Recipe & Analysis

Baked Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Yield: 6 servings

Cook time: about 1.5 hours

Prep time: 30 minutes

9 medium organic russet potatoes (about 3 pounds)

1/2 stick of salted butter

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

5 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Sea salt & freshly ground black Pepper, as much desired

Crushed red pepper flakes, as much desired

1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1) Take the potatoes and rinse them under cold water; peel them until completely bare. Place the potatoes in a large pot with cold water over medium heat, and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Strain the potatoes, then put them back into the pot.

2) Take the potato masher to your root vegetable, that way, when you add in your first couple of ingredients, they become absorbed by the potatoes, creating a tastier dish. Add your milk and butter, but portion the milk as you stir it in. Do the same for the olive oil.

3) Add your salt, pepper, garlic slices, and red pepper flakes.

4) Add in all of the cheese, or leave some on the side to sprinkle on top before baking. Stir the potatoes until creamy.

5) Pour the mashed potatoes into a baking dish, place on top shelf of oven, uncovered. Leave in for 30-45 minutes, or until golden brown.

6) Serve hot.

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Processed vs.Whole Food

3 out of 8 items are processed, about 38% (37.5% to be exact)

Salted butter

Milk

Parmesan cheese

Health/nutrition

Since only 3 items have nutritional info available on their container, I can only write about them.

Salted butter

Calories: 100

Fat: 11g

Cholesterol: 30mg

Sodium: 90mg

Vitamin A: 8%

Butter can be good and it can be bad. Even though it contains 8% vitamin A, which is needed for the health of the thyroid, and also contains a number of anti-oxidants that protect against things that weaken the arteries, it can also be really harmful to other parts of your body. If the butter is conventional anyway (contains GMOs), and you’re continually consuming it, it’s most likely giving youorgan damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, is accelerating your aging, digestion problems, and many more. Butter is fattening; it turns into actual fat in your body.

Milk

Calories: 150

Fat: 8g

Cholesterol: 35mg

Sodium: 130mg

Protein: 8g

Vitamin A: 6%

Vitamin C: 4%

Calcium: 30%

Vitamin D: 25%

Milk is amazing for getting potassium (which can avoid Charley Horse’s), and stronger bones. A downside to consuming milk, is that if you are a person who consumes a lot of sodium, and then you consume a lot of milk you have a higher chance of acquiring high blood pressure.

EVOO

Calories: 120

Fat: 14g

Cholesterol: 0g

Sodium: 0g

Omega-6: 9.7%

Omega-3: 0.76%

Vitamin E: 72% of the RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance)

Vitamin K: 75% of the RDA

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is one of the best oils and fats for you and your body. Not only is it good for your skin and hair, but it’s also good as an anti-inflammatory and provider of nutrients. If the oil is pressed naturally, the EVOO would be high in phenolic antioxidants, the main reason why olive oil is so beneficial (phenolic antioxidants offer resistance to illnesses ranging from cancer to arthritis). EVOO is easily digestible and tasty start to any dressing.

Environmental

My potatoes and cheese are organic and came from a farmers market near my house; the farmers are located here in PA. Everything else was purchased at Shoprite. Shoprite uses food from Wakefern Food Corporation located in Keasbey, New Jersey. So the food I purchased from Shoprite traveled the furthest.

Political/economic

Butter: $2.19

Milk: $4.99

Cheese: $10.99

EVOO: $12.00

Salt: $2.29

Pepper: $3.49

Red Pepper Flakes: $3.00

Garlic: $2.69

Potatoes: $6.00

= $46.14 (about $50)

The price I spent on making this meal is equivalent to about 5 regular meals not from the dollar menu at McDonalds. Shoprite and its corporations (Wakefern Food Corp., specifically), and the farmers made money off of my meal.

Social

People have the option of gaining weight because of the ingredients within the meal.The parmesan cheese at Shoprite, already grated, was $3.99, but the whole cheese from the Farmer’s Market, same amount of ounces as the Shoprite brand, cost $7 more. Similar to my potatoes, the organic potatoes from the Farmer’s Market, cost $2.00 more than potatoes at Shoprite. The potatoes were grown in PA, on an organic farm, and the cheese came from grass fed cows, so it’s all healthy.

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/10-Reasons-to-Avoid-GMOs

http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthy-kitchen-11/dairy-truths?page=2

http://authoritynutrition.com/extra-virgin-olive-oil/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-phenolic-antioxidants.htm

Wile E. Willie's ol' Southern Boi Carolina Corn Bread 

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tablespoons baking powder

-1 teaspoon salt

-2 cups yellow cornmeal

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 

-1 cup milk

-1 cup no fat plain yogurt

-2 large eggs

-2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 

Preparation:

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit 

-Butter up a large cast iron skillet

-Throw ingredients all into a large bowl 

-Stir the crap out of it with a electric beater until batter is thin

-Pour batter into iron skillet

-Place in oven (after it has preheated) on the middle rack 

-Let it sit in oven for about 50 minutes (it should look golden brown at the end)

-Take out of oven

-Wait ten minutes to let it cool down

-Sit down for a spell 

My cornbread is not that healthy, but still it would be fine eating it in small portions. 

Analysis: 

Most of the ingredients are conventional and/or non-organic. This means that the food used to make this dish has either been made with GMOs, chemicals like pesticides, or both. 

For example, instead of using good-old-fashioned organic valley butter, I used Land-O-Lakes salted butter. This contains a lengthy list of ingredients ranging from partially hydrogenated soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed oil to artificial flavor and cream, which warns us about its’ trivial amount of cholesterol. I used two sticks of this, but hey, at least it’s USDA double A—not the worst thing for you, but not the best thing either. Along with this, I also used Indian Head Old Fashioned Stone Ground Yellow Corn Meal, which contains some organic compounds like Niacin and enriched thiamine mononitrate. I wished I used real corn, but oh well. It seems like I used the next best thing. Corn meal also contains a healthy dose of riboflavin (vitamin B2), and iron.

The ingredients aren't what I would call, locally grown. In fact, the corn meal came from Maryland, that’s for sure the most local I ever got. While the butter came from Minneapolis and the milk came from as far as Idaho. At least all the food came from America, right? The positive side to having a lack of organic food in a recipe is that it means it is very cheap to make. Cornbread in general is cheap to make, only costing five to six dollars in price. I’ll take it. 

The coolest thing about some of the brands I used is that some of them care a little about the world. Dominos sugar for a hundred years been organic. It comes from the pure sugar cane and is harvested and milled on the same day. It is a US company owned by American Sugar Refining Industry. Land-O-Lakes is a little more controversial (PETA released an undercover video of animal abuse of dairy cows), but their eggs are supposedly cage-free. That’s good enough for me. 

I would say that overall my cornbread is fine as along as it doesn’t act as a replacement for real vegetables like broccoli, carrots, and of course... corn. 

Self Reflection:

After doing some personal reflection I have concluded that I have a very small, yet essential role in the larger food system. My food decisions, whether or not to go organic or conventional, has an effect on myself (my health and well being), on my family (I could influence my family to go organic), and of course on the business I am supporting (Whole Foods versus Monsanto). As long as you want to eat, you have to support some business that will be making some capital, so you minus well research and find out the best business to support. Some conventional farms use chemicals and pesticides to grow vegetables and drug chickens and cows to make them grow fatter, faster. Is this really the business you want to support? On the other hand organic foods can be a rip off and your bananas will only last you a couple days—you would have to go shopping more often. I think that’s the biggest problem with our food system. There doesn’t seem like an obvious right and an obvious wrong. Unhealthy foods are cheap and convenient, which will easily feed a starving family of four, but most foods are highly processed foods that are killing Americans more than any other cause of death. Organic sounds nice until you look at the price and then you realize being healthy is for rich people. What a shame. 

I generally buy organic, but that doesn’t mean I’m living a healthy life style. They say to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a jack, and dinner like a surf. I don’t eat anything for breakfast, I eat a apple and some bread for lunch, and for dinner I pig out with second helpings. Probably not healthy. I have already started to make changes. For breakfast I had fruit salad and a danish. If that’s not eating like a king, then I don’t know what is. It is important to remain healthy and eat right. I want to out live my parents. 

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

1/3 cup parsley

1 egg

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 spoonful of breadcrumbs

1/2 cup parmesan

8 oz. ground pork

8 oz. ground beef

For the rest:

12 cups of chicken broth

1 lb. of chopped escarole

2 tablespoons of grated parmesan

Add salt and pepper until you find the appropriate amount. 

Process:

1) Put the meat in a bowl along with all of the other meatball ingredients. 

2) Mix until you think its fully mixed .

3) Saute meatballs until they turn brown

4) Bring broth to a boil and add escarole and meatballs first. Make sure the escarole is evenly distributed.

5) Add parmesan to broth.

6) Keep pot under flame and periodically stir the soup for 1hr.

Analysis:

Overall I think that this soup is very healthy due to the escarole which is a vegetable and it makes up most of the soup. All of these ingredients can be made organic. For example the beef or pork can easily be purchased organic instead of factory farmed and they are not farmed far away usually. Escarole is another ingredient that can be easily made organic, although it does depend if its in season which I believe starts in early spring and all throughout summer. This can lead to problems but it can probably be grown somewhere else where it is able to be harvested. Also, even though red meat is proven to not be that good for you, it is a good source of protein and you will mostly be tasting the other things in the soup.

Depending on the quality of the ingredients, this soup can be either cheap or a little expensive since meat is quite expensive, especially organic meat. But the good thing about this soup is that there is a lot and it can feed a very large family. This is definitely nothing like fast food. It will take a good hour and a half to cook this and many of the ingredients are quality. I think that some social issues would arise from the meats in this soup, but that involves any dish with meat in it. There are people like vegetarians/ vegans who don't eat meat and there are people who specifically don't eat pork like Muslims. 

Personal Reflection

I thought that this unit was helpful to many people, including myself because of all of the helpful info that we learned during this unit. Since obesity and diabetes are a huge problem in this country, it seems only right that we be educated on how to prevent this stuff and eat healthier. One of the most impactful lessons that was given this unit was the ted talk by Jamie Oliver. It seemed a little extreme when he told a mother that she was killing her children, but it was true. That showed how childhood obesity affects our lives and how it can ultimately shorten it. Before this unit, I never really knew what organic food was honestly. There was really no obvious way to tell what food was and what food wasn't. Now I know to read the label. Also being someone who's family members are affected by diabetes, it really was a great lesson to learn about what causes it and how it can be prevented. I also noticed through this unit that America's food industry tries to be as cheap and efficient as possible, sacrificing the healthiness and quality of the food. All of these things can be changed, and hopefully over time it will. I have learned a lot of useful things and now i feel confident and more knowledgable in this subject thanks to this unit.

Food Slide