Newon Dennis' Q1 Food Benchmark

Calla is a traditional Liberian pastry.

Ingredients:

Self-Rising Flour - 3-4 cups

Water as a substitute for Milk -2 ½ cups

Olive Oil as a substitute for vegetable oil – 3 cups

Organic Sugar- 1 cup

Recipe:

1.Get out a clean bowl and pour in Aunt Jemina’s Self-Rising Flour until it fills about 1/3 of the bowl. Sprinkle in the desired amount of sugar and 2 and half cups of water. Stir thoroughly to remove lumps in batter. Leave batter to rise for about 5 to 10 minutes. Time can increase if needed.

2.Pour oil into a pot until 2/3 full and set on the stove to heat. When batter is raised, head to the stove to heat up Olive oil and begin dropping blobs of batter into the pot. Depending on pot size, drop in as many blobs as you can so each blob can fry thoroughly.

3.Calla will turn over its self on each side. When both sides are done place the calla into a strainer onto of a paper cover plate. Continue until batter is finish. Let finished Calla cool and serve. ENJOY!

Analysis:

For my meal, I would guestimate about 2% would be processed and the rest would be whole food. I used brown eggs, water, and organic sugar. But I used processed self-rising Flour so I say 2% of my meal would be processed. There are some dark sides from eating my completed meal. I you ate this single meal every day, regardless of the organic substances inside. You could easily get high cholesterol, high-blood sugar, maybe even diabetes from eating this single sugary meal. A lot of my ingredients were hard to grow myself considering I don’t own a chicken for eggs, a sugar cane plantation of a wheat field and grainer for flour. So it’s a little complicated. So it sadly commercial process is the only choice I have but organic productions were more common in this dish. My dish is a simple African pastry that was made into a healthier treat when you change certain ingredients.

Personal Reflection:

I’ve learned that the majority of food I take in isn’t food. And it’s really disgusting to find out that the substances you take in for nurturance is actually causing more bad than good. And the fact that people in the food industry aren’t doing crap it makes my blood boil. The biggest problem about our food system is how it’s produced. Watching the movie Food Inc. and seeing the slaughter house scene was really confusing and hard to watch. Because I was watching harmless animals being killed mercilessly by big businesses who aren’t even giving the animals room to grow and play. They have holes in the side of the bodies, wobbling around on dead carcasses or being randomly crushed to death by giant machines. And it’s sad because they people who work in those kinds of factories and slaughter houses “can’t afford to not work at these abusive meat packaging factories.” Then, to add insult to injury these big meat packaging factories have skanky deals with Immigration offices to take some of their undocumented workers every day.

So if I have to go complete vegetarian, or learn to make a farther trip to find organic store and supermarkets. I’ll do what I have to do refrain from eating crap. Especially, McDonald’s! Now to be honest I’m human and I’m a girl, who will have craving, so I might slip up from time to time, but as long as that food is entering my body every once in a blue moon, I still plan on try to find alternative to the fast but addictive fast food.