Thursday, June 24, 2010

Reflections

©What have you learnt about your eating habits?
I have learnt that my diet is far more unhealthy than what I had initially thought it to be. My diet has way too much sodium content from the sauces, seasoning, etc. I should try to cut down on the gravy; especially when eating out, I should request for less oil/gravy to be included. The total fat and saturated fat content in my diet is near the 100% RDA "limit" and sometimes even slightly over, hence I should cut down on sweet foodstuff like junk food and also watch out for some less obvious sour
ces of fat like oil. I lack quite a lot of fibres and calcium in my diet, hence I should try including hi-calcium foods like milk and cheese, and have more portions of vegetables and fruits.

©Do you consider your diet a healthy one? Why?
No, I do not really find my diet healthy during those three days because the sodium and fat content of my diet was really high. In addition, I lack enough calcium and fibres. However, my diet in the recent weeks should be better as my family has switched to eating red cargo rice and brown rice on alternate days (with white rice on the other days). My father has also bought lots of fruits like strawberries, blueberries, apples. This should be a much better improvement as compared to my initial unhealthy diet as there is more fibres and vitamins.

©Are the suggested nutritional tools useful? How?
I find the health tools on HPB website really useful because I have learnt many interesting and in-depth facts I have known only briefly previously. (see Health Tools post) They provide many good information on
the food nutrition of our diets and gives advice on how you can improve. Food Intake Assessment is an exceptionally good platform for Singaporeans to analyse our diet and know what really goes into our stomachs. It gives a profound analysis of the food and warns users of the consequences/harms if we are having too much of perhaps, fats or sodium in your diet, and gives you good advice on how to improve.

©Why is your suggested one-dish meal healthy?
My modified one-dish meal is healthy as the wrap itself does not contain any amount of cholesterol at all. The switch to the wholemeal version also increases the content of fibres. Added tomatoes would increase the fibre content and vitamins as well. There would be lesser fats as I has switched the normal cheese slice with the low-fat cheese and the mayonnaise with Kraft's Miracle Whip. Thus, the one-dish meal would be healthy as there are quite a lot of fibres (wrap, lettuce, tomato), calcium (cheese), and protein (ham).

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

My modified one-dish meal :D

And this is my modified dish! :D It is basically just the format with more added vitamins, fibres, etc. The dish as you can see above has more vegetables added as well. Here are the ingredients and the changes made:

Ingredients:
- Wholemeal wrap (tortilla) [from Quix]
- Lettuce

- Tomato
- Chicken Ham
- Trim Low-Fat Cheese [from Chesdale]
- Miracle Whip (All-Purpose Dressing) [from Kraft]




Changes made:
- Plain tortilla ---> Wholemeal Wrap
- 1 tomato added
- Honey Baked Ham ---> Chicken Ham
- Processed Cheese
---> Chesdale Trim (Low-fat cheese)
- Mayonnaise ---> Kraft Miracle Whip (All-Purpose Dressing)

I think that my modified dish is much healthier than the previous wrap, firstly because I have switched the original plain wrap with the wholemeal version. According to the nutrition information as stated in the packaging, plain tortilla has 210mg of sodium whereas wholemeal tortilla has 198 mg of sodium. Wholemeal version also has 0.9g more of dietary fibres as compared to the original one.

My modified dish has more dietary fibres as I had added half a tomato in.

I replaced the normal cheese slice with Chesdale Trim, which has 40% less fats than hi-calcium cheese and also contains Omega-3. This would reduce the total fat and saturated fat content, while still providing calcium in the meal.

Mayonnaise is widely known to be unhealthy due to the oil and high fat content, but it is rather hard for me to do away with some dressing and the additional flavour to the wrap. Hence, I replaced it with Kraft's Miracle Whip which is an all-purpose dressing and also contains 60% less fat than normal mayonnaise. And it does not taste bad at all!

I also replaced the honey baked ham with lean chicken ham as there is less fat in lean chicken meat as compared to pork.

Recipe Analysis

Ingredient

Energy (kcal)

Protein (g)

Total Fat (g)

Saturated Fat (g)

Cholesterol (mg)

Carbohydrate
(g)

Dietary Fibre (g)

Sodium (mg)

Wholemeal Tortilla

134

3.6

3.8

2.0

0

23.0

2.9

198

Raw Lettuce

4

0

0

0.0

0

1

0.1

3

Raw Tomato

15

1

0

0.0

0

2

0.3

11

Reduced fat cheddar cheese

65

6

5

2.9

14

0

0.0

144

Chicken Ham

46

8

2

0.6

22

0

0.0

669

Miracle Whip

45

0

4

0.3

5

3

0.1

180

Total

(per serving)

309

18.6

14.8

5.8

41

29

3.4

1205

My one-dish meal :)


The dish above is the food wrap I have chosen. It is basically a plain tortilla wrapped with any kind of food you want, then you roll it up or just fold it over. In my case, I had added a mixture of vegetables, cheese, and meat.
Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients:
- Plain wrap (tortilla) [from Quix]

- Lettuce
- Honey Baked Ham
- Cheese
- Mayonnaise







Recipe Analysis

Ingredient

Energy (kcal)

Protein (g)

Total Fat (g)

Saturated Fat (g)

Cholesterol (mg)

Carbohydrate
(g)

Dietary Fibre (g)

Sodium (mg)

Original Tortilla

133

3.5

3.6

1.9

0

22.7

2.0

210

Raw Lettuce

4

0

0

0.0

0

1

0.1

3

Honey baked ham

47

7

1

0.5

19

1

0.0

524

Valumetric processed cheese slices

65

4

5

3.7

20

0

0.0

290

Mayonnaise

56

0

5

0.6

5

3

0.1

122

Total (per serving)

305

15.5

15.6

6.6

44

28.7

2.2

1,149

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Health Tools (from HPB)

I have found the Health Tools given on the Health Promotion Board (HPB) website very informative and helpful during the course of my research. Tools like the Food Intake Assessment, Fat Info Analysis, Recipe Analysis, etc. really helped me to analyse my diet and taught me a lot about the benefits and harms of certain foods and how to eat in proportion, balanced and healthily.

From the Food Pyramid above, I have learnt more in detail that we should be consuming more whole-grain food like oats, brown rice, wholemeal bread, pasta, etc. These foods contains lots of minerals, vitamins, and fibers. Vegetables and fruits are also rich sources of vitamins and fibers. They are naturally low in fat as well. Natural pigments in coloured fruits and veggies are apparently good for our health too-- they lower the risks of having diseases like heart disease. Calcium from dairy products like yoghurt and milk make our bones strong. Protein-rich food should be taken too, but in moderation as too much of it may be converted to fats if not used. Nuts and seeds are ideal as they are lower in fat. :) Oil, sugar, salt should be used sparingly too.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Day 3 - Wednesday, 19 May

Day 3

Wednesday, 19 May 2010


Time

Food consumed

Quantity

Breakfast

6.10 a.m.

Butter sandwich

Milo

1 slice of butterscotch bread

1 cup

Recess

10.15 a.m.

Hashbrowns

Seaweed Chicken

Ice Milo

2 pieces

1 piece

1 cup

Lunch

Fried Rice

1 plate

Snack

Strawberries

Grapes

2

7

Dinner

Wraps
- lettuce, ham, mayonnaise

Banana

1 serving

1 slice



Analysis from Food Intake Assessment (HPB)

View graph of actual nutritional intake compared against RDA

Energy

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 74%

Carbohydrate

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 56%

Protein

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 110%

Total Fat

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 96%

Saturated Fat

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 102%

Cholesterol

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 74%

Calcium

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 55%

Dietary Fibre

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 40%

Sodium

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i03.gif 280%

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

0

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/images/ere/ere070306i02.gif

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

% RDA Met


According to the FIA, my diet really has WAY too much sodium (280%!). I should really cut down on fried food, seasoning, etc. My my diet also has too much fat and saturated fats, so I should cut down on the fried food I am consuming. Despite me eating veggies and fruits on this day, my fibre content is still quite low, so I guess I'll just have to have more portions of vegetables and fruits then. Calcium content is quite low again, so I think I'll probably have to eat more hi-calcium cheese or yoghurt :) and also do more exercise to burn of those fats! :D