Simone Greene's Q1 Food Benchmark

Recipe & Analysis 
Healthy Rasta Pasta Meal

1. (1 serving)

- Steamed broccoli (1/4 cup)

- Rotini noodles (bowl)

- Small-diced carrots (1/5 cup)

- Loose corn (1/7 cup)

- Black pepper (3 pinches)

- Parmesan cheese (5 pinches)

- Garlic butter sauce (3 spoons)

Steps....

• Boil noodles at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes until they are soft

• Steam broccoli with black pepper, small diced carrots and corn in a pot for about 10 minutes

•  Drain noodles after soft, and mix noodles with the broccoli, carrots and corn

• Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the meal

a.             I'd say that the majority of the food is processed, because I had to chop and remove the outside layer of the carrots, and cut the broccoli. I bought the corn loose as it was, but I assume it was processed because corn comes from cob, they are attached, and so the company shaved the corn off of the cob. I am not sure about the noodles, but more than likely it is processed. 

b.             The Caloric count is 140, 5 grams of sugar (a lot, did not realize that), 8 grams of fat (I think its a lot with 4.5 of that being saturated fat.  That is mostly likely from animals. Saturated fat is greasy, or oily and that’s understandable because this meal was pasta that had garlic BUTTER sauce. My body will store some of the sugar that it got from the meal, and eject what it does not need into the liver.  3,500 calories is stored in your body for when you are not active. This is the body's way of saving energy that is mean o be burned off, it not, then it stays stored can most likely will be hard to "unstore".

c.            If I were to eat nothing but this meal everyday, then I would not be getting the OTHER essentials that my body needs, and my body would get tired of the same fats, oils, sugars, etc. 

d.            I think that my ingredients didn’t come from that far because I only have farming veggies and noodles. The veggies can get old fast, and if traveling from a far, that more dangerous or more aware you want to be about your food. So I think mine came from the far east coast of the U.S. My corn/broccoli/carrots came from a farm in Minneapolis, from a company called Green Giant. I was close. They came more so from the Middle Western part of the U.S. where they have that more of a hot weather and requirements to actually farm.

e.             This meal costs, $4.79. Compared to other junk and fatty foods, this meal costs less than a meal from McDonalds where those meals there can be $ 5.00 and unsurprisingly higher. However, a person can benefit more from just my meal. It is owned by General Mills.

f.              From a company, they add a lot of preservatives, and fertilizer rather than just you growing your own food. Companies advertise differently in order to attract hungry consumers. They say things to make a consumer want to buy from them. They have commercial ads that supposedly show where they are producing the broccoli, how, where it’s being packaged to etc, just to make the consumer feel comfortable. 

My role in the larger food system consists of different views. For me, the way that the food system is treating what and me I am receiving is OK. Mainly because the side effects of fracking aren’t affecting me directly, is why I am ok with it.  Also, the way that our food is preserved, companies use too much of this, and too less of that.  Too may cloned, plants that isn’t what the mother of nature provided freshly from nothing. My food has to be cloned. The sound is very uncomfortable. However, if I were the resident of a house who lived in an area that was being bombarded by frackers, and that effected my physically, and the food, there would not be one pinch of happiness within me. I would not even want to stay at my house to fight the system because I would already be disgusted that it has already begun.  Then again, if I was the system, I would do what   I have to do in order to better the country. As for the whole western diet. SMH. It is a matter of a person. The person who has that overweight problem has to be motivated in order to take action to change their weight.  Is the problem that they are not being motivated enough? They take death lightly? Why is that?  

My Food Rule Graphic