Food Advices

After reading the article, “History of Food Advice”, written by Dupuis, I found an interesting thing. Nowadays, popular food writers write many confusing food advices. Nevertheless, there are a huge number of people obey the food advices without thinking, and they just let the popular food writers changing their diet habits. They even do not have think about the food advices are reliable or scientific, and blindly follow the popular food writers. Obviously, in this article, Dupuis is opposed to follow the popular food writers. He gave an example that in the past time, we were always pursuing eating perfectly, and we failed every time. People always liked to follow the food advices, and the advices did not help, because the advices did not improve our diets.

In the opposite side, Pollan gave some eating advices in his article, “Unhappy Meals.” However, at the beginning of the article, he mentions some food advices, which were unreliable and confusing. He points out that nutritionism is not science. Instead, it is ideology. After talking about some confusing food advices, he gave us some his points of view of eating. He suggests that industrial foods and processed foods are not natural and, of course, not to eat. Instead, we should have natural food, which is higher quality than industrial foods or processed foods.

All in all, I agree with Dupuis’s point, and I always choose do not listen to what the popular food writers said. Instead, I would eat in Chinese tradition. One of the traditions is that having more vegetable than meat is healthier. 

Review post

I have read Yusi's blog and found some interesting things. Yusi is talking about tomatoes, which contained carotene lycopene. Because carotene lycopene is a kind of natural antioxidants, it can heal cancer diseases. Moreover, eating tomatoes even can protect ourselves from harmful UV rays!

Healthy Breakfast

Yuan Zhou

WRIT-1133

Dr. Eric Leake

May 17^th, 2012

Healthy Breakfast

            Among my writing classmates, I find that some people do not have scheduled mealtime, while some people strictly implement their meal schedule. The classmates who do not have scheduled their mealtime always miss breakfast, and they sometimes do not have a regular lunchtime or dinnertime.

Most of the people who do not have constant daily schedule do not have class before 10:00 am. Of course, the people who strictly execute their daily schedule often have class before 10:00 am. From the class time distribution, we can easily conclude that the schedule of class heavily affects the mealtime schedule.

In the article, “Harvard Men’s Health Watch”, the author mentioned that “It is important to start your day with a good break- fast, and your first meal of the day will help flip the switch back to energy storage, so it’s important to do it right”, which means that not only breakfast is important to ourselves, but also how to have breakfast is important. In the rest of the article, the author talked about breakfast can lower the risk of diseases, such as diabetes and heart diseases, if and only if people start right at breakfast in healthful way. Additionally, the people who usually do not have breakfast would have higher risk of contracting a disease. Therefore having breakfast is significant to our lives, and having right pattern of breakfast is also important. If you do not have healthful pattern of breakfast, your health were not better than those of who do not have breakfast.
           I am the one who having the healthful pattern the author talked about. I always have breakfast in the morning at the certain time--- 9:00am. I also have lunch and dinner on time according to my timetable. I choose to eat the food with high protein in the morning--- eggs and potatoes. In order to take in vitamins, I drink orange juice every meal. According to the article, it is not important to eat vegetable in the morning. Thus, I seldom eat vegetable, because vegetable always is raw in the United States, and raw vegetable is hard to eat for me. Therefore, orange juice becomes the complement of vegetable.
           By contrast, Difei, one of my classmate, usually prefer to drink coke when he eating, which is bad for his health. He likes to eat fried food, which may causes cancer. Erratic mealtime would causes digestive system diseases, and missing breakfast is abnormal and is harmful to people, especially teenagers.
         In addition, during the discuss in the class, I noticed one point that the people who have erratic daily scheduled rules often were addicted to computer games, and were likely to follow television show. Moreover, they always eat food before computer screen or television, which is very unhealthy. Because of addicting to computer games, they stay up so late that they always miss their breakfast, which is a very unhealthy habit.
           According to “Breakfast and Mental Health”, written by Andrew P. Smith, having breakfast is good for our mental health. Regular breakfast eaters were significantly less stressed, less depressed than the people who have irregular breakfast. Furthermore, breakfast even can affect health-related behaviors, such as smoking. Regular breakfast eaters were less likely to smoke than the people who usually do not have breakfast.  
           All in all, breakfast is significant to our lives. It is not exaggerated to say breakfast equals healthy lives. In order to have healthy minds and bodies, we should have breakfast and keep our diets healthy.

Work Cited

"Breakfast and Your Health." Harvard men's health watch 9.7 (2005): 1. Print.

Smith, A. P. "Breakfast and Mental Health." International journal of food        
      sciences and nutrition 49.5 (1998): 397-402. Print.

Post 8 comment

Some people have scheduled meal time, while some people do not have scheduled meal time. Almost the people who do not have scheduled meal time are likely to play computer games. However, most of the people who have scheduled meal time have class before 10:00 am.
Ying Zhang always have an apple in the morning, and eat healthy food in lunch and unhealthy food in dinner. She’s meal is like mine. I always have orange juice, in breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Food journal

10^th May, Thursday.

I got up at 8:30 am and have breakfast at 9:00 am. I went to Nelson dining hall to have some fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums (eggs). I drink some orange juice.

At 12:00 am, I had some Navy Bean Soup and turkey burger, and then I had some Entrée--- Greek Gyro. Also I drink some orange juice. After that, I ate some Angel Cookies.

At 6:00 pm, I had some Onion Soup and BBQ Burger with Crispy Onions. I love corn, so I eat some steamed corn. For sure, I drink some orange juice, too. After finished my meal, I eat some almond cookies.

11^th May, Friday.

In the morning, I have breakfast at 9:00 am. As usual, I went to dining hall and have some fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums and some orange juice.

At 11:30 am, I had some Chicken Corn Chowder, and ate some Tuna Melt in Nelson dining hall. French fries are my favorite food and I ate some. Dessert time, I ate some Berry Blue Jell-O Parfait. Orange juice for sure.

At 5:00 pm, I had some Cheese Pizza and orange juice, because I was not hungry.

12^th May, Saturday.

At 10:00 am, I ate the same breakfast everyday--- fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums. Orange juice is the necessity of my daily life.

Because on the weekends, the dining hall only offers the brunch beginning at 10:00 am, I do not have lunch on weekends.

At 6:00 pm, I ate some chicken taco and Pepsi in my dorm. I brought that food from Nagel dining hall.

Always, I have my meal at school dining hall. This is my three days food journal.

An Amazing Aquaculture Product

Yuan Zhou

WRIT-1133

Dr. Eric Leake

May 9, 2012

An Amazing Aquaculture Product

            I was amazed at one extremely delicious seafood dish, Sauteed Shrimp in Szechuan Style, last week in Star Kitchen. Sauteed Shrimp in Szechuan Style is only made of shrimps and red peppers. Ingredients of this dish are so simple that I cannot believe the facts, because the shrimps in that dish not only are fresh and soft but also are peppery and biting. Because of the taste of the shrimps, the dish is very delicious and becomes my favorite food.

            Seafood Health Facts, a project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, said that “Shrimp is the most popular seafood eaten in the United States. It represents over 25 percent of the nation’s annual per capita seafood consumption. This calculation indicates that the average consumer eats 4 pounds of shrimp per year.” We can see that shrimp is important to Americans. Shrimp is a normal food in our daily life.

In this paper, I am going to talk about the production of this amazing food. As we all know, shrimp is an aquaculture product. There are so many kinds of shrimp in the world. Like the classification of fish, the classification of shrimp can be divided into two classes, freshwater shrimp and saltwater shrimp. According to PlanetInverts, a non-profit website, there are more than 300 kinds of shrimp in the world, which means shrimp is a huge class of living creature. Here are some kinds of shrimp we used to eat.

In Seafood Health Facts websites, I have learned that there are significant number species of shrimp but they can be sold only in one word--- shrimp. Sometimes people sold shrimps and call them prawns, because in certain international markets people are more likely call some types shrimp as prawns. Moreover, in Spanish, people call shrimp or prawns as camarones. Here is an interesting thing. In China, lobster and shrimp have the same appellation, because Chinese call everything looks like shrimp as shrimp, for the convenience.

However, there are only five types of shrimp we usually eat. They are Cold water shrimp, Warm water shrimp, Wild shrimp, Farmed shrimp and Imported shrimp. Farmed shrimp is consists of cold water shrimp and warm water shrimp, which are both farmed by people. According to Seafood Health Facts, “Over 90 percent of the shrimp eaten in the United States come from farmed sources grown in other countries around the world”, which means farmed shrimp is significant to the United States.  Moreover, the imported shrimp refers to the farmed shrimp imported from China, Thailand and many other Asian countries, and the imported shrimp is a major component of American shrimp market.

Cold water shrimp, known as Pandalid shrimp, are small varieties farmed and harvested in ocean waters comparing to other sources of shrimp. We often remove the shrimp shell and previously cook Coldwater shrimp, and commonly used them in salads, soups, or chowders.

Warm water shrimp are farmed in tropical area. Based on the color of the shell, we can recognize the warm water shrimp (white, brown, and pink shrimp). Tiger, banana and hopper shrimp are the species of shrimp. People buy the warm water shrimp depending on the taste, texture, size and costs. Of course, different species of shrimp have different prices.

            Wild shrimp is either cold water or warm water species, and people harvested them from the coastal ocean waters by using traditional vessels. Because there is an annual production limits set by management programs, wild shrimp consists less than 10 percent of the shrimp people consume. Thus, the wild shrimp always used to make traditional flavors and recipes, which are very delicious, because of the precious raw material--- wild shrimp.

            By looking up the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, I found that the word shrimp originally comes from the Middle English shrimpe, akin to the Middle Low German schrempen, which means “pygmy”, or to contract or wrinkle. It is very interesting that the people in ancient time are likely named things using their appearance. The book also mentioned that harvesting of shrimp is starting at 17^th century. People in where Louisiana bayou used seines in circumference to catch shrimps. Moreover, people start to use machine to harvest shrimps after 1917.

            After the research on shrimp, I have found that the shrimps are more complicated than I was thought, because before my research, I did not know there were so many kinds of shrimp. The most astonishing thing is that most of shrimps we have eaten are farmed instead of the wild shrimps. Additionally, before I do the research on shrimp, I am afraid to eat shrimp, because I think the shrimp are wild and might become extinct. Therefore I am in a “to eat or not to eat” dilemma, because shrimp is a kind of very delicious food. However, after I knew most the shrimps are farmed by human beings, I am not afraid to eat shrimp anymore.

Work Cited

Merriam-Webster.Int. “Shrimp”. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. October 13, 2008.

Planet Inverts. “Shrimp Species”. http://www.planetinverts.com/shrimp_species.html.
            2010.

Seafood Health Facts. “Shrimp Market”.
             http://seafoodhealthfacts.org/seafood_choices/shrimp.php. 2010.

In the infographic, “FOWL TROUBLE”, Cook talked about the differences between nowadays chicken and the chicken in the past time, and those between nowadays chicken production and the chicken production in the past time. The chicken is bigger than the chicken in the past time. He mentioned that “And as demand has increased, so have line speeds in processing plants: in 1979 the USDA limit was 70 birds per minute; today it stands at 91 birds per minute, a figure based not on how quickly workers can safelydo their jobs but on how quickly USDA meat inspectors can examine the carcasses”, which means that the limit of number of chicken killed is larger than before. (Cook, first part) The demand of eating chicken is increasing. Cook mentioned the chicken plants too. Because of the worse of the working condition, there is fewer and fewer Americans want to work in the chicken plants.

            In the introduction part of the book, “Tomatoland”, talked about the taste and the look of the tomatoes. The author argued that different tomatoes, which were grown in different area, would have different taste and look. Because of the reason of this, she claimed that we should compare the taste and look of different tomatoes, which were grown in different area, to find out the history and production of different kind of tomato.

            In the Michael Pollan’s article, “An Animal’s Place”, she talked about her experiencing “Animal Liberation”. In order to illustrate and do research on Animal, she went to observed different animals’ living condition in different farms. She found out that whether people chose to eat animal or not, animal would die. Thus we should respect what animal deserve, and make their death more meaningful. She concluded that it was not right enough to talk about whether people should eat animal or not.

            The most interesting part I think is that whether people eat animal or not, animal death rate would still increase, and the best way to solve this dilemma is that people should go with the flow and respect what animal deserve.