Pasta Salad Recipe: 

1 Can of Diced Tomatoes

¾ Bottle of Fat Free Italian Dressing

A Pinch of Salad Supreme McCormick Seasoning

Hodgson Mill 100% Wheat Noodles

A Teaspoon of Butter

Instructions:

Boil a pot of water and place the teaspoon of butter in the boiling water. This is also the time where you add your salt and pepper (optional).

Break the uncooked noodles in half and place them in the pot.

After 5-8 minutes strain the water out of the pot so the noodles don’t overcook in the bowl.

Open the can of diced tomatoes and empty the can in the bowl.

Pour ¾ of the Italian dressing into the bowl and add the pinch of seasoning.

Enjoy !!!

Analysis:

         For my recipe I mostly used foods that weren’t processed. For the healthier ingredients I used wheat noodles, a natural spread for my butter and McCormick seasoning and the processed foods were the diced tomatoes and the Italian dressing.  My complete recipe was around 550 calories in total. I believe that per serving size this dish was not unhealthy but it isn’t something I would recommend people eat everyday. If this were a daily meal you would probably have high blood pressure from all the sodium.

            Everything was made in America but most of the things weren’t locally grown. I think out of all my foods either the canned diced tomatoes or the salad dressing traveled the farthest. But there isn’t a very effective way to figure out how far everything came from.  This meal costs around $8 dollars because I purchased everything from fresh grocers where things are a little more expensive than at a store like Wal-Mart or Shop Rite. Even with that being said I still think this meal is cheaper than fast food because it can be refrigerated and because of the amount that was made it will also last longer than a $5 burger from a fast food place.

            If I were to grow the tomatoes myself as apposed to purchasing them to me the biggest differences would actually be that they weren’t store bought and also that there would . I don’t think the impact on the community would even be that great because there are local farms that grow tomatoes. Another major difference I’m seeing is that I don’t actually know how to grow tomatoes or keep the bug and insects away form them like an actual farm would so overall I think it’s a healthier decision to farm.

Personal Reflection:

            In this quarter we have talked about food for the last three weeks and I can honestly say I’m shocked. I always knew the food industry and the things we eat aren’t exactly up to par and periodical but after re-watching the movie Food Inc. I don’t really know what to think. In the movie there was a chapter about cleaning beef. This chapter was confusing to me. This piece talks about how beef needs to be cleaned before serving because it’s harmful but at the same time what they use to clean the food is just as harmful.

This unit has taught me that eating healthy is more than just a life style it’s a job. You need to know what you eat, where it comes form and the truth about how it’s made. I always thought people that lived a healthy eating lifestyle took it too serious, but after hearing the little boy Kevin’s story I understand. If you don’t watch out for your food no one else will even when it’s his or her job to. Also I never thought it was worth spending the money but I know now that if you don’t pay for it now you’ll pay later in the medical expenses and everything else. I feel that I’ve learned a lot, and have shaped the view eating healthy. 

2 packs of whole-wheat pasta

3 cups of grape tomatoes

1 cucumber

1 ½ bottles of Balsamic Vinegar

2 cups of Olive Oil

How-To

1. Boil Pasta
2. Chop cucumbers into dime size triangles
3. Cut tomatoes into halves
4. After Pasta is boiled, Drain
5. Add all Ingredients into a large bowl
6. Add 1 ½ bottles of Balsamic Vinegar and 2 cups of Olive Oil into mixture
7. Mix
8. Refrigerate overnight and Serve!

Analysis

            Pasta salad is one of the healthiest meals that is entirely organic and a part of the Whole Food category. Pasta salad can be served as a side or a meal. According to the nutritional facts of all the ingredients, two-three cups of pasta salad totals to a minor four hundred calories. Not only is it nutritional, but fulfilling. The carbs, or pasta, in the pasta salad serves as two of our six daily grains/per day needed for our body to function healthily. Carbohydrates provide energy throughout the day and help your metabolism speed up. The vegetables used in the pasta salad are used to fulfill some of your daily servings of vegetables and fruits. Vegetables are needed in a daily diet because it provides cardiovascular health, gastrointestinal health, strong vision, and other life long advantages. However, some health issues that could arise if you ate nothing but pasta salad everyday are hair/skin effects, lack of growth of muscles and blood and hormonal disorders, that are caused by lack of enough proteins in diet.

            My ingredients come from the United States and Italy. The tomatoes and cucumber comes from Florida, while the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and pasta come from Italy. The olive oil, balsamic vinegar and pasta (all organically grown) have traveled the farthest at steep four-thousand-four-hundred-and-thirteen miles.

The cost of all the ingredients was ten dollars, for a serving of twenty. Compared to fast food, the average double cheese burger and French fries cost two dollars and fifty cents.; resulting to a total of fifty dollars for twenty people. Overall, you come out cheaper preparing pasta salad. The Food and Drug Administration regulate the food items used in pasta salad.

There are some social ramifications of preparing pasta salad. The price of a regular bag of pasta can cost about one dollar. However, the price of a whole-wheat organic pasta bag cost about one dollar and thirty-nine cents. While some may not see a big difference, a lot of people are always focusing on the bottom dollar, where that extra thirty-nine cents can go towards other needs. Tracing where the vegetables came from was not hard. The tomatoes and cucumber were harvest on a farm where they grew these crops. The whole-wheat pasta derived from the form of unleavened wheat dough of buckwheat flour. The balsamic dressing and oil came from a reduction of cooked white Trebbiano grape juice and olives. All of my ingredients are organic; therefore, there wasn’t a lot of processing. The ingredients were purchased from my local Supermarket, Brown’s ShopRite. Needless to say, Pasta salad can be categorized as one of the healthiest, tasteful and fulfilling meal.

In this unit, I have learned a massive amount of information about the food industry, food itself and how I am a prime factor in it. What I found most intriguing while learning about the unit, was that I can contribute to the wrong doings of the industry by buying its products. Essentially, I learned that by supporting the non-organic food industry, I am supporting the mistreatment of animals, people's health and my health.

The biggest problem in our food system is the lack of organic food resources in urban areas for cheap prices. I believe the majority of the people who are malnutrition from non-organic food suffer because the lack of organic food resources in urban communities. In order to change the statistics and change the health of suffering citizens, we have to change our unhealthy diet to a healthy diet. In order to change the statistics, we have to change the resources.

A change I can make to my food choices is  taking out the fattening, greasy and sugary foods and replacing them with vegetables, healthy proteins, grains and fruits. The impact of these changes will be a longer, healthier life. I am willing to make these changes if the food industry agrees to cheapen the cost of organic food and increase organic food resources in my area particularly. 

2lbs.- free range chicken thighs

3 -small organic red potatoes 

1/2-organic red onion 

1-cup of chicken broth

1-sweet Red bell pepper

1-clove of garlic

organic black pepper corns w/ grinder (Black pepper)

bottle of organic extra virgin olive oil

Reynolds Baking Bags

Prepare the chicken by sprinkling it with grinded black peppercorns

Sauteé 1/4 of the onion chopped, half the red pepper(with seeds), & chopped garlic in olive oil.

(while you are waitng you can slice your potatoes thinly.)

Once that in finshed and browned, prepare the skillet with more olive oil to fry the chicken. 

You plan on just browning the skin , not frying completely.

Once the skin is browned, you need to prepare your baking bag,put the baking bag inside of the roasting pan,  cover the bottom of the bag with potatoes then the slices of the other half of the onion and peppers. Add a layer of chicken to cover the bottom layer. each thigh should be touching a potato. 

sprinkle the sauteéd peppers and onions on top of the chicken. 

Put chicken broth on top of all the food in the bag using a turkey baster.

tie the bag and cut slits for air holes.

Put in a 375 degree oven for about 40 minutes. check periodically.

A few words to describe me meal:

• tasty-of course!
• economical & cheap-this only costed me about $15 (every ingredient was purchased from Whole Foods market)
• filling- not only do you get a main course of chicken, but you have sides with potatoes, onions, and peppers
• complete-as I said before, the meal is complete all you need is something to drink.

The body does not take long to digest chicken. Chicken is not a heavy meat. Peppers onions and garlic and tasty flavors which are rather healthy. If you ate nothing but this meal everyday you might lack calcium in your diet.

All the ingredients were local and organically grown. The chicken was also free range.

1 cup of warm water

½ cup white sugar

1 table spoon

½ cup of vegetable oil

2 ½ teaspoon of salt

2 eggs

4 cups of bread flower

2 ¼ teaspoon yeast

After dough is made let dough rise on floured surface for 5 min

Divide dough in half and then in to thirds. Roll into ropes and then braid.

Place on greased cookie sheet cover with wrap and let it rise for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a small bawl beat 1 egg and 1 Tablespoon of water

Brush the egg mixture over the bread

Put into oven to bake for 20-25 mins.  

 Recipe analysis

This entire meal is all processed for the simple fact there is nothing healthy really in it and nothing used to make this is all whole food. ½ cup of sugar is not really good for your body. It’s really unhealthy expectedly for ones that live with diabetes. 2 ½ teaspoon of salt is extremely unhealthy for your body because of high blood pressure. This meal original from Israel. Challah is a loaf of yeast-risen egg bread that is traditionally eaten by Jews on Shabbat, on ceremonial occasions and during festival holidays. I truly beleve that these ingeatings to make this come from your local grocey story. Challah is not expnisve compared what you would by at a fast food place but I really do think that there is just as much bad food in it just as fast food. Challah cost $2.25 at the store or the juwish bakery. Stroehmann Family White 20 Oz Loaf of bread is $3.29, which has the same ingredients but is more expensive then Challah. So really baking Challah is really the cheapest way to go at the end of the day.

 During this first quarter of science & society I have learned many thing when it come to the foods that we have in our world today. We started off talking about how children are becoming obesity because of the foods that they eat and the nutritious that they are not getting. We talk about what kind of food is held in different homes and what food places are close to eat from trying to understand why the obesity level is going up and not decreasing. 

         We started learning about how families need to look at the food labels before they buy their food from supermarkets. We talk about how hard it was to even get food companies to put the labels on their food and what laws were put in place for then to do so. So when it come to different food companies and how they raise and create a farm and animals on that farm we watched a movie called food inc. that allowed us to see what kind of goes on behind the sense of food. 

       While watching that movie we learned about how the animals were being tread and how they were being cared for. We learned about what they were feeding them and what if do to their body. They showed us what chemicals are being used to kill the germs that might be in the food. We learned about how e-coli got in to a hamburger and a young boy named Kevin died from it and then his mom tried to get a law passed about that called Kevin's law. We learned about Oprah and the case that happen with her we learned about the seeds and how they are expansive and they try to reuse then and can't. This movie talked about so many things it was crazy that it took us as student to really look at all the food that we by and eat differently. 

         After the movie and doing different class assignments with that we went on to learning about organic and non-organic foods and the difference and price between them. We as students had to go home and look in our homes to see what was organic and not the we were told to shop and see the different in price and label in organic and non -organic. Some students like my self brought the assignment home to the dinner table and talk about what we have been learning about food in class with our families. Next we started to look at different things that have to do with the body and food like, diabetes and heart disease and things like that and how they error form the foods that we eat and by.  So there are so many different things about food that we have been learning about.

Food slide  

Eastern European food(Jewish)-Kasha Recipe 

Ingredients

Instructions

Step 1:  Get a large pot, pour in broth, mix in a tbsp. of butter and bring to a boil, .

 Step 2: Meanwhile, mix Kasha and egg together.

 Step 3: Put Kasha and egg mixture into a wok/ frying pan on medium heat.

 Step 4: Stir continuously (so that the kasha mixture will not stick to the pan or together), let the grains separate. Should look dry but not brown.

 Step 5: When broth comes to a boil, pour into wok/frying pan.

 Step 6: Stir and cover on medium heat for 30 minutes (check every 5-10 minutes to stir), let the Kasha absorb the broth.

 Step 7: When the Kasha has absorbed all of the broth, season to taste with mixed seasoning salt and cumin.

Analysis:

 This meal is an easy and healthy option for any family. It consists of two whole ingredients and two processed ingredients. As a staple food in Eastern Europe, kasha is filling and nutritious. It is 82% carbohydrates, 12% protein and 6% fats. Kasha is also a good source of dietary fiber and magnesium with 155 calories for 168 grams. The dietary fiber is the part of food that your body cannot process; therefore it acts as a regulator for your digestive system. Magnesium is important for numerous functions in your body: nerve impulse transmissions and formation of healthy bones. It’s safe to say that this food is nutritious. It is also an environmentally friendly dish.

             The buckwheat used was organic and the eggs were from free-range chickens. The store we purchased these items from look for local farms to buy from so the buckwheat groats and eggs didn’t travel far. The item that traveled the farthest was the vegetable broth that we used to be vegetarian. It was imported from Canada and creates a large carbon footprint, which is ironic and an example of the choices and priorities consumers have.

            The cost of a meal is a big deciding factor for consumers. This meal is fairly feasible. The entire bag of buckwheat costs only 3 dollars and this recipe calls for half of the bag. One organic egg costs 32 cents and the broth costs around 3 dollars. While the total is much more than a fast food meal, this is a pretty cheap meal considering that two of the items, if not more are organic.

            An important aspect of kasha is that most of these products can be produced through a self-sufficient process. Chickens can make the eggs and are easy to contain as livestock in backyards. Buckwheat is apparently easy to grow and can be used in numerous types of food. The only issue with the self-sufficient food process is the limited resources in certain urban areas. Ashley and I are fortunate to own houses with backyards, but many people live in apartments or row homes and cannot grow their own food. However, many of these items were purchased in Acme and were still labeled “organic” so this meal could still be accessible.

            Therefore, Kasha is a good food to know how to cook. It is nutritious, environmentally friendly and affordable. All of the items needed for kasha can be bought at grocery markets such as Acme or local stores or even grown at home. As a dish, kasha follows a lot of the food rules. It is less than 5 ingredients, it is something my grandmother would recognize as food, and it’s vegetarian and organic. All in all, it’s a great dish.

 Personal Reflection: 

When Science in Society first started talking about food, I was ignorant to my role as a consumer. It was only after watching Food Inc. and reading the informative articles that I began to see the error of my ways. I felt extremely guilty. Obesity rates are through the roof, people are buying the cheap and easy choices, and farmers are being exploited daily because of my choices in the grocery store. The entire empire of food seemed messed up.

However, as the class progressed, options began to appear on the horizon. I began to understand how buying food means a vote for that product. Also, I understand now that eating is a responsibility and consumers need to do research before they mindlessly buy everything. However, my work as an eater is unfinished. 

 Some changes I plan to make are to research the products I consume daily such as milk, yogurt, and cereals. I, also, plan to buy only local vegetables and fruits that are in season. Fortunately, the Weaver's Way co-op will make these goals easier to achieve. This store usually buys locally and even plants it's own food. I'm lucky that it's in my neighborhood. Lastly, I need to teach other people about the food industry. Even if nothing comes from it, they at least will be more aware than before.

Food Rule: