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Food Benchmark (:

Posted by Qaswa Malik in Science and Society - Best on
​For my Food Benchmark I decided to make Sheer Khurma (Muslim dish especially made on of Eid ul Fitar) 

Go down to see my personal reflection, food rule and recipe & analysis 

                                    

                                        PERSONAL REFLECTION                                                          

This food unit helped a lot in learning of some healthy and unhealthy foods that human body consumes on daily basis. It is really hard to conclude the whole unit with some most important points. I have learned a lot about food and how it effects our health in positive or negative way. I realize that people around me have been playing an important role in providing benefit and profit to some industries which produce junk food and fast food. We discussed about different graphs showing obesity rates, income vs availibility of supermarkets.This entire learning through graphs helped in great understanding of how each thing is related to every other thing in case of food and health.

Everyone has different role in their food systems. My role is simply to eat that food which can benefit me health wise and also provide enough energy, vitamins, calciums etc. If I would be eating just junky and fast food that could make me unhealthy and cause diseases ( just like we learned about diseases that can be caused by eating unhealthy food), then I won’t be a healthy person anymore. It would also contribute in providing more benefits and profit to supermarkets because people would be leaned to go and buy healthy food including fruits and vegetables to keep obesity and other fatal diseases away from themselves. For my role, I would conclude this by saying that in order to become a role model, I eat fruits, vegetables and drink enough water to provide minerals to body and to stay away from diseases. 

I think there can be made a lot of changes in food choices for society but for me I don’t need to make a lot of changes in food choices because my family has already been eating organic and healthy food from years. And I learned this same thing from my family that eat natural, organic and cooked food instead of junk food. I lived in village which is one of reasons that why my family has been eating organic food from own fields. From my childhood to now, I have eaten a small amount of junk food. But still some changes are needed to make. I can say that I would eat more fruits and drink milk because I personally don’t eat too much fruit and drink milk. So changes in food choices can be concluded by saying that I would eat more fruit and drink milk to provide necessary calciums to my body in order to make my bones strong. This means I would definitely eat fruits because my uncle brings a lot of fruits in house and I have easily access to fruits and milk. 


                    Recepie and analysis of SHEER KHURMA

 

Cook time: 10 minutes

Serves: 1 medium sized bowl

 

Ingrediants:

milk 1 liter

shan sheer khurma mix 1 pack 

 Ingrediants in above pack:

Sugar

vermicellies 

raisins 

dry dates

pistachio

green cardamom

saffron

 

Directions

Boil milk and add Sheer Khurma mix. 

Keep stiring.

Keep boiling for about 10 minutes so that vermicellies are cooked and milk becomes thick.

Ready to go. Serve hot.

 For adding different tastes

Add one cup condensed milk in the boiling milk in above recepie.

OR

Make the Sheer Khurma cold, then add one cup of fresh cream and serve cold. 

 

 Analysis of recepie

 

This dessert has nothing to do with processed food on one side, although the “Sheer Khurma mix” pack is found in market but it has no artificial ingrediants or flavours. All ingrediants including nuts and dry fruit are just meant to put together in one pack so that people could buy and make the whole recepie in 10 minutes instead of 20-30 minutes. Ingrediants are produced and found naturally, without any other manufacturing processes. On the other hand, milk is processed because it is pasturized and that is why it is considered among processed food. 

 Nutrition Facts

Calories 232

Fat 5g

Carbohydrates 51g

Proteins 3g

Cholestrol 0 mg

 *232 calories in 1 serving

Calories Breakdown: 17% fat, 78% carbohydrates, 5% proteins 0% cholestrol 

 It is a traditional dish for muslims and is made especially on Eid ul Fitar. It is a healthier, satisfying and mouth watering dish which is a dessert but is not too sugary because it contains enough sugar with healthy dry fruits. If a person consumes this dish, his body would definitely respond in positive way because of balanced calories breakdown in recepie. It can be eaten in every season but I think if it is consumed in winter season, poeple would be able to feel energetic and warmed becaused of dry fruits and nuts in it which is considered as an important part of winter season. Eating this food daily wouldn’t be healthy because of the fact that amount of sugar would exceed in the body which would be bad for health.

 The “Shan Sheer Khurma mix” is a Pakistani brand of recepies and this pack came from Pakistan. While the gallon of milk is US brand and it was processed in the country (not sure of which state because it wasn’t mentioned). So obviously “Sheer Khurma mix” travelled farthest. As I said, milk is pasturized to kill bacteria responsible for many diseases which is obviously good for our health because it is a safer way to keep yourselves away from bacteria. The process of pasteurization requires energy and ultra pasteurization requires a lot more energy than simple method. It does use energy which is not good for the environment but if clean energy source is provided then it could not be bad.

 This meal cost about $5 or $6 because the pack is for $2 or $3 and milk for $3. It is close to cost of fast food. The reason why it is so cheap than other meals because it doesn’t require to buy all the ingrediants separately unless you buy for  decoration of recepie. All the ingrediants are placed in pack which is not so much expensive to buy. Pakistani brand and shoprite both make money off of it and also the dairy farms, food company, where milk was processed and ingrediants were packed or produced, respectively. 

 Companies do pasteurization to kill bacteria which can cause diseases. It is also done based on the reason that the milk would be refridgerated for some time and so that it would not cause any harm to the body. I think drinking fresh milk or using fresh milk (without pesteurization) is more healthier than this one. My family does not consider this milk more healthier than the one they had used to which is totally unpesteurized. 


Here's how it looks like. 
Below the meal is my food rule (:
Sheer-Khurma-58930
Sheer-Khurma-58930
good bye copy
good bye copy

The Struggle to Learn Spanish

Posted by Jasmine Nieves in English 2 - Pahomov on
By Jasmine Nieves

My two languages that I speak are English and Spanish. My first language that I really didn’t get to know as I grew up was Spanish. Since I don’t know Spanish as much even though it is my “official” language I should be speaking, everybody talks to me in English and it has always been like that. I should be speaking this language because my family and parents were born Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans speak Spanish. I should have known how to speak the whole language already.  My Everyone trys to speak to me in Spanish.It can be hard for me to keep up.“


¿Como es tu día para hoy?”says my aunt and

“Mi día estan bien”.

“No estan muy bueno, porque no muy bueno.”


After this point, I try to answer and then I start to freeze up, I still try to explain myself but it gets too hard. There are times when my original Spanish language gets caught up with my mind.

“¿Qual es tu tarea por a hoy?”, asks my aunt.  I start to think to say to myself, “Oooo, this sounds easy. I could answer her question”, then I answer it.

“Yo tengo Geometria, Ciencia, Ingles, Español y Historia”.

I didn’t learn it because people probably thought me speaking in English would probably be easier for me to speak Spanish. I want to change that because Spanish is my native language and I should be speaking it more.

When people other than my aunt talk to me in Spanish, I feel more confident, but still a tad bit shy about speaking because I might mess up. I guess I have to understand that it’s okay to make mistakes when I try to speak my Spanish language because I’m just learning the language.


My mom and dad are both Puerto Ricans. Both my mom and dad’s side of the family both speak Spanish. I grew up learning Spanish and then I forgot about it. But it felt more as if I learned more English growing up.When my mom and my dad had me as their child, I could tell as I grew up as a kid to what I am today, that I am born a Puerto Rican. So its a mixture of both languages.




         Even at school, I struggle doing things in Spanish. I have a struggle when it comes to tests or quizzes, I forget everything or some things from when I studied the night before. This is not on purpose, I just don’t know why that happens but it happens all the time.


Don Marcos is my teacher is Spanish Class. “Take out a pen or pen. You’re going to have your test/quiz”. I take out a pencil from my pencil case and try to start the quiz or test he gives the class. When I see some of the questions I think I know them but sometimes I can’t remember some of the words. I usually leave two or three questions blank because I didn’t remember. When its time to hand it in, I sort of look scared and my hand shakes a little because I think I didn’t do so good on it.

“Reflexive verbs have two verb phrases” he says. “A boot verb keeps nosotros the same but the others different” he continued. As he continued to explain what Reflexive Verbs are or just explaining things to make it our notes. I write it down because that is what we study from. I thought I knew it as he was telling us. But when he started to ask questions, benchmarks, quizzes or tests, I feel as if I’m going to fail his class. I seriously need Spanish help.


I don’t know why I don’t understand Spanish more but still know a lot of English. It’s ok for me to speak two different languages and speak the other more. I want to try to speak and learn about Spanish in order to stay in tact with my Puerto Rican background and my family. Also, my family also wants me to try to speak the language too but its hard for me. I wish I had some Spanish tutor to help me better understand how this whole Spanish thing works because I want to learn. Learning Spanish is what I really want to know what it comes to languages and others too, but first I would like to learn Spanish. My national language is very important to me.

         My internal and sort of external struggle, is me speaking Spanish vs me speaking English. The Spanish language came from my mom and my dad. They both had Puerto Rican parents and they had a Puerto Rican family which made me Puerto Rican. The relationship between language and power is that every voice and everybody has a right to say anything they want. This is a basic rule the Constitution gave to the people. When they start to speak about something with a lot of feeling and emotion, it’s called power. What my language says about me is just that. We all have a voice and we should use it whenever possible because it could come in handy one day. I understand that language and identity intersect.

As I got older my aunt kept asking me “Do you want to take at least 15 minutes a day and speak Spanish”? I would say “Yes” but when the day comes we speak it only a little bit. I was made to be a Puerto Rican and I will always be one and that idea will continue to live on. I’m learning about it in high school. I’m improving but not that much on the subject or just at home talking about it with my aunt. Language is not that big of a conflict at my house. I’m just not that confident or I’m just worried of what words to use if I can’t remember them on time when the person, I’m speaking to, is in front of me. It’s the same way at school but a little bit worse. It’s a little bit worse because I have tests, quizzes and benchmarks, I’m afraid I might fail.


         How I feel about it now is the same way I’ve felt about it before, which was confident and felt like I didn’t remember. I should have remembered all these times because I’m Hispanic but I would always forget. When I try to remember, I have a lot to remember from the class and other things on my mind, that I can’t seem to remember what to say. I feel my Spanish will not improve now but as I get older and practicing more and more everyday with my Spanish, I know I will get there like I know my English growing up. I’m trying to say Spanish, in general is my hardest language than my English. I’m fluent when I speak in English but not as much when I speak in Spanish or do anything that has to deal with Spanish.

A quote by Richard Rodriguez could relate to what I saying 50% of the time. “An accident of geography sent me to a school where all my classmates were white, many of the children of doctors and lawyers and business executive.” This relates to what I’m trying to say is because this person spoke a different language and they didn’t feel right at the school because there were different races and he wasn’t comfortable just the same way I am uncomfortable with speaking Spanish.  

Jesus makes Cow Tongue.

Posted by Jesus Jimenez in Science and Society - Best on
Cow Tongue

Ingredients
Bay Leaf (Approx. 3 leaves)
Water
Cow Tongue (1 tongue cut up into 3-4 pieces)
Whole Pepper (1 or 2 balls)
1/2 an Onion
1 Garic clove
Salt (3 spoonfuls*)
Dried Cloves (3-4 cloves)

Materials

1 Saucepan or Pot

*A spoon you eat cereal with.

Step 1.
 Put water in a large sauce pan or pot, filling it half way. Add Salt, Dried Cloves, Bay leaves, and Whole Pepper.

Step 2.
 Cut and peel an onion in half and peel the garlic. Add half of an onion and a whole garlic into the water.

Step 3.
Add the pieces of the tongue into the saucepan or pot with the rest of the ingredients.

Step 4.
Let the water boil, occasionally add water in case if some evaporates. Stir occasionally. Wait 3 hours.

Step 5.
Remove tongue and carefully remove the surface skin on the tongue. Slice and serve as liked.

Analysis

Cow tongue is not only a Mexican dish, but is also prepared in different parts of the world like Asia and some countries in Europe and South America. While the tongue is probably processed in with the rest of a cow in a slaughterhouse, the kind my family buys from a Mexican grocery store doesn't have a label. We would have to ask the delivery man that brings them their meat. The rest of the ingredients are seasonings and condiments. Most of them are MCcormick brand condiments, while other things like the onion, garlic, and bay leaves are probably grown in a farm with chemical pesticides. We don't buy local.

Other than that, the tongue itself has a high in saturated fats and cholesterol, but low in sodium, sugars, and high in vitamin B12. This is the tongue itself, prepared. It might be served plain like this, but you can definitely change it up by adding your own ingredients. Depending on how much tongue you buy, this can be a rather cheap meal. You're looking at maybe less than $15 if you plan to make some for yourself (there might even be leftovers).

This money goes towards the farmers of the various ingredients like pepper, onions, garlic, and bay leaf. Salt is either mined or dug up from various places in the world, so some of the money goes to salt distributors, and of course, you just gave money to the beef industry. Congratulations on contributing to one of the, if not, the biggest meat industry in the country.

While the dish was probably made from my grandmother, it's very likely that she got her ingredients from local farmers. While previously visiting my grandparents a few years ago, I got to experience a market that is a hybrid of both commercial and farmer developed products. Back in her day, it's likely that there were more farmers and as food became more of a business practice, more commercial stores began to show up.

​Personal Reflection

Just like the classic carnival games, the food industry is rigged in one way or another. Lately, corporations and investors have been practicing different methods of creating "cash cows" (ha ha, pun!) from different aspects of human life. Food is one of the biggest industry, and if you ask your Grandma or Grandpa, things were different then! Food used to be traditional and farmers were farmers, not scientists. Now it's a business.

The way the rest of the consumers and I can change this, is by investing more in locally grown food. Sure not everyone is going to go out of their way to do this, but at least research what you eat. Information is key here. Knowing what you eat, and not just accepting it for what it is makes you a healthy eater. That is how this whole system can change.


​Food Slide noburger4u.001

Language Autobiography 2013: Shielded

Posted by Brycen Itzko in English 2 - Block on
​ In this unit, we had learned how language is one of your main identities besides race. Our class had read several essays relating to language identity in people's lives. This benchmark was to write about a time in your life where your language affected a big part of your identity. I have learned a deeper understanding of how I reacted to words that I was shielded from.


Shielded


Communication can be very complicated. Especially when you are shielded from the harmful parts of languages during your early years and then having that shield break, which causes those harmful words to be able to reach your ears. This causes many curious kids to be exposed to a world of offensive language that they have no clue that it is actually offensive.  

I remember when I was in third grade sitting with other third graders while my teacher was teaching us how to do addition when I noticed how my middle finger felt uncomfortable from all the writing we did, so I moved my middle finger upwards and the other fingers back into a fist-state and pressed my middle finger onto the table. I did a few “push-ups” with the finger before one of the girls turned around and saw it. I looked at her with a slightly laughing “what” expression, her expression was different. She looked surprised. That’s when she said to me “Ooooo! I am telling the teacher!”. I didn’t understand, what was wrong about having only my middle finger up? She got up and ran to the teacher, telling about what I did. I got up and walked to the teacher, still thinking about how is it wrong, when I then proceeded to ask why it is wrong to have your middle finger up. "Well, the middle finger is like saying a bad word to someone, so never have it up or you can hurt someone's feelings." She said it nicely, knowing that I never knew that I could offend someone with my middle finger.

Looking back on this event, I believe that my parents shielded me heavily from offensive words. That girl who told on me probably used her middle finger often until someone told her that it could hurt other's feelings. I always think that her parents didn't shield her from  offensive language as much as I parents did as she knew about it when I didn't. She must had begun to use these offensive words when she heard of it, not thinking about what it actually means to others. I can understand how parents don't want their children to learn any offensive words, so they try to hide them from this type of world. But I think that’s a bad idea, because sooner or later, they will learn these words and use them unaware of the meaning behind it. Rather than shielding children entirely from these words, we should teach them about the words before they learn of it from other sources, because if we teach them about it, then they will be prepared and know what to do when they hear it because they will know what it means.

There was a time in fifth grade where I learned how bad the consequences of saying an offensive word could be. I was outside waiting in line for our teachers to take us in one day, and I turned around to talk to another student in my class. He was a white Russian kid,  slightly taller than me, he cursed every now and then. Before I got a chance to talk to him, another student began to yell at him about something. I didn’t want to get involved as they look liked that were about to fight. A few second later, the russian student pointed at the other student aggressively and said “Fuck you!” I thought that he could have done that better, so I thought showing him a better way would be a great idea. I went to him and said “Let me show you how you could have done that better.” I then proceeded to put on an aggressive expression, pointed my finger out with a fast aggressive force, turned to my right and said "Fuck you!". It sounded pretty brutal to me, I even felt proud about it.

I realized who I manage to point to out of everyone, my mom. My mom had a very mad look and was coming towards me . "I'm dead" I said quietly. When she was a few inches away from me, she said "When you get home, dad is going to beat your ass like no tomorrow." She didn't yell it, but said it with anger.

This is the first moment in my life where I realized that the offensive word I had said came with great consequences. A quote that I had found while reading a story, called “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez, made me think deeper into this event of my life. The quote was “ I was a listening child...” (13). This quote made me feel that I was also “a listening child”, because I would always try to hear what people said around me. I heard words like “fuck” being used often in these conversations, so I thought words like “fuck” were ok to say. The environment that I was in exposed me to such words, but my parents never told me that the offensive words I heard were  actually offensive.


Sources:

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory. Boston: David R. Godine, 1982. Print.