Reflection

My favorite part about the course was hands down looking at how food advertisements perpetuate different societal norms and expectations. I thought it was interesting how gendered food adds had the power to influence viewers in such strong ways. I also really enjoyed looking at how food is such a large and important aspect of culture. I now believe that you cannot have one without the other, but that both are so intertwined they are impossible to separate. The course also taught me how to integrate my own personal research into a paper and how to make my research relevant to the other things I am currently studying. I think the skills I learned in how to put my research into an academic paper while still having it entertaining will come in handy throughout the rest of my academic career.

The God Nutrient

I thought the articles brought up some interesting points about my own eating habits. Being a vegetarian I often find myself eating for nutrients instead of for the food itself. It is hard to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle if I don't watch how much protein I intake. However at the exact same time during the summer I love to go to farmer markets and find fresh raw unadulterated foods. I go to a local urban farm every weekend to pick up a dozen hormone free eggs. I plant my own garden so that I can have my own fresh herbs, tomatoes, carrots, peppers etc. But in the end even when I am eating raw and hormone free I am still focused on the nutrients I am consuming not necessarily the food itself. I think it is interesting that that the ideology of nutrientism has peculated its way into all levels of food consumption. 

I also found the way scientist individualize nutrients instead of studying how they work together to be interesting. The nutrients that we eat go to work in an extremely complex system and work together in extremely complex ways, why therefore can a scientist say that a single nutrient minus all of the other factors be such a god send? Perhaps the term "god send" is exactly the right term. Perhaps scientist really aren't that far removed from the John Smith the founder of Mormonism and his vision of perfect health, after all if a scientist can find that one special nutrient which extends life by 10 years, is he really any different? 

The Egg-credible Egg

Being a vegetarian, my diet often consists of large amounts of tofu, peanut butter, and eggs. What do all three of these items have in common? Protein. Being a vegetarian, it is extremely important to eat a balanced diet and making sure that I eat enough protein is an integral part of my diet. My favorite way to get protein is through eating eggs. An integral part of my diet, I eat eggs for breakfast, mix them in with ramen, stir-fry, and eat them in numerous other ways. Eating so many eggs I always try to eat cage free local eggs, that way I can avoid the animal cruelty that is so common in large animal farms. However noticing how many eggs I eat, I got curious about what other important nutritional factors eggs bring into my diet. In order to find information on this I looked into local food journals

            An article by Melissa Hillebrand entitled “Easily Add Nutrition with EGGS,” talks about the nutritional advantages of eating eggs. I had always known eggs were a good source of protein, but I did not know that a single egg contains 6.25 grams of protein, and that it is “second only to a mother’s milk in terms of how efficiently the body can use it for growth” (Hillebrand). The other important aspect of eggs is that they contain all nine of the essential amino acids, the amino acids which the body cannot create on its own. In fact, the yolk of the egg is almost 16% protein, contributing to the large amount of protein within eggs (Hillebrand). But eggs are also high in other important vitamins and minerals.

            Eggs are also an important source of Vitamin D, an important vitamin for calcium absorption and in the prevention of osteoporosis in older adults (Egg Nutrition…). Folic acid, iron, zinc, and potassium are also naturally occurring in eggs (Hillebrand). Another interesting nutritional factor to note in eggs is the presence of lutein, an antioxidant which reduces “the risk of cataracts and age related muscle degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in seniors” (Hillebrand). Furthermore, eggs are the number one source of bioavailable lutein, almost 200 mcg per egg (Hillebrand). It is also important to note what eggs do not have - trans-fat, a fat which people often try to avoid for its negative health effects.

            One of the main arguments against eggs is that they are a high source of cholesterol. However in the USDA’s last review of eggs, the researches made a surprising discovery. The modern egg contains on average 185mg of cholesterol, “14 percent lower than the previously recorded” value (Egg Nutrition…). The researchers also looked at the amount of vitamin D in the modern egg it now contains 41 IU of vitamin D, “65 percent higher than reported in the last nutrient analysis” (Egg Nutrition…). In total the incredible egg contains all nine essential amino acids, 12 vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants.

            After looking into the nutritional value of eggs I feel even more confident that as a vegetarian I am doing the right thing by eating eggs. And in all actuality, I do not see any reason why anyone would not want to consume the egg-credible egg.

Works Cited

"Egg Nutrition Center: Eggs, a Natural Source of Vitamin D." Healthy & Beauty Close - Up (2011). Close Up Media, Inc, 08 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 May 2012.

Hillebrand, Melissa. "Easily Add Nutrition with EGGS." Baking Management 9.5 (2005): 42. Baking Management. Web. 15 May 2012.

Food Journal Observations

It seems that people tend to either be really healthy or really unhealthy. It seems that people that snack more than they sit down to eat, often eating between obligations. There also seems to be very little self-cooked meals, most people either get food at the dining hall or get something from a restaurant. It surprised me that most people ate breakfast every single day, a meal which in my opinion often gets passed by.

Weekend food journal: Friday: breakfast was a bowl of vanilla goat yogurt with kiwis and strawberries I ate post yoga. Lunch was a vegetarian fajita bowl from Chipotle with white rice and black beans. I had an afternoon snack of a bagel with a chai tea latte. Dinner around 8 was the rest of my Chipotle with a Blackberry Izzy. Saturday: Breakfast was two scrambled eggs with mushrooms and asparagus, toast, and a glass of orange juice following my morning run. Lunch was 2 slices of cheese pizza, garlic bread sticks, and a Coke. Dinner was Satean buffalo wings, a pasta of vegan noodles with Olive oil, olives, squash, and other veggies, followed by a vegan creame brûlée dessert shared with my boyfriend at our favorite all vegan restaurant Watercourse for his birthday. Sunday: I skipped breakfast because we were driving up to Greeley so instead just got iced chai latte from Starbucks. Lunch was vegetarian sushi at a local sushi bar with a cup of iced green tea. I had an afternoon snack of an apple with peanut butter. Dinner was vegan enchiladas, stuffed with corn, tomatoe, and potato, there was Spanish rice and homemade beans. Dessert was a vegan carrot cake with vegan cream cheese icing, I made, that we ate with my boyfriends family for his birthday.

Vegan Cheesecake

                I recently went to one of my absolute favorite restaurants, Watercourse. A completely vegetarian restaurant, they also have the option to make every single item on their menu vegan. One of my absolutely favorite desserts, cheesecake was also on the menu. When I ordered it, my waiter informed me that they were out of regular cheesecake, so I would have to have a vegan version of the dessert. While I shouldn’t have been surprised that Watercourse had a vegan option, I just couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it, how could such a thing exist? My curiosity peeked, I had no choice other than to order the unbelievable dessert, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The texture was almost perfect, and the taste was just right, the gluten free crust was so close to the actual thing that if someone didn’t know better they would have believed it to be the real deal. My experience with vegan cheesecake got me wondering, how exactly they made and what products they used.

                The number one ingredient in the cheesecake was vegan cream cheese, a product I had never seen before. Vegan cream cheese is primarily made from tofu, a product made from mashed soybeans. Tofu was originally created more than 2000 years ago in ancient China, evidence of its creation on a stone slab which depicts the production of tofu between the years A.D. 25-220 (History of Tofu). Today tofu is a staple ingredient in almost all vegetarian and vegan diets. A rich source of protein, tofu is readily eaten in order to substitute for animal protein in vegetarian and vegan diets. Tofu is made through a simple process: soy milk is first boiled, once the milk has cooled a bit a coagulant is added (normally calcium sulphate), the mixture is then left to sit for 15 to 20 minutes, after sitting the coagulated soy milk is sifted through cheesecloth, finally the solid pieces are put into a mold and left to sit with a weight on top of the mixture to help form a brick, after 20 minutes a new solid brick of tofu is ready to be cooked with (History of Tofu). Organic tofu is a relatively simple and easy product with only salt added to it to make it congeal, however when tofu is modified to imitate other textures and taste similar to those of meat and dairy products, numerous things must be done to the product.

                Within the vegetarian community, it is often a safe rule-of-thumb, that if a product imitates meat or dairy it’s not very healthy; vegan cream cheese is no exception. Vegan cream cheese is created by firstly blending tofu, to the blended tofu palm kernel oil is added along with “Carrageenan, pectin, maltodextrin and salt ... selected as emulsifying and stabilizing agents needed to produce an emulsion paste with the desired texture, viscosity and firmness” (Zulkurnain). Once the desired texture is reached, different flavors and chemicals are added to the mixture to imitate the original product. Once the taste has been matched, the product is ready to be used just like the original. The large amount of palm kernel oil in vegan imitation products has always worried me. I stay away from animal products to be a healthier individual, avoiding things like saturated fats, hormones, and antibiotics. But when eating imitation foods I am subject to just as many health concerns as if I was eating the original; such as saturated fats, large amounts of chemicals, and pesticides.

                Personally I do not think there is anything wrong with enjoying an imitation product every now and then, but consuming them often and in large amounts can lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. I loved my vegan cheesecake, and for my lactose intolerant vegan boyfriend, the lactose free cheesecake was reminiscent of family celebrations growing up. The ability that companies have to recreate the items I willingly gave up years ago absolutely astounds me. It also makes me question if being vegetarian or vegan means as much as it used to 50 years ago when imitation products were few and far between. In giving up animal products willingly, does it show a lack of resolve and a weakening of the mission statement of each and every non-meat eater, or has giving up animal products become so common place that vegetarians and vegans can now openly eat pseudo meat without apprehension? I don’t claim to know the answer the answer, but what I do know is that either way, I am going to enjoy my vegan cheesecake, but only so long as I do so in appropriate moderation.

"Eating Right"

The article "Our National Eating Disorder," by Pollan, introduces the idea that American's unhealthiness is due to focusing too much on nutritional value and not enough on what just taste good. Pollan makes that argument that compared to France, Americans are far more unhealthy, yet Americans focus more on the nutritional value of foods than the French do; while the French focus more heavily on eating as a cultural and social activity. Because the French focus on eating as a social activity, they often eat less and only eat when eating with others. Furthermore, Pollan argues that what the body craves is what the body needs. Evolution has hardwired humans to stay away from foods which make them sick, and to migrate towards foods which taste good.

I know that in my personal diet, I tend to focus more on what is (or appears) to be a healthy well balanced choice, over what sounds to be a tasty choice. Whenever I go to Safeway, my shopping basket is often filled with organic foods, and numerous "Eating Right" choices. I know that often I could cook a far more delicious meal, but it is much easier to have prepacked food that I can eat on the go. Perhaps if I were to start eating by what taste good (excluding processed foods) and eating socially I would be an even healthier individual.