Recipe

Baked Potatoes (taken from my aunt)

Ingredients:

Potatoes
Butter
Garlic salt
Parsley
Olive oil
Salt

Directions:

Fill a pot half way with water. Put on stove on medium fire. Add a pinch of salt and wait till water comes to a boil. Cut potatoes in half. Add the half potatoes the boiling water till they become tender and soft. Take potatoes out and season with butter or olive oil, and garnish with garlic salt and parsley.

Picture:



Response:

I didn't like the way I made it. My dad ate some and he said he enjoyed it. We saved the rest in the fridge and reheated it later and it tasted worse. Why does food always taste worse through microwave? I hate that. Some poeple say you have to cook with love. This dish was not made with love at all.
I enjoy eating meals cooked by elder people. I think its because I trust them and I'm sur ethey have much more experience with cooking. I don't trust myself cooking. I don't usually like it, but others do.
My dad always complains that my generation needs to learn how to cook. That we're too stuck on our computers, television, phones, video games, etc. According to my dad, we're spoiled and we like everything handed to us. I kind of think he's right. I am spoiled in the sense that I'd much rather have someone do something for me that I know will come out better rather than do it myself and practice and keep learning.
Back when my father was younger, him, his friends, and family were used to playing outside. Hardly talking on the phone, spending time in the kitchen, eating dinners together, etc. We don't do that anymore. We've taken advantage of our family-time and culture. Food used to be a really big part of culture in terms of bringing family together. Now-a-days I feel like even though food is still a part of our culture, it doesn't really bring family together as much.

Comments..

"I never thought about Pollan's argument that way. It's interesting how you thought about the american culture and how we are so diverse and connected it to not knowing what to eat and back to Pollan's argument" (to Yu Xi)

"I don't think Lauren and my Father look for the 'cheap knockoffs' but instead whats on sale. I think (and so does my family) that the cheaper foods (well the cheap immitation foods) taste worse than the high priced foods. I'm wondering if the cheaper ones are healthier though? Idk, but I prefer to find a high price food on sale rather than look for cheap knock offs. I'm sure thats a bad way to shop though." (to Gavin)

"I find it interesting how you say when you go to Hong Kong you don't eat as much. When i go to puerto rico, I don't eat as much either. Everywhere you go, you need a car and obviously I can't drive yet so I'd take walks to the store. Also maybe after 2 or 3 days in PR, I usually get tired of how much grease is in the food so I hardly eat." (to Chloe)

Response to Pollan

“As a culture we seem to have arrived at a place where whatever native wisdom we may once have possessed about eating has been replaced by confusion and anxiety. Somehow this most elemental of activities—figuring out what to eat—has come to require a remarkable amount of expert help. How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu?” – Michael Pollan

In this culture, fitting in has also been defined by what foods you eat. People are constantly afraid of what other people would say/think if they eat certain foods. They’re also afraid of being unhealthy. They want to seem more appealing therefore go through different lengths to achieve that goal – one being doing whatever it takes to stay thin. I do believe Pollan’s argument is true. We have lost touch with our natural ways. Instead of focusing on what we like to eat and what we have been eating for thousands of years, we’re focusing on what’s “healthy” for us and what will get us slimmer the quickest /easiest way. We look to experts for guidance. They seem to know the most about the foods we do eat so why wouldn’t we listen to them, right? Wrong. I don’t think the experts know too much about what is really healthy for us. They may know what foods we can eat that’ll make us skinnier and what not but usually these foods are not the healthiest for us. Both the amount of food and what we obtain from it (protein, carbs, etc) isn’t so much of a good balance. Most experts seem to believe by cutting out for example carbs, you can still remain healthy and be skinny. Personally I don’t believe this to be true but I’m no expert.

In terms of what we can do about this problem, I truthfully have no wise suggestions. There is the obvious which is to try to ignore what experts say and prioritize taste over what’s healthier because that’s what we used to do and as far as I’m concerned, that did us pretty well. In my case I eat whatever I want but play a lot of sports. This helps me because I’m constantly working my body out and staying active after I eat. I wouldn’t say I’m completely healthy but I don’t feel horrible about the way I eat or treat my body or what I feed myself.

Honestly I don’t think my (immediate) family pays much attention to experts. My father was raised on very indigenous foods. Foods that people from Puerto Rico have been eating for many years. Being a single father supporting three, he works too much to have time to listen to what is healthier for us to eat or just anyone’s point of view at all. Me and my sisters were raised on foods that experts would claim aren’t healthy for us. We never worried about things being low in carbs or high in fiber, etc. We ate foods that we liked whether it be pasta, steak, fast food, greasy foods, and so on.

However, a lot of times when my father goes food shopping, my sister will accompany him and practically be in charge of what my father buys. She likes to watch the food channel and tries to think healthier (based on the opinions of the chefs on television). Personally I don’t cook and most of the time I’m too lazy to go to the grocery store with them because it usually takes forever. I mainly eat what’s available in the house for me to eat and I base that on what I actually like to eat the most rather than what is considered healthy for me to eat.

May Day

Based on what I read on wikipedia and the speeches and texts from Marxist.org, I’m guessing May Day is a day celebrated for the hard working laborers of many years ago. Their usual working day consisted of 8 hours (or more, I’m sure). Since they have been working so hard for very little pay, the hard workers put together a movement for their own benefit in hoping of better treatment from their bosses. During this day, marches and campaigns of hard working people go up and down the streets protesting for better management.

I do believe that a sense of history-of past struggles is necessary to live a good and meaningful life. My reasoning is because in order to be thankful and appreciative of the life we have, we should know a bit about how we were able to live this way. Now I’m not suggesting that we know all of our history because some of it, I think, is not so important to know, but just I guess important changes throughout past times that helped shape the world we live in today. For example I think knowing about racial segregation is important for us to know about whereas history about communism isn’t something, again – I believe, should be gone into so much depth. I feel like if we go into depth about events we can learn in less than a week, then we’re taking away time from learning about what events actually mattered and the hidden information that the government or people in charge/ruling didn’t want us to know.

Though, in my point of view, this class doesn’t really offer a whole bunch of insight into history and past events. It focuses more on present and how we think, work, act, etc and the reasons for it, and how to live a good and meaningful life. And based on past experiences from learning regular history vs. learning your course, I think your course is much more informative than any other. I feel like I learned more about how to live a good and meaningful life taking you, rather than taking a regular history teacher. I guess in conclusion, I think we should be focusing on how to live a good and meaningful life and then somehow incorporate a bit or outlines of history (like how you do). I think that having a sense of how to live not completely meaningless and knowing a few historical events is necessary to live a good and meaningful life.

Grocery Store and Habitual Food

My family doesn’t use the grocery store as wisely as I’d like them to. Every time we go food shopping, usually we buy a lot of fatty, oily, and greasy foods. Refreshments usually consist of sugary substances such as different types of Soda. We buy a lot of different types of meat (steak, pork chops, hamburgers, etc) and we’re always using oil to cook them in. We buy regular milk instead of the fat free of less fat milks. We buy a lot of canned easy-to-make- foods because it’s not that common for us to cook. We rarely buy vegetables except for the occasional tomatoes. When we buy fruits (mainly apples) we only buy very little (usually enough for one or two people—lasting about a day). My family, I’d say, doesn’t eat healthy. Our diet can be most compared to the common American who eats fast food or what ever they’re craving that day, not necessarily thinking about what would be better for our bodies. I think this is because of the foods we were fed as young children. We (me and my sisters) weren’t raised on your typical ‘healthy’ food. Mainly it was Spanish, take out, or restaurant food. In a typical week, I probably consume less than the amount of fruit/vegetables that you’re supposed to eat in one day.

On our trip to the grocery store, I noticed that the things they present (eye-level) are a ‘healthier’ variety of foods. Usually more expensive foods are the ones that are to your convenience. On the sides of the isles (the shorter way where you can walk by many isles as you continue walking), you notice usually he foods that are there are on sale and most of the time not so healthy. When you first walk in to the grocery store, you notice fruits and vegetables and like lots of greens, yellows, reds, whites, etc. As you pass by the isles, most of the foods are packaged and are made with preservatives, artificial products, etc. Another thing I noticed that they have in supermarkets are mirrors on the side isles (when you’re walking past many isles). My guess is that as you pass by and look at yourself you’re constantly judging yourself up to societies standards. The mirror is like a reminder, if you’re ‘fat’, to go for the more expensive ‘healthy’ foods so that you too can become skinny, and “fit in”.

I didn’t really learn much about eating a variety of foods. I’ve always known its healthier to do so but I never really cared that much. Because I was raised on ‘non-healthy’ foods, I guess it never mattered that much to me knowing my family didn’t care much either. My dietary habitual pattern is usually lots of oily foods. Meats, fries, (sometimes) pasta, platanos, Rice and beans, and stuff a long those lines. If I’m not eating those, I’m usually eating out. The foods I consume are usually not very colored (mostly brown, white, and yellow). My favorite meals are pasta, and steak. Not together, separately (on different days). I like a lot of dairy products and meats. Those foods are the kinds I eat most of the time.

Food Journal

Afternoon:
Cup of Arizona Raspberry Ice tea
Personal pie pizza
Toasted bagel with cream cheese
Cup of milk

I ate all this with my cousin. We were in her living room eating together and watching TV. We were also conversing while commercials were on. It took about half an hour to wait for the pizza from dominoes and about 3 minutes to toast the bagel and put cream cheese on it while waiting for the pizza. I made the bagel and the pizza was I’m guessing made by dominoes. I’m not sure where the food comes from but the food was eaten with our hands. We were discussing her previous abortion, how she felt about her boyfriend, how I feel about my boyfriend, old memories we shared when we were younger, future plans, 2012, and a few other things. All in all the whole eating process took about 2 or 3 hours. I felt hungry before eating the ‘meal’ because I usually never have time for breakfast so when lunch rolls around I have a big appetite. While eating I felt happier that I was eating and also that I was spending time with my cousin who I don’t usually see very often. After the meal I felt tired, full, and also happy that I got to share my feelings with someone who I care about and love a lot.

Snack:
Bag of gummy sour peaches
Bottle of Vitamin Water

I drank the bottle of vitamin water before I went to the batting cages with the school team (actually only a couple of girls showed up). I ate the bag of gummy sour peaches on the train going back home after the batting cages. I bought it from an Entenmanns Cake outlet in queens before we got on the train. It took a while to eat the bag because I was sharing it with Cindy, Cotto, Lauren, Julie, and Kiya. I decided to play around so I threw one at Lauren. She then tried catching it with her mouth which is what gave us all the brilliant idea of trying to throw it to get it into the other persons mouth. It was fun and we had the whole train (which only consisted of 7 or 8 other people) watching and laughing at how dumb we looked. After each dropped gummy, me and Cindy picked them up and threw it in a plastic bag to make sure we didn’t leave any mess. Our conversation while throwing the sour gummies into each other’s mouth was mainly about aiming it and how to follow it and catch it. We talked about techniques like leaving your tongue slightly out so that it can stick there if you catch it. The food was eaten with our hands of course. Before the gummies I wasn’t hungry I was just craving some sort of candy. While eating the candy, I felt happy because I was having fun and bonding with some of the girls from the softball team and we weren’t arguing or anything. After eating the gummies and finishing it, we got bored because we had such a fun time throwing them and catching them. Plus, we all were approaching our stops to go home.

Dinner:
Rice & beans
Piece of steak
Chicken Lomein
2 cups of Coke

I ate this dinner as soon as I came home. I fell asleep on the train with Lauren and woke up very hungry. I served myself a big plate but I ate less than half. I was with Lauren and my father in the living room watching the game (Celtics vs The Bulls) on TV. It was already made when I had gotten home and I was only eating for about 20 minutes or so. The Lomein came from the Chinese restaurant and the rice and beans and steak, my grandmother made (I’m guessing with lots of seasoning like she usually does). I ate the food with a fork. Te conversation that came up was mostly about the basketball players, how they play, which ones we like best, their records, etc. We ate while still in street clothing and with our legs on the couch. At some points we would yell and at times we’d look away or get up from the TV in disappointment. Before the meal I felt slightly tired still and very hungry. During the meal, the hunger started going away and I was preoccupied on the game that I didn’t care much about finishing the food. After the meal (or after I decided I didn’t want any more, I was pretty ok. I wasn’t satisfied particularly. I wanted to eat something else. I wasn’t in the mood for that so I threw it out, washed my dishes and came back to the TV.

Morning: nothing
Afternoon: Big bowl of soup including chicken, noodles, and potatoes

As soon as I got out the shower and got dressed this afternoon, my grandmother told me to sit down at the table. I knew she was going to serve me food but I wasn’t hungry. I tried to tell her I wasn’t hungry but she didn’t really want to hear it. She served me a big bowl of soup she just finished making. She sat down right next to me, so I started up a conversation. I asked her how she was feeling, what she had been thinking about because it seemed to me she had a lot on her mind. We discussed feelings and other family members for a little while. Before I knew it I was done with the soup. I had been eating it while talking to her but I didn’t realize I was eating it until I was finished. I ate the soup with a spoon. I’m going to guess it took her about an hour and a half to make the soup, but I’m not sure. The soup liquid was yellowish so I know she put a lot of seasoning in it. The soup was good, and while eating it I didn’t really realize how I was feeling. After the meal, I was happy I got to speak to my grandmother because we don’t talk much. There was no TV or music playing while I was eating. I was also very full. This makes me feel tired.

Food Cultures - Home & Corporate

Usually both the woman and man provide for the family but the woman’s work wasn’t completely finished until after dinner was made. In my family, it was always usually the woman’s job to cook the food. Men could cook, but usually the woman always dominated in the kitchen. It wasn’t until special occasions or when the woman was really tired and the man felt up for it that the men went into the kitchen to cook. Most of the time the men in the family tell the woman what they want (if and when they had suggestions) and the woman goes out and buys the groceries to start cooking. In terms of quantity, it depends on how many people the woman are serving but it was very common for the woman to make more than enough. It usually takes up to 2 or 3 hours to completely be finished with dinner, but on huge family occasions the cooking won’t stop for about 4 or 5 hours. With my immediate family, there were enough chairs at the table to have everyone sit down and eat with no TV, phones, music, etc. Just quality family time. 2 out of 7 days in the week, my father would be too tired to come join us at the table in which my mother would serve him in bed and the rest of us ate at the table. With the whole family, the gatherings are usually at my house (since my grandmother likes to stay mostly at my house and often doesn’t enjoy traveling in any other weather but sunny). The table usually goes to the grownups or least seen guests and the children, teenagers, and so on gather in the living room, and sometimes rooms. With the kids, teens, etc, usually the TV is on, music is playing, everyone’s updating each other about how their boyfriend/girlfriend is, what kind of trouble they’ve been getting into, etc. The foods that we usually eat are greasy and oily. A lot of times there will be rice, meat (pork chops, chicken, steak, ham, etc), beans, avocado, platanos, lasagna, potato salad, etc. Very filling and big meals are common. The foods are cooked with a lot of seasoning. For the rice, a lot of salt is put into the water when making it, for the meat there are many different ranges of seasonings to add. When cooking steak, usually a lot of steak marinades that have combined seasonings all in one are added, for chicken its usually mojo (another marinade that has a many different seasonings all in one), for ham usually they put clovers in it while it cooks and syrup to give it a rich sweet flavor. Once its finished, sometimes they add slices of pineapples and cherries on top of it. My families food way is kind of different than my food way. I eat a lot more fast food and easy to make foods that can be put in the oven or microwave or stove for a short period of time. I don’t usually cook my meals but in the rare cases that I do, I cook with lots of seasonings and oil too.

The mainstream corporate US food way is similar to my own. Even though the mainstream has two main categories, eat healthy or eat good tasty foods. Mine mostly connects to eating tasty foods that aren’t healthy for you but filling. I’m not sure how these foods are cooked (though mostly I’m sure they are pre-packaged and re-heatable. Deep fried, cooked in oil, or cooked with butter and in some cases seasonings, dressings, and/or combinations of sauces such as ketchup and mayonnaise). Fast food is usually most convenient because you don’t have to do the cooking yourself and after a long day you can just come home and enjoy the meal, throw out the rest and sleep. Or do whatever else you usually do. Fast food isn’t healthy nor is it sacred. In terms of ‘togetherness’, in certain ways does fast food bring people together. Most of the time it brings me and my sister or me and family cousins together because we go out together to go buy it, sometimes enjoy it at the place and sometimes take it back home where we enjoy it through conversation or television.

Through television, the food channel usually offers healthier ways to make delicious foods. They don’t usually cook in a whole bunch of oil. The cook with healthy and small portions of oil. The cook with fresh ingredients though they do often add their own seasonings to the dishes. They teach you how to make 30-minute meals, or just easy to learn quick meals. I don’t think the food is sacred their either, but in terms of togetherness in a way again it may bring people together. I guess when you watch it, usually others are interested so they join you.

Internet Research

Question: Is 3 meals a day sufficient for your body?

In terms of being physically healthy I found most sites suggest eating 5 -6 small meals throughtout the day (one every couple of hours) to keep an active metabolism, eat fewer calories in general and burn more calories faster. It prevents from having huge meals that will end up taking your metabolism quite some time to break down. By eating more but smaller meals, your metabolism will have the time and energy to burn down calories, etc.

"You shouldn't wait until you are hungry to eat. The point is to prevent hunger. Three meals is actually two meals less than you should be eating. You should eat about five meals a day. Now, I am not talking about a full plate of spaghetti or something, but small meals every few hours. Doing this will keep your metablic rate up and you won't feel drained or crabby by the end of the day. PS Make it something wholesome and you won't gain weight."

Source 1

"In a recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition editorial, a team of nutrition researchers concluded that whether you are practicing the 'three' or 'six' meal daily dietary pattern, weight loss ultimately comes down to 'how much energy (or calories) is consumed as opposed to how often or how regularly one eats.'

So given the tried-and-true equation for weight maintenance: Calories 'in' = Calories 'out,' what this really boils down to is whether eating five or six small meals a day truly helps us to:

Burn more total calories at the end of the day
Eat fewer total calories at the end of the day"

Source 2

"Most fitness conscious people already understand the importance of meal frequency, but they figure they can "get by" with three "square" meals. The more often you eat the more efficient your body will be at utilizing the foods your put in it."

Source 3

"Individual metabolism seems to be the key in determining how many meals a day to eat. However, if you eat only two to three meals a day you are probably not making your metabolism work as hard as it is supposed to. You may feel tired with a loss of energy and wind up turning toward snacks, which may not be as carefully chosen as an actual meal. With five to six meals a day, you have more opportunities to plan to eat correctly as opposed to snacking on junk food."

Source 4

"Eating less does not guarantee weight loss. Eating more often keeps your ‘energy balance‘ more level. Energy balance is the relationship between the calories you are burning and the calories you are eating. The leanest people are those whose energy balance stays within a surplus/deficit range of about 300 – 500 calories. Eating more often will achieve this level, so eat 3 smaller meals with 3 good snacks in between. You also maintain a fuller stomach and this wards off the hungries and reduces the possibility of you grabbing something inappropriate to satisfy the hunger pangs."

Source 5

Refrigerator Assignment

I can’t name everything in my refrigerator but I got as much as I could down.

2 cartons of milk, Snapple, Water, Iced tea, Ricotta cheese, Mayonnaise, Eggs, Lasagna (left over), Chicken (left over), Butter, Jelly, Salmon spread, Soda, Icing, Cream cheese, Garlic, Mushrooms, Lettuce, Cheese, Tomatoes, Onions, Lemon, Lemon juice, Rice (left over), Teriyaki sauce, Olives, Mustard, Caramel syrup, Syrup, 4 Dressings, & Vinegar.

This list shows my relationship to food to be very unhealthy. I don’t eat a lot of fruits or vegetables and in fact most of what I eat comes from ordering out. I eat a lot of greasy, fattening foods. The foods I eat are often cooked with a lot of seasoning, and oil. I am Spanish so a lot of the meals I consume while at home are Spanish ones. I eat a lot of platanos, rice, beans, pork chops, steak, and other various heavy oily, greasy meats. When I eat out, we often order from the Spanish diner, chinese restaurant, or a fast food place nearby (popeyes, white castle, mc.donalds, chicken spot, etc.)

Growing up it was very traditional to have home cooked meals. Usually both my father and mother cooked. This depended on who was finished with work earliest. We usually sat around the dinner table and talked about our day and sometimes interesting things we learned, or funny jokes or just funny situations either us or our friends were put in. Dinner time used to be a time to spend quality time with your immediate family. Only holiday dinners were spent with the rest of the family (or when they would occasionally pop up for a visit). After my mother passed, my father had to work more and he never had time to cook. So it was either up to my sisters or myself to cook and since we were never really spending to much time in the kitchen when we were young we never really wanted to do so. Most of the time we found better things to do. When my father comes home we’re now accustom to him asking us what we want for dinner and him just ordering it out. At first it was very enjoyable but then we got tired of it. Dinner is now spent in our own rooms with our fast food as we all watch TV, listen to music, or talk on the phone with friends. Me and my sister look forward to holiday dinners because of the home cooked meals and big family gatherings around the house and at the table.

Health Project

Throughout this health course, we have been learning how to explore different aspects of our health such as emotional, mental, and moral health. We've also briefly visited physical, social, and spiritual health. We did so by practicing counseling, looking into different therapies (coaching, psychotherapy, co-counseling, existential psychology, humanistic psychology, etc), considering moral dilemmas (looking at different situations, responding to them, and evaluating our response), practicing meditating, and doing activities that involve using our bodies more throughout the day and writing down how we felt after doing so. By doing such activities, we were able to better understand the many different ways health can be looked upon and how we can define/ better understand them.

During these investigations, we talked about how each of these different definitions/ ways to look at health in some way relate to each other. For example, being depressed affects the way you think morally. You might not care as much about a lot of things, and know the difference between what would be morally standard in a given situation but want to do the complete opposite. Also because of depression, you tend to not want to do anything involving other people ultimately affecting your social health and you might even be lazy which will affect your physical health. Then we looked at the bigger picture. People like this are considered unhealthy but what if something drastic/ life changing recently happened to them i.e. the death of a loved one, abuse, etc. Then someone like this is considered healthy. It is considered healthy to be in touch with your emotions and know how you’re feeling and what is causing the feeling but unhealthy to actually feel those emotions unless in a situation that society tells us it’s ok to feel i.e. depressed after the death that just occurred.

What stands out the most to me is moral health. I feel like moral health can really help us understand how we think and also connects back to just about every other subcategory of health. Also physical health. Physical health can help us feel more confident and have a higher self esteem. We can be happier, more social, mentally, emotionally, and morally healthier.

In our society it isn’t common for us to question definitions. We are told this means this point blank. After studying this health unit and taking Andy in general I learned that it’s better to question definitions especially if you don’t understand them. Before studying deeper into the concept of health I thought someone who was unhealthy was out of shape, emotionally disturbed (depressed, etc), and/or just crazy people (usually drunk people or the people that talk to themselves on the train). Now I understand there are many things you have to consider when thinking about health. I don’t think it is possible for anyone to be completely healthy in this society. In order to ‘deepen’ my own health, I’m going to try thinking more about the way I feel and what makes me feel that way. I’m going to try to eat healthier and participate in more activities that will help me feel better about myself. I’ve already tried talking to my dad about some of what we’ve learned in this unit to help him better care for himself. I feel like I have a much better comprehension of what being healthy really means.