Health Food for Foodies - Essay Example

Journal Article Health Food for Foodies URL:http online.wsj.com/news/articles/ SB10001424052702304704504579431133752897634 Comments: The first thing that came to my mind upon reading the title of the article was that it would once again be a boring article that would try to indoctrinate the reader into turning vegetarian or vegan. So it was a pleasant surprise that it was instead, a highly enjoyable and readable article that combined two of my favorite topics, cooking and medical science. Let me be the first to admit that I am mostly a carnivorous person who eats vegetables only if it comes as a side dish or part of the meal itself. That said, I consider myself a healthy person just the same. Somehow I never developed a taste for veggies growing up. But reading this article has changed my mind about eating vegetables. It has never occurred to me that medicine and the food we eat are mere extensions of one another and actually have a synergistic relationship that in the end can help us achieve healthier and longer lives. Finding out that medical science is actually helping to improve the way that the food we eat is grown and prepared has made me more confident that for as long as I lead a healthy lifestyle and eat scientifically balanced and prepared foods, I will be able to live a long and healthy life. The relationship between food, medicine, and health is something that should have been very obvious from the start but because of the way that historically, each field has been treated as differing from one another, it will most likely take a period of adjustment for most people to accept that the three fields can actually combine into one field that is meant to help prolong lives without forcing people to eat bad tasting food or taking bitter pills to swallow. I truly believe that this is the future of medicine and I am happy to be one of the first people to have read about this advancement that is sure to benefit the current and future generations to come. Journal 2 Article Title: Fried Food Linked to Obesity URL: http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/article/foodnews/8816528/fried-food-linked-to-obesity Comment: There is a saying that goes “You are what you eat.” Apparently, there is another saying that should be said alongside the previous one. It goes like this; “Your parents genes dictate the shape of your body.” That is the opinion that I created after reading the article “Fried Food Linked to Obesity”. I mean come on, it appears that no matter what I do, my parents genes have already doomed me to either a healthy figure or obesity. I doubt that there is a person on this planet who will admit to hating fried foods. I for one love to munch of fries, onion rings, fried chicken, steak, and the like. Fried foods that taste so delicious that I would not mind eating these dishes on a daily basis. But then medical science had to come in and ruin my culinary enjoyment. So if I am pre-disposed to obesity, I need to stay away from all the fried foods because even a single intake a week can increase my weight. I believe that even if all the obesity prone people in the world listen to what is said in the article, it will be difficult for us to totally avoid fried foods. Think about it, food trucks are all the rage in the food industry these days and guess what they sell? Exactly, food fried a hundred ways from Wednesday. So how exactly are we supposed to avoid an intake of fried foods? The answer I believe is in educating people about the dangers of fried food and the lessening of the food shows that actually promote the unhealthy dishes sold by these food trucks. Shows like Eat St. should be banned for encouraging an unhealthy eating style. Without re-education, the obese people of the world will continue to grow in number. Medical science can continue to publish their study results on obesity and it will not make any difference if the people themselves are not being supported and encouraged to change their eating habits. Journal 3 Article Title: Formula Overdose: Severely Fat 8-Month-Old Put on Strict Diet URL: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2014/03/19/formula-overdose-severely-fat- 8-month-old-put-on-strict-diet/ Comment: Okay, the first time I saw the headline for this article, I could not help but say “What the heck??? How on earth could a baby become so badly overweight?”. Then I read the rest of the article and discovered that in this case, the genetic make up of the child was not to blame. Neither was a medical illness. No. What caused his obesity was improper parenting. I have never come across a set of parents and family members who chose to use a bottle of milk to continuously silence the child. In their logic, a sleeping child is a quiet child. After all, a baby normally falls asleep either during or after his feeding. But that kind of parenting is tantamount to placing a shot of gin in a childs milk bottle to stop his fussiness. It simply is not done! Not by parents who love their children at least. The parents and family members in this case were not ready to have a baby in their lives, and the child has paid the price. I believe that this child will not grow up to be the normal, healthy child that he could have been. Thanks to his parents mishandling of his nutritional needs, poor little Santiago, that is the boys alias, is facing a future plagued by health issues like juvenile diabetes and heart ailments. What makes me even angrier is that the child never stood a chance. He trusted his parents to care for his needs properly. He has o idea that they have placed him at deaths door by over feeding him. It just makes me sick. Very sick, to know that there are parents out there who could care less about the proper nutrition of their child. In my opinion, these parents do not deserve to keep custody of the child. Journal 4 Article Title: New Research Challenges Old Wisdom on Saturated Fat URL: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/saturated-fats-affect-heart-health/ Comment: Okay, I have lived in a world where every single day I find myself bombarded with nutritional information about the food I like to eat. Health experts are always screaming the evils of food that people have to avoid. But then there are people like celebrity actress Suzanne Sommers who scream “Eat fat!” when the experts were, for year, screaming, “Avoid fat!”. Then it turns that the actress was making more sense than the medical experts. Years later, they have eaten their words and now admit that fat is an essential part of the health regimen of people. So what are people like my parents to do when the food scientists make such erroneous claims that end up costing them thousands of dollars a year in cholesterol medicine that it turns out they dont need? Lets put it this way I asked my parents to stop with the meds and eat fat. Their latest blood results came back with amazing results. Their body was actually processing the fat they were eating. And the dizziness they were feeling because of the lack of fat and carbs in their diets? All gone the minute they started getting some starch into them. It would seem that we should not place our blind faith in the opinion of medical experts and the results of their studies. Rather, I would follow my grandfathers piece of advice. He is a man who has never taken anti anything medications in his life and he feels fine. He told me once, “If you dont feel sick, then keep eating what you are eating. Your body is taking care of getting of all that. I dont care what my doctor says, I feel fine!” Turns out, old pop was right. So I guess what I am trying to remind myself of is this. Just because medical studies “prove” one thing. That does not mean it applied to all. Go ahead and enjoy the food. Your body will tell you when it has had enough and cant handle it anymore. In the meantime, there is no reason to make yourself superficially sick. Journal 5 Article Title: Drink Tequila, Lose Weight? How Sugars Found in the Mexican Spirit Have Tremendous Potential to Fight Obesity URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2584315/Drink-tequila-lose-weight-How- sugars-Mexican-spirit-tremendous-potential-fight-obesity.html Comments: I could not believe that taking Tequila shots could be so good for my health that I just had to read the article to find out if it was true. It turns out that Tequila is a fermented form of the Agave plant extract. Which is so sweet that it could pass for sugar. It is actually what makes Tequila palatable. Now, I have also seen a lot of Agave sugar in the markets lately so I began to wonder as to what the real connection between the two might be. So science has once again discovered a new plant extract to take the place of sugar. It is supposed to help lower the sugar levels in the body so it will make an excellent sugar replacement. Hooray! No more headache side effects. But this is the problem that I have with this article. By giving the article such a misleading headline, more people might turn to drinking Tequila on a more often basis. When the fine print of the article, at the very end actually, they say that drinking Tequila will not have the same sugar lowering effect on the body. Talk about misrepresenting an article big time! Will using Agave sugars in cooking have the perceived obesity fighting effect that the article flaunts? The jury is still out on that. I have yet to come across any person who claims to have lost weight based solely on changing from sugar to Agave use. And no, I do not care that the First Lady is advocating the wider use of Agave in her anti obesity program. I believe that it is her celebrity that influences studies such as these in the first place. Journal 6 Article Title: 4 Healthy Ways to Shop in the Frozen Food Section URL: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/03/15/4-healthy-ways-to-shop-in-frozen- food-section/ Comment: I remember my mom always scolding me for buying frozen foods to stock in our freezer. She keeps on telling me to buy fresh produce because that is the only way to get nutrition. “You end up with a lot more nutrition lost in the thawing process” she would say. Now, after having read the aforementioned article. I would have to say that my mom might have something there. I mean, the article did say that by freezing the foods close to the time it was harvested, the nutritional value is preserved. But, remember our science classes that taught is that water washes away anything and everything in its path? Could it actually be possible that the nutrition that was saved by the freezing process is lost during the thaw? I think it is highly likely that it could happen. After all, the food has to come to room temp and then lose the freeze. Which then brings the food to a state where the nutrition is once again lost and at a more rapid pace because the water exists to breakdown the nutritional molecules of the food. So I guess I learned something from this article. Dont let the frozen food stuff sit in a puddle while you watch the news. Thaw then cook in order to save the nutrition in the food. At least that is my opinion. After all, frozen foods help make cooking easier after a hectic day at the office or at school. I will not give up my frozen food stuff but I will certainly pay more attention to its thaw time already. Journal 7 Article Title: Leaked IPCC Reports Link Climate Change to Global Food Scare URL: http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/leaked-ipcc-report-links-climate-change-to- global-food-scare/ Comments: We already know about the global food scare being brought about by the unpredictable weather conditions world wide. It is common knowledge that crops are ruined or failing because of extreme cold or heat in various countries. The worst case scenarios continuously hit the headlines and evening news casts. The doomsday scenario exists about war over food supplies. We know all of this and yet the most important question relating to the situation has never been truly addressed on a world wide level. What will we do about it? Can we grow crops in flood riddled fields? Can we prevent the drowning of cattle? How can fish kill be prevented? These are the questions that science and technology should be addressing and I have yet to see more information that can lead me to believe that aside from sensationalizing the food war scenario, anything is actually being done by the concerned agencies about the problem. The report I read did not offer any solutions either. Only more worrisome news that seemed to be geared towards making people panic. Panic never helped anyone. What is important is to find solutions to the problem. But reports such as the one I read only serve to enhance the problem. Doomsday news should be avoided because the food sources still exist for almost all nations. We just need to know how to play natures game to our advantage. That should be the concentration of scientific research and nothing more. Journal 8 Article Title: Precise Reason for Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate: Thank Hungry Gut Microbes URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140318154725.htm Comment: As a child I remember my mom telling me “Stop eating chocolate! It will rot your teeth!” But I loved the taste so much that I did not listen to her. It turns out that my act of defiance as a child, which grew into a continued love for the sweet dessert product in my adult life, actually has positive health benefits that my mother could never have known. I probably would not have known about it either had I not read the article about the positive effects of dark chocolate on the stomach. I just find it so ironic that chocolate, a sweet item that has been pointed to for decades as the culprit of a number of health problems has finally found its vindication. And that the vindication is coming from the very people that crucified it in the first place, the medical community. These days, articles such as the one that I read are quite common. The positive uses of dark chocolate in a healthy lifestyle has finally been accepted by the medical community and the people are heaving a sigh of relief that is finally a food product out there that will satisfy their sweet tooth cravings with the blessings of their health care professional. The article served to reinforce the idea of dark chocolate being a friend rather than a foe of health because it even produces more health benefits when combined with the bacteria in our stomachs. Something that in the past century, would never have been considered by those studying the healthcare benefits of various food products. But we have entered into a new era of food study. The lessons of the past, as proven by this article, are now being disproved and people are actually beginning to lead healthier lifestyles because of it. I am actually quite pleased that the medical community is now more accepting of chocolate as a part of the solution to health problems rather than considering it a leading cause of the problem. Over time, I fully expect that the scientific and medical community will continue to find new and better ways to use the components of dark chocolate for the health benefit of man. After all, fat was once considered to be an enemy of public health as well and look at how that opinion has changed. Read More