could make to my diet are eating more fruit, drinking more water, adding vegetables, cutting down on sugar and unhealthy fats. This would help my heart and the rest of my body function better. I don’t think I would be able to go “cold turkey” on my old diet. I will have to ween myself off of the unhealthy meals. I’m willing to try to change to a healthy diet but if I’m constantly surrounded by bad foods and it’s all that’s given to me for school lunch, it will be hard to resist. But, it’s a change that I have to make since Spring and baseball are right around the corner.


Food Rules Slide:



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