Tyanna Pleasant!

Ingredients

• 2 jars of Ragu Chunky Tomato, Garlic & Onion- 125 g
• 1box of Barilla spaghetti noodle. 56 g
• 1lb of Cargill ground beef
• 3 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 2 cups of sugar

Procedures:

1. Start by boiling a tall pot of about 4 cups of water.
2. Next, add the pasta to the boiling water. As you add them, break them in half. It would be easier to put them in there in sections, and not all at once when breaking them up.
3. Meanwhile, as the noodle are getting soft inside of the boiling water, start to cook the ground beef in a pan, make sure you have the top. Chop up the beef up with a spatula so it wont burn, after about 5 mins, add the top and tend to the noodles but keep your eye on the beef so it wont burn. Keep chopping it from time to time.
4. Check the noodles, take one out, taste it and determine if it is soft enough for you. 
5. Once the noodles are done, check that the ground beef is all brown, you should not eat any red meat because its not cooked all the way.
6. Drain the beef once its all done.
7. You then mix the beef with the noodles, add the sugar, 2 jars of Ragu, and the garlic. Mix together very well so that each noodle has sauce on it! And ENJOY!

Analysis

This meal is 95% processed and each of its ingredient starts of from a raw plant or vegetable, but eventually goes through a process to get the delicious taste it has. The 5% is from the minced garlic which came from actual garlic cloves from a Farmers Market. If you ate this everyday, you could be in risk of having heart disease and diabetes. This meal gives off a lot of fat and salt from the ground beef and the sauce. Without moderation of this meal, you could get diabetes or high blood sugar. The added sugar makes this meal less nutritious. Sugar in the sauce plus the added sugar is unhealthy. 

Since most of the ingredients was commercially grown, it had a negative impact on the environment. A cow had to be killed, which decreased the CO2 it produced and let out into the air, while making the sauce, chemicals had to be sprayed on the tomatoes, then to smash the tomatoes up into a sauce like structure was most likely done by machines which released gas into the air, Im not too sure about the pasta was made, but I do not think it have a big negative impact on the environment, the making of the sugar used some type of machinery to crush it up into small grains and I don't think the garlic had a negative impact on the environment. The ingredient that may have traveled the farthest to end up in your meal is probably the sugar. Most of the U.S’s sugar comes from the Caribbean. and the tomatoes comes from California. The beef comes from different farms in Canada and the U.S. 

Overall, this meal cost $12.82 if you buy each ingredient from ShopRite. Which is not bad when comparing it to buying spaghetti when going out to a restaurant which will be about $15 dollars or up. You also will know that it is safe and you know how its being cooked and how is cooking it because you are making it at home. It is also better than going out and buying it because you can modify it yourself so that it tastes just how you want it to. 

Personal Reflection

What I learned this unit, that I do no eat as healthily as I should, and I could eat so much better. I buy a lot of the foods that are processed without even thinking about where it came from or what happened to it for it to taste so delicious. I help support these farmers who do this to these animals and spray all of the chemicals on out vegetables and fruits to make them larger. I also learned that some of the animals are being treated harshly and in live in conditions that are not suitable for their life and they are not expected to live long. The foods go through a long process and is genetically engineered to grow faster than they are supposed to naturally. I think that the biggest problem with our food system is that lots of people don't know, or think about how their food first started out as. I think because it taste so good, and it meets their expectations in food, such as a big size. Changes I could make to my food choices is to look at the food labels and remember what I learned this unit. The biggest impact of these changes on me would be, I will become healthier, it will reduce my risks of diabetes and cancers or other health deficiencies that could come later in life from eating these foods. I am willing to make some changes, but I do not think I will commit to making all of them.