Spaghetti and chicken- Danny Wirt

 Ingredients:

Whole grain spaghetti

Olive oil

Tomato sauce

Chicken breast

Steps:

1. Ready and boil water with olive oil in pot
2. Cut chicken breast and put in pan
3. Apply seasonings to chicken and turn on low- medium heat
4. Ready sauce
5. Mix ingredients
6. ENJOY!

Analysis:

            Having spaghetti has become a really common meal in the United States and you can mix it with tons of things. A common mix at my house is the use of spaghetti and chicken. While some people look at spaghetti as an unhealthy meal, it depends on the kind and how much you eat. You see, there is whole grain spaghetti and plain white spaghetti. The white spaghetti is a processed form where the outer layers of the grain are removed so that you are left with white grains. The outer layers contain a lot of nutritional benefits, they contain fiber, which will help to prevent an insulin spike and keep you fuller longer. It also has a lot of vitamins.

            Carbohydrates are a really important macronutrient for the body because it is the bodies preferred energy source. There should be a large percentage of your daily calories that should come from carbs. The problem is, people tend to eat too much of the processed stuff. In whole grain spaghetti not only do you gain the benefits of having the fiber and vitamins, but you also have less ingredients. There are several ingredients in processed spaghetti but very little in whole grain.

            Protein is another really important calorie source and the recommended intake in grams of protein, is one gram per body pound. For instance if you weigh 150 pounds, the rule of thumb should be that you consume 150 grams of protein in that day. Protein is another energy source but it’s main objective is repairing destroyed muscle tissue.

            Fats are the last really important macronutrient left. Fats are sometimes thought to make you fat when you eat them but this is false. Perhaps from eating trans fats you’ll run into some problems, or eating nuts all day. The problem with fats is that they have 9 calories per gram so foods with fat have a lot of calories and when they are over consumed, people gain weight. Fats are actually really essential to the bodies functional. You should consume about 50 grams of healthy fats a day depending on your needs.

            This meal above has it all; it has the complex carbohydrates with vitamins and fiber from the spaghetti. It has the lean meats that give essential amino acids and provide proteins. Then you have the olive oil that has healthy fats and is rich in antioxidants which helps to rid the body of harmful free radicals (cause cancers).

Over the course of this course we’ve gone over foods that are healthy for us and the foods that aren’t so healthy for us. We’ve talked about reasons why people with lower income tend to be more obese then people with higher income and also when the accessibility to better food is scarce there are more obese people. There is currently more access to sugar, which was not as prominent in the past. Now that there is more access to sugar our bodies aren’t meant to process as much sugar as we’re consuming which is why diabetes is so prominent today.

Ways to better your eating is just watching how many calories you are eating every day. Make sure you’re not drinking your calories. One of the biggest reasons diabetes is so common today, is because of soft drinks. Soft drinks have three times the amount of sugar that you’re supposed to consume in a day. With fruits they have fiber and so the sugar does not spike your insulin.

I think the lesson to learn here is to make sure you’re not eating foods that are really processed. Shoot for foods with less than five ingredients and eat more whole grains. Eat things that come from the ground and shoot for more organically made foods. They do not hold many more nutritional properties but at least you’ll know your food was not processed.