Reflections =)

Hey!


haha, this blog is almost complete, and i really feel a sense of acomplishment. i have never made a blog and sustained it for this long.. =)

What have you learnt about your eating habits?

• well-balanced
• well-controlled as i usually eat at home
• many of the nutrients are consumed over the recommended allowance
• too much saturated fats
• too much sodium, fats and energy
• needs more calcium
• quite unexpected-- i have always thought my diet as a very healthy one, but the food intake assessment proved me wrong.

Do you consider your diet as a healthy one?

• yes.
• it is very well-balanced, as i eat the correct or close number of servings fro each food group quite accurately.
• have all the required nutrients in a day.
• relatively close to the recommended amount.
• however should take note of the nutrients i am consuming over the recommended amount by alot, for example fats, saturated fats, sodium etc

Are the suggested nutritional tools useful? Why?

• yes and no.
• some of the food tools are hard to use as number of servings are required and t is not easy to be exact.
• food Intake Analysis=very accurate analysis of the food we eat, and their nutritional information.
• however, because it is done online, it is frequently disrupted by internet connection, make us having to start all over. especially the food intake assessment, when having done all the keying in of the food i ate, the website would show a message that goes : " Page error
  Due to the high volume of visitors today, some of our web pages may not load properly.
  We are currently looking into this. Please bear with us, or try visiting our website later.
  Thank you for visiting HPB Online!". if not with the help of Estee (208), i guess i would not have even managed to make use of this highly informative tool.
• also, its database does not have alot of the food i eat at home, making it hard to find a close match, and affecting analysis
• the nutritional tools are effective also as i gives me a rough idea on what nutrients i need to cut sown on and what i need to consume more, which is not known to me till i have used the tools.

Why is your suggested one-dish meal healthy?

• it is healthy because the macaroni noodles do not contain trans-fat, and the absence of MSG in instant noodles is also beneficial for our health. Vegetables and Chicken are added instead to give the soup flavour. these natural flavourings not only gives the soup great taste, but also provides us with the vitamins and proteind needed in a meal. Definitely more well-balancec than instant noodles!
• sometimes because of our busy schedules, we are trading time with our health! even though instant noodles take a relatively shorter time to cook it is really high in fats! so i guess we should always try to eat healthier food even if it means having a longer time to cook.
  
  

Food and Nutrition Module in my school has really helped me to learn more about the food i eat everyday and also watch my diet. They have been not only a fun, but also enriching lessons where i have learnt how to cook healthier dishes to share with my family. every time i finish a dish with my partner, we are always so proud of our own food!

Plus, having to clean up by ourselves also made us more responsible people, and now i can help my mum with the chores and put a big smile on her face! =)

Doing up this blog further reiterates the importance of having a balanced diet, and i could find out the various amounts of nutrients in our favourite foods--all the fats! haha, maybe it is true that ignorance is bliss... But since i have already found out, i will not want to end up like the poor boy in the very first blog entry i have made.

having said so much, i would like to specially thank Ms Sophia Wong for her guidance and teaching! =)

Please do scroll down and enjoy the video once more. And feed the fishes at the side of the blog by clicking your mouse! they will follow the mouse.. =)

Have fun! =)

One-Dish Meal

Hello!

i have been re-looking at my diet for the 3-days that i have recorded. Don't know if it is due to the fact that it was a holiday, what i eat at home is much healthier than what i eat normally in school or outside. Hoever, one of the most unhealthy one would be : INSTANT NOODLES!

here is a alternative for instant noodles whoch is loaded with MSG and stuff that are not natural.. so the recipe for a healthier one-dish meal i have learnt in school is:

Ingredients list:

1. 1 cup macaroni

2. 1 dsp oil

3. 1/2 large onion, diced

4. 1 chicken drumstick - meat removed and diced

5. 1/4 carrot, skin removed and diced

6. 1 potato, peeled and diced

7. 1 stick celery, cut into pieces

8. 1 dried mashroom, soaked and diced

9. 500ml water

10. 1 chicken cube

11. i sprig coriander for garnishing

Methods:

1. Boil the macaroni until soft. dish in a bowl. Heat oil in a saucepan and fry onions until fragrant.

2. Add the chicken and fry.

3. Add the carrot, potato, mushroom, water and cicken cube.

4. When the carrots and potato are tender, add the celery.

5. Simmer until the vegetables are cooked.

6. Pour into the bowl of mcaroni and garnish woth coriander leaves.

Done! a healthier one-dish meal is complete! easy to prepare and cook, this alternative is tasty and healthy! it is has all the nutrients we need in a meal-- carbohydrates from the macaroni, vitamins and fibre from the vegetables, and aslo proteins from the chicken! Whereas the instant noodles, though bringing us much convenience, has nothing but carbohydrates and fats from the noodles itself, which has been deep fried first to speed up cooking time (try eating the instant noodles raw, it's just like maggie mee without the seasoning! ).

here is a picture of the macaroni soup i prepared in school:

YUMMY! =)

Food Analysis--Fat Info Finder

hi!


this method is really easy and convenient to use, and i have yet again analysed the instant noodles of my meals--it is the most accurate as the other meals return no searches. here is the anaylsis provided:


























"While both unsaturated fat and saturated fat are in a variety of foods, studies have found that these fats are not created equally. Unsaturated fats can be beneficial to your heart, whereas saturated fats could be detrimental to your cholesterol and your heart.
Saturated fats are found in animal products and processed foods, such as meats, dairy products, chips, and pastries. The chemical structure of a saturated fat is fully saturated with hydrogen atoms, and does not contain double bonds between carbon atoms. Saturated fats are not heart healthy, since they are most known for raising your LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol).

Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, are found foods such as nuts, avocados, and olives. They are liquid at room temperature and differ from saturated fats in that their chemical structure contains double bonds. Additionally, studies have shown that unsaturated fats are also heart-healthy fats - they have the ability to lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol ("good" cholesterol).

So, if you are trying to follow a cholesterol-lowering diet, eating unsaturated fats should not raise your cholesterol levels further. However, you should try to avoid foods high in saturated fats."

this is what i have found out from: http://cholesterol.about.com/cs/faq/f/difference.htm

oh no! instant noodles do have saturated fats! and i have always mistook it as good fats! oh man! i thought the bad fats were trans fats? i must really watch what i eat now that i know this new bad fat...

Food Analysis--Food Intake Assessment

hi!

here is another method to analyse my diet, more precise and accurate:

FOOD INTAKE ASSESSMENT

the image below is an analysis of one day of my food. Oh no! it shows that i have far exceeded almost all of the daily requirements! and i do not have enough calcium intake! looks like i need to drink more milk and cut down on the rest. =( Too much sodium, fats, dietary fibre, carbohydrates and proteins.













here is a graph plotted againt the RDDAs:

oh no! as i have just learnt about saturated fats being "bad fats", this graph is just too scary to look at! i am actually consuming up to 469% of the daily recommended amount! way above and way too unhealthy! like i said, i have always thought that saturted fats were good fats! sigh, better wacth my diet!

these percentages gives me a rough estimation on how much of these nutrients i need to consume more or watch and eat in moderation. i definitely need to cut down on the fats! 3% may seem like a small numder, but when accumulated, it is really unhealthy! protein consumption is just right, but i have to be extra careful as to not go out of the range. i need more carbohydrates in oder to have enough energy for daily activities.

food analysis--energy and nutrient composition of foods

yup, here's another one we can use to analyse our diet! =)

it will ask you to either select the food category or type in the food you wish to analyse. then a list will be created and you will choose the closest match. we can also select other types of nutrients to analyse, e.g. starch, calcium water etc. and click continue. below is an example of the analysis:

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/hpb/ere/ere070105.asp

quite a good one to use, but i find it hard to get matches to the food i eat! especially because i usually eat at home, and the food i eat may not really have a name like Laksa or somehing. so i guess this is more for hawker centre or restaurant foods.
=(
here is a picture of one of my meals:






the one on the right shows the nutrient composition for the salad, and the keft, the instant noodles. wow! i didnt know that instant noodles contain so much energy! it is probably due to th noodles. comparing this to the RDDAs, i think the instant noodles may have too much carbohydrates! the total number of kcal we need in a day is only 2150kcal, and the instant noodles is already 1/4... and the protein should be just alright, since we need 66g in a day. well, this amount is somewhat less than my other meals, as lunch in the afternoon for me is always a very brief meal.. =)

food analysis--RDDA

Hello again!


i have been really watching what i eat now, don't want to risk having those scary diseases when i am older.

Oh, i managed to compile all the RDDA (recommended daily dietary allowance) for some of the food groups! =)

for carbohydrates, the RDDA for teenage girls, as for my case, is 2150kcal.

for proteins, the RDDA for teenage girls is 66g per day.


i think this method of seeing whether you've been eating healthily may be a bit hard since we need to calculate the kcal or g of the stuff we eat, and mostly the food we eat do not only contain carbohydrates or proteins ONLY, hance making it harder. Oh well, but at least it serves as a guide for us.

Using this tool, i can see that my diet is kind of okay, but i really cant tell how much of the things i need is in them. So i actually prefer the food pyramid to this one. =) this tool is also used in the food intake assessment, and that way is a more accurate method.

food analysis--food pyramid

There are many methods to analyse food, here's one: food pyramid! i found many from the web, and they're really cute.













http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/fgp_interactive.html
Go to this website for an interactive food pyramid! =)


the very standard one is in a form of a pyramid, and so the broad base shows that the food in this section can be eaten in relatively huge amounts compared to the rest. these foods here are the carbohydrates, and we all require 5-7 servings a day. so what is that equivalent to? from http://www.nutrition.com.sg/he/heserving.asp i found that 2 slices of bread, 1 bowl of rice or cooked noodles is all counted as one serving. but is that not alot of food? that is also one question the website has addressed. here is what it says: "It may sound like a lot, but it's really not. For example, a bowl of cereal or 2 slices of bread for breakfast is one serving. A bowl of porridge or 2 small chapati is one serving, so if you had either for lunch that would equal another serving. And if you have a plate of rice or noodles at dinner, that is two more servings. A snack of 3 or 4 small plain biscuits adds yet another serving. So now you've had 5 servings. It adds up quicker than you think!"




the next one shows the fruits and vegetables section, and who has not heard parents saying and telling us to eat 2 servings of vegetables and fruits? these foods provide us with the much needed vitamins that keeps us strong and healthy! the website i used previously said that 1 serving of veggies is 1 cup of cooked leafy veggies, 1/2 cup cooked non-leafy vegetables, 0r 3/4 cup of vegetable juice. for fruits, 1 serving is 1 medium apple, banana or orange, 1/2 cup of chopped, cooked or canned fruit, or 1/2 cup of fruit juice.




Following up next is Meat and alternatives, the FAVOURITE food section of mine! these foods can provide us with the proteins we need, and also calcium form dairy products to grow strong bones and teeth. We need 2-3 servings of these a day, and 1 serving is 2-3 ounces of cooked lean meat, poultry, or fish, 1/2 cup of cooked dry beans or 6 medium fish balls, or 2 small squares bean curd.



Lastly, the food section which should be eaten in small amounts---fats, oil, sugar and salt! these foods when eaten in moderation is still necessary for our daily lives, but when you have too much of them, you get unhealthy! especially fats and oils may give extra stress to your heart and lead to coronary disease when you grow older. who wants clotted coronary arteries and dying of a heart attack? if it doesn't sound so good, then might as well stop eating so much!













Referring back to the YouTube video posted earlier, see how the poor boy eating all the junk food coming to him ended up having a heart attack? ha ha, though it may be a good laugh now to you, how would you find it if it happened to you? =)

oh, and if you are wondering how to survive counting those servings like i am right now, here's what the website advises:

Do I need to measure servings?

No. Use servings only as a general guide. For mixed foods, do the best you can to estimate the food group servings of the main ingredients. For example, a plate of chicken rice would count in the Rice & Alternatives group (rice) and the Meat & Alternatives group (chicken). If you get a side dish of vegetable, it would count in the Vegetable group. A helping of Chinese rojak would count in the Fruit group and the Vegetable group. Both have some fat - in the flavoured chicken rice and in the deep-fried chinese donut (you tiao) and peanut paste in the rojak.


And using this to analyse my diet is quite easy! Of course i know the servings that i have counted may be only a rough gauge... but as what i have seen, i am eating quite a wholesome meal every day! with veggies and fruits and all the proteins and vitamins i need.

Calorie calculator

Hi!



i went to the HPB (Health Promotion Board) again and found this really cool calorie calculator.

it is really simple, just first key in your weight, gender and age, then it will direct you to 2 more questions, the first one being: Job nature; what type of job you do, and if it is a light, moderate or heavy activity job. the second question is: Physical activity level; how much you exercise in a week. then it will tabulate and show you the amount of calories you need in a day. and they will say " this is the amount of calories needed to maintain your current weight."

and one bad thing about this: it doesn't include my age group! it only begins at 18, where i guess most of the growth spurt is finished.
Still, it gives us a rough gauge and we can search online for the various amounts of calorie in different food. then determine the amount we need to consume. Not for food analysis, just for a rough idea...


=)