Food Project: Michael Roth, Isaac Adlowitz

As Isaac and I are both Jewish, matzah ball soup is a meal that we have eaten nearly every year of our lives during passover.

Ingredients:

1 packet Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix

One container College Inn Chicken Broth

2 eggs

2 tbsp vegetable oil

10 cups water

1 onion

A few carrots

salt, pepper.

Recipe:

1. Mix 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a bowl.

2. Add 1 packet mix, stir well until evenly mixed.

3. Chill mix in refrigerator for ~15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, pour 10 cups water into pot and bring to boil.

5. After 15 minutes, remove mix from refrigerator, wet hands, and form batter into balls ~1 inch in diameter.

6. Drop balls into boiling water.

7. Reduce heat to simmer for ~20 minutes.

8. While balls are cooking, pour chicken broth into pot, bring to simmer.

9. While broth is heating, dice onion and handful of carrots and add to broth.

10. When balls are cooked, drain pot and put balls into broth.

11. Wait for 5-10 minutes.

12. Take broth off heat, soup now ready.

13. Refrigerate overnight and bring to school in tupperware.

Analysis:

Of all of the ingredients, 25% appear to be processed, though all but two of those are said to make up less than 1% of the broth. The entire thing made (4 servings of broth and 4.5 servings of matzah balls) contains about 245 calories, 6620mg of sodium, 58g carbohydrate, 4g sugar, 4.5g protein. Assuming that the thing is to be split among 10 people, that's 24.5 calories per person, 662mg sodium per person, 5.8g carbohydrates per person, .4g sugar per person, and .45g protein per person. The meal seems very healthy in terms of sugar, calories, and carbohydrates, but 662mg of sodium is over 25% of the recommended daily value of sodium. If this was the only thing that you ate every day, you wouldn't be consuming enough calories, fat, cholesterol, potassium, carbohydrates, protein, or vitamins, and you'd consume way too much sodium. As far as I can tell, the broth came from Pittsburgh and the ball mix came from Newark. The eggs are local, as well. The furthest thing away was only one state over, so the environmental impact of cooking and eating this meal is very small. The entire thing cost only $5.05. $6.80 if you include the entire price of the matzo ball mix (only half was used.) It's a fairly cheap meal, is healthier in many respects than fast food, and took only 40-50 minutes to make.

Reflection:

I knew about food, but I now know about nutrition. I eat food that is processed, and a lot of my food has corn in it. Corn, I have learned, covers about a third of the US's landmass. Corn can be used to make a lot of things, so some would say it's the miracle food. However, we end up feeding it to a lot of animals that don't normally eat it, like cows. We need to diversify our food intake, not just eat various forms of corn.

People think that obesity just means you're very over weight, but in reality, if you're obese, you are likely at risk for a lot of seriously dangerous nutrition-related things, like heart disease, diabetes, or even cancer. While learning about this, we found that more than half of the top 15 reasons for death in America are preventable simply by living a healthy lifestyle. 

I also learned that eating animal protein might be less healthy than eating other kinds of protein. In rats, having 20% protein caused already-existent cancer to grow, but 5% protein did not.

Food Rule Slide:

In creating this masterpiece, I took the wise words of the late President Theodore Roosevelt and modified them to fit the content of this unit. While designing the slide, I wanted to ensure that the focus was the gigantic spoon, but that the words of the slide still read in a natural left to right, top to bottom flow. It is a good food rule for two reasons: The first is that eating slowly will ensure that you stop before you're too full, and the second is that, by using a big spoon, you are able to eat a lot of food at a time.