Blog Post 8: Conclusion

Part 1:

To my nutrition students; I will not complete part 1 of the conclusion, I will leave that for your blogs.  But keep in mind, what I want you to address is how nutrition changed over the past 100 years in the US.  What I am ideally looking for is that you bring up not how food is produced, but how and where we eat food (i.e.- the shift from eating and preparing inside the home to outside of the home) and what that has meant for your personal consumption of food. Please discuss briefly the advantage of systems such as ChooseMyPlate.gov in helping people improve their diet (for example, did you find it beneficial, or not?).   Finally, be sure to discuss (briefly) the benefits of maintaining a healthy diet, in regards to current health and the long term benefits in regards to quality of life and reduced healthcare costs (i.e.- if you don't get sick, you don't have to pay for hospital stays, etc.). 

 

Part 2: 

Personally, I found this blog exercise extremely helpful to my own diet.  After moving to France, we made changes to our diet without actually thinking about the impact they would play on our health (#mindlesseating).  Interestingly, once I discovered these faults in our diet, there wasn't a quick method to make the changes overnight; since I first had to make sure they also work with my family.  My wife did her own analysis and was equally as shocked to find how much our diet has changed since moving here.  Together, we were able to make an informed decision about how we wanted to re-structure our diet.  This shows just one of the hurdles one may have when attempted to correct a diet.  Overall, I am very happy that I was able to do this exercise; the changes it placed in our diet (which we plan on continuing) I am certain will have benefits as we continue our adventure in France.  It also reminded me that it is essential to continue to monitor our diet in the future, especially when we make a life changing event (for example, when we move back to the US we should again assess our diet to see how we have adjusted back and again make any necessary changes).  

Thanks for reading, and bon courage with your own diet assessment!

Blog Post 7: Following My Newly Designed Diet

This blog post entry details my experience with my new planned diet- it was a lot of fun once again documenting my diet for a day!

Breakfast

Breakfast Included a serving of oatmeal with tree nuts, raisins,
and a side of kiwi and espresso with soy milk

To help break my morning routine of toast with cheese, I decided to try instead oatmeal with various whole foods added.  Going forward, I believe I will call this breakfast 'pleasant surprise', since it was delicious.  I forgot how much I enjoy oatmeal! I used to eat it all the time in the US, however since moving to France we got stuck in a breakfast routine for convenience, and because ingredients we are used to in the US aren't readily available here. Regardless, it didn't take too long to prepare (only a few minutes than my normal prep time for breakfast).    I plan on incorporating this more often once again into my diet.  Additionally, the changes helped me reach my daily goals- the oatmeal adds useful fiber and complex carbs to my diet for a slow release of reduced sugars throughout my morning.  The walnuts, raisins, and almonds all offer phytonutrients to my diet.  And, the soy milk offers a cholesterol free plant based protein alternative to my traditional low fat milk.  The meal itself provided me with plenty of energy and left me feeling full throughout the morning.

Lunch

For lunch we prepared one of our classic fares, paella.  However, we switched to brown rice to provide additional dietary fiber to our meal, which again increased my intake of phytonutrients, and more complex fibers.  The seafood increased my intake of essential fatty acids and the rabbit adds variety to my diet.
 Again, the meal was delicious- I really love rabbit, and I want to incorporate it more into my diet (since it is a great alternative to red meat, and readily available locally).  I was lucky to eat lunch at home with my family, which of course made the meal much more enjoyable.



Snacks

To help curb my intake of saturated fats, I decided to forego my mid-afternoon espresso (with skim milk) and instead had a black tea.  The tea increased my intake of antioxidants, and I made sure to have it at a time when I wasn't taking in calcium (since we learned that tannins in tea can block uptake of calcium in the body).  Further, I had some melon as a snack to partially fulfill my fruit requirements for the day, which also provided me with more phytonutrients, as well as water.

I continued working while enjoying this snack, so in the future I will try to set aside time during my afternoon tea to take a break, which may help with stress.




Dinner

For dinner we altered our classic soup recipe we make to instead include more green leafy vegetables.  It is quite difficult (surprisingly) to find green leafy veggies in France. Back in the states, we used to incorporate this type of food more often (since Swiss Chard offers many nutritious options, such as magnesium, vitamin A pro-form, and vitamin C), now that we have recognized a gap in this food group, we have increased our effort to find them in the marketplace to include in our cooking.  After my more 'heavy' meals of breakfast and lunch, this meal was a relaxing and light end to the day.







Based on my experience of the day, and on the previously cited literature, I would assume that if I continue this altered diet going forward that I would be able to accept my hypothesis that this altered diet will reduce my risk of developing type II diabetes and/ or cardiovascular disease 




Note to nutrition students: we can't actually accept or reject our hypotheses yet, since it would take a lifetime of information (and a larger population size than our class) to actually accept or reject our hypotheses, but for the sake of the exercise, imagine you can accept or reject your hypothesis at this time.

Blog Post 6: Design and Analysis of New (Alternative Diet)

Designing my new diet
Now that I know the steps I plan on taking to improve my diet, I need to plan a 1-day diet that incorporates these changes.  I will add variety to my diet as I planned by having an oatmeal based breakfast, will reduce my cheeses for the day, and will incorporate more green leafy veggies into my diet.

Planned meals:

Breakfast- oatmeal based meal	Lunch- Paella w/Brown Rice
1.5 cups oatmeal	dash saffron
1 cup lowfat milk	1 cup brown rice
1 cup water	0.25 pounds rabbit
0.1 cup raisins	half green pepper
0.1 cup walnuts	1/4 onion
0.1 cup almonds	1/2 tomato
1 med banana	dash salt
1 espresso	1/4 cup EVOO
1 cup soy milk	1/2 cup peas
3 cups water	0.1 lbs cup shrimp
1 kiwi	0.1 lbs shrimp cup clams
1 tbsp maple syrup	0.1 lbs cup mussels
	dash lemon
Dinner- Homemade Veg. Soup w/ emphasis on green leafy veggies	3 cups water
1 potato
1.5 carrots	Snacks during the day
1 sweet potato	black tea
1 cup butternut squash	2 cups water
1 tbsp EVOO	orange
dash salt	2 cups water
pepper
2 cups water
SALAD
spring mix 1 cup
spinach 2 cups
1 tbsp EVOO
1/2 onion
1 tomato
1/2 cucumber
0.2 bouillon cube chicken

Analysis of New Diet
Now that I have my planned diet, I need to make sure it will meet my RDAs for vitamins, minerals, and food groups according to myplate before trying it out

Looking at my bar graph for my one day diet:

Here are the values from my new diet- all my RDAs are met with this diet, and my sat. fat intake has been reduced

The bar graph analysis shows that my new alternative diet still meets all of my RDAs,. and drastically reduces my saturated fat intake.  My protein intake appears double my requirement, however as we learned, having a little more protein in your diet is not deleterious unless there is a history of protein related diseases in the family (e.g.- kidney stones), plus some/ most of my protein intake is plant based.


I then ran the myplate analysis to ensure I am reaching my recommendations according to this system:

This new alternative diet fulfills the requirements of ChooseMyPlate

I was happy to see with this altered diet I am now getting enough vegetables and high quality grains in my diet.

So, now that I have a set schedule for the day, I will follow it tomorrow and see how I feel at the end of the day.




To nutrition students, I recommend  the following order to make this post simple and less time consuming:
1) Design your diet as you think it should be with your chosen diet, it is easiest to design it in excel, because this can then easily be uploaded into blogger
2) Input your information into the diet analysis calculator, and see how the numbers work out.  If you notice you are exceeding a certain category or haven't met an RDA, you can then tweak your intakes and then update your excel spreadsheet to make sure you are reaching your goals
3) Once everything works well, run the 'bar graph' and 'myplate' analysis tools and follow the same format as previously completed for your blog post 3.
4) Bon courage, and have fun designing your new diet!

Blog Post 5: Following An Alternative Diet

Deciding on an alternative diet
Now that I have analyzed my current (traditional) diet, I am ready to explore an alternative diet that should improve my daily recommended intakes.  Since I already follow a Mediterranean diet and I enjoy the variety and moderation that comes with such a diet, I plan on continuing a Mediterranean diet for its known benefits (for example, making sure to eat with my family, and consume some light milks, meats, and cheeses.

However, from my analysis it is clear that I need to reduce my saturated fats intake, and increase my intake of green leafy veggies and complex starches.

How I plan on making adaptations to my diet
To reduce my intake of saturated fats, I plan on reducing my intake of cheeses, trying to limit my intake to once a day or once every other day (in lieu of during almost every meal).  In addition, I plan on incorporating more green leafy veggies into our meal planning schedule (such as cruciferous veggies like Kale), and also adding more variety into my breakfast schedule (for example, instead of bread every morning, I will try to instead have oatmeal or granola occasionally to add more complex starches to my diet.

Hypothesis 

By incorporating more green leafy vegetables, more complex starches, and reducing saturated fats in my diet, I will reduce my risk of developing diet-related diseases such as Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

To help the amazing nutrition students in preparing this blog post: 

1) Bold the diet you to plan follow as an alternative diet

2) discuss how you plan on making changes to your diet and give examples

3) Include a general hypothesis on what these changes may mean for your health.  Please note that your hypothesis should be like this: focus on the changes you are making and what they mean in general terms for your diet (don't be overspecific or describe every element you are changing individually- hypotheses should be the general underlying theme of your idea.