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***Peter is working with me

Ingredients & Instructions for Enchiladas 

• 1 can of black or pinto beans
• 8-10 flour tortillas
• 1 small onion
• any vegetables you like
• 1 can of diced green chiles
• 3 cups of shredded cheese
• 1 can of enchilada sauce
• herbs for garnishing
• salt and pepper to taste
• *can add chicken or beef if you’d like

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F
2. Add some oil to a pan and sauté the onions and green chiles for 6-8 mins
3. Add the other vegetables you want to use and cook them throughly
4. Remove vegetables from the heat and set them aside for later
5. In order to assemble the enchiladas, speed out a tortilla on a flat surface. Then, spread enchiladas sauce on it and fill it with the beans, cooked vegetables, and cheese. Then, wrap them up and place them into a long baking dish.
6. Before placing it into the oven, cover the enchiladas with more sauce and cheese.
7. Place it into the oven for 20 minutes uncovered. 
8. Remove it and serve with fresh herbs as a garnish. 

Analysis

The ingredient for this dish are mostly processed foods, however the vegetables are fresh and not processed. There is a possibility to make your own tortillas and buy fresh beans from a farmers maker and cook them yourself for somewhat of a ‘healthier’ dish. However, for the sake of this project and our wallets, we decided to go with some of the processed foods, however it’s completely possible to make this dish more ‘whole’.The estimated calorie content of the dish per serving is 404 calories, 22.1g of fat, and 2g of sugar, which isn’t bad for one meal. One serving is one enchilada, and even that can be a little too much for one person (since they’re pretty big in general). You couldn’t eat this everyday because if you did, you would probably have bathroom problems from all the beans and a lot of carbs from the flour tortillas. Most of the food was processed and probably grown with ingredients grown on mass production farms with fertilizers and chemicals and whatnot. The meal cost under $15 which is really goo, especially when feeding an entire family. 

Personal Reflection

I’ve learned a lot about how food effects us in different ways, even after we consume it and feel full. I knew about obesity and why food contributes to that disease before coming into the unit, however I wasn’t aware that many of the top ways to die in this country is by food. It boggles my mind that we are more likely to die from the food we eat than under and being in an accident. However, what can we do? It’s difficult to really pinpoint the problem in this since there’s needs to be a systematic change in the way we eat and produce food. But it’d difficult to change a system that’s been working for so long, and that’s so important to millions of Americans. 

My personal role in the larger food system is somewhat hard to explain. Yes, I purchase food and consume it on a daily basis, however, I feel like my few dollars don’t make such a huge impact as everyone seems to make it out to be. If I solely stop purchasing unhealthy food, then what will happen ? It’s difficult to just say that I’d be willing to change my food choices since there’s not that many choices in the first place. Only a handful of corporations actually produce the food we eat. And they own so much of it, it’s hard to run away from them effectively. 

 So honestly, no, I won’t change my food habits. Especially since I don’t have a personal income and even when I go off to college, I’ll be worrying about my studies than what I’m eating. And ‘healthy’ foods are so expensive in the first place, it’s difficult to get them anyway.

Food Slide

This is my food rule. I picked this one because I see too many times on labels that the entire package isn't one serving, but only a couple of pieces of the product are indeed on serving. And most people think that the calorie count on a food product is the total amount of calories for the entire product, even though it's only for one serving. 

Instructions on how to make Pasta al Pesto

Ingredients:

- pasta (500 g)

- pesto (5oz)

- salt (pinch)

- water (fill pot & 1 table spoon for pasta bowl)

- parmigiano cheese

Process:

1. Boil pot of water. Put a pinch of salt in the water. 

2. Once water is boiling, put pasta in the water for about 8-10. You want the pasta to be a little bit had and not extremely mushy. 

3. Once done cooking the pasta, strain the pasta. 

4. In a large serving bowl, put your pesto at the bottom and put 1 table spoon of water to make the sauce creamy.

5. Dump the cooked pasta into serving bowl, mix well and add parmigiono cheese.

6. Ready to serve.

Analysis:

Since most people do not make homemade pasta, the pasta used in this meal is almost all processed. Pasta is made of mostly flour, eggs, wheat, in other a lot of gluten. However, the pesto is 100% whole foods if you get it fresh.  

In one box of Barilla, there is about 8g of fat, 336 carbs, and 0 sugar. The carbs and fat will cause weight gain but also a lot lipids to fight of viruses. Carbohydrates give your body with a lot of energy that we our bodies need. The process of how we digest pasta is quite simple. As soon as the pasta hits the tongue, the saliva immediately starts to breakdown the carbohydrates so it is easier to go through the stomach.  The cell walls and acid then deconstruct the pasta. Eating pasta everyday is not a good idea, it will make you gain way to much weight, and too much gluten isn't good for you. 

The pasta was probably made in Italy, but they probably got some of the ingredients from other countries in Asia. Since Barilla is such a large company, the pasta was manufactured  commercially. 

This is a pretty cheap meal, because pesto costs about 7$, and then box of pasta is 12$. A whole box is about 500 grams, which feeds 4-6 people. So per person it would be out 4$ per person, if there are about 5 people. 

Making pasta at home takes a lot time, effort and precisions. I think that just buying a good brand of pasta is a lot more convenient. Especially since it takes so long for the pasta to go bad, so you buy a lot at a time. 

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies

1. 1 cup butter, unsalted

2. 1 cup white sugar

3. 2 eggs, lightly beaten

4. 1 Teaspoons baking powder

1. 1 Teaspoon salt. 

 Analysis 

Ingredients 

2 cups of whole grain pasta

1 cup of mayo

1/2 cup of mustard

4 sticks of celery

1 onion

1 teaspoon of season salt 

1 teaspoon of black pepper 

1 can of tuna in water 

Instructions 

1. Boil pasta 

2. chop up celery and onion 

3. open and drain can of tuna 

4. mix all ingredients together

Mayo has a very high fat content so you are supposed to use it in moderation. 1 cup of mayo have 916 calories, 78.49 grams of fat, 56.16 grams of carbs and 2.12 grams of protein. I used a higher ratio of pasta to mayo so that it only lightly coated the pasta. Dijon mustard has 198 calories per cup and I only used a half of a cup of dijon mustard so its 99 calories. In a teaspoon of dijon mustard there is 4 calories, 0.19 grams of fat, 0.47 grams of carbs and 0.24 grams of protein. There is 0.17 grams of sugar in dijon mustard and as opposed to yellow mustard it is less in sugar. I used one whole onion and that had 67 calories, 0.13 grams of fat, 16.18 grams of carbs, 1.47 grams of protein. For one stalk of celery it is 6 calories I used 4 so that is 42 calories, 0.28 grams of fat, 4.76 grams of carbs, and 1.12 grams of protein. I used whole grain penne pasta and there was 1600 calories which is a huge amount, pasta is a starch so it has to be eaten in moderation. There were 12 grams of fat, 328 grams of carbs and 56 grams of protein. Pasta has a lot of carbs to it so when you start adding a bunch of other ingredients it lessens the nutritional value. The seasons that I used do not have any calories. The tuna that I used was 220 calories, 5.11 grams of fat, 0 grams of carbs and 40.63 grams of protein. I decided to use tuna because I knew that it was high in protein. 

I decided to make this dish because I knew that because I wanted to make pasta an that I shouldn't use to many other ingredients. Also the ingredients that I used I did not use much of so that there was less amount of calories. Altogether my dish has 3,043 calories and there was at least 6-8 servings so that is  about 380 calories per serving which is not bad at all. My dish also had a low cost it was around $8 the most expensive item was the whole grain pasta. 

Reflection

Overall I enjoyed this unit, a lot of the material that we covered I was some what familiar with. My mom is pre-diabetic and it runs in the family. So two years ago she changed the whole houses eating habitats. All of our breads  are whole grain, so is the pasta, we only eat brown rice and there is often not many baked good in the house unless they are homemade. There are so many items that are healthier but you find that they tend to cost more. During this unit when talking about nutrition I think we also needed to talk more about the price of the food. Many times people shop for quantity not quality, many people in america can not afford quality though. We need to form a better food system then we will see a decrease in obesity, heart conditions and diabetes. 

Pesto Chicken Florentine 

Sieanna Williams & Brian Birkmire

Ingredients

- Olive Oil (2 Tbsp)

- Garlic (2 cloves)

- Chicken breast (boneless/skinless/4 count)

- Fresh Spinach Leaves (2 cups)

- 1/2 White/Yellow onion (chopped)

- 1/2 cup of white wine

- Pepper/Sprinkle of Salt

- 1/4 cup cream

- Basil

- Parmesan cheese

Instructions

1. Boil pot of water, preferably large pot. Boil pasta.

2. While preparing the pasta, cook the chicken. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the raw chicken. Heat some olive oil in pan and brown both sides of the chicken breast. Remove chicken when browned.

3. Add chopped onions and sauté for about 2-3 minutes. While the onions are cooking, slice the chicken in strips. Put aside any pieces already cooked by the browning and the others that aren't cooked to be finished.

4. When the onions begin to brown, add the garlic and sauté for another minute, roughly. Add white wine and and boil until it is half reduced.

5. Add the spinach and undercooked chicken to the pan. Using tongs, turn them over to coat them with the juices in the pan. Continue to cook, turning and stirring often, until the spinach is wilted and the chicken cooked through, about 2 minutes.

 6. Turn off the heat and add some black pepper, the pile of cooked chicken pieces and the pesto (basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese sauce). Stir to combine. Drain the pasta put it in a large bowl. Add the cream to the sauté pan and stir well to combine. Add the contents of the pan to the bowl with the pasta and mix well.

ANALYSIS

The beautiful thing about our meal is that it contains 0% of processed food. There are no additives or preservatives and some of our food is even homemade. Brian and I were originally going to buy fettuccine sauce but it had modified enzymes so we opted to make it ourselves with natural ingredients, as well as the pesto. The spinach leaves were not organic but they were organically grown. The only ingredient on the back was spinach.

We carefully read each of the ingredients on the back of the labels of the foods we used, all of them contained less than 10 g of sugar and fat. There is very little to no grease and the only oil used was olive oil (very little) on the chicken which was sauteed thoroughly. Although our dish is very healthy and will not caused any harm to one’s body from eating it once or twice in a row, the pasta is what dominates the dish. Pasta contains lots of starch and too much starch is very harmful to the body, so we strongly suggest to never eat a pasta meal every single day. On the other hand, it has low Glycemic Index which means it does not increase glucose levels rapidly this makes it easier for the body to maintain energy for longer periods of time. Pasta also has folic acid which is crucial for reproduction.

Our meal contains a variety of crucial dietary nutrients. It is a cleansing meal that will not only taste good but make you feel good. 

Personal Reflection

Ever since I joined the Girls Ultimate Frisbee team last school year, I’d begun to seriously think about eating more healthily. Not only had I never played frisbee before, but I had very little experience with exercise. I’d just joined the team when both boys and girls had gone to the states championship. For both tournament days, my coach, Ms. Echols, kept me in every single game for several points straight. I had never been so run down in my life and I couldn’t figure out how the rest of the girls had so much energy. When I finally had the chance to break, I looked upon the food parents and coaches brought with them. All that had been there were granola bars, bananas, sandwiches, etc. I didn’t think much of it but went on eating. Almost immediately I noticed a change in myself throughout the tournament. The food wasn’t only delicious, but I felt better on the inside. It was then that I’d seriously begun to consider eating more whole foods. 

The issue with my new resolution was that once I left frisbee and once I left my boyfriend’s home there was nothing to go home to but processed, artificially flavored and sugary foods. I live in a home where we only have as much food as we do because we are fortunate enough to receive food stamps. But even so, our food stamp money has been continuously cut despite our lowering income. Because of this, my mom has stopped buying as much fruits, she’s opted for pop tarts instead of oatmeal and often I’m starting to see more and more snacks than usual. I know my mom understands that I want to eat healthily (as well as I’m sure she understands that we should be eating this way), but we have a mutual understanding that we simply cannot afford such foods. What do I think is the biggest problem with our food system? There’s too much consumption. Too many people are buying so much food and I believe that’s what has upped the price on natural foods and set the price low for sugary foods. This way, farmers get what they work for by growing so much food so fast and companies make profit. Either way, it’s human consumption that’s caused these issues. There’s too much food circulating when there really does not need to be. Despite this issue, I will continue to try to eat as healthy as possible. Not just because it tastes a lot better, but because it makes me feel a lot better.