10/27/2008 – 11/02/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the nutritional analysis for 10/27/2008 – 11/02/2008.

10_27_2008-11_02_2008-graph

My one housemate came across an amazing recipe yesterday, and one that is easily adapted to use all local ingredients.  I can’t remember the exact name of the recipe in the cookbook, but we have named it “puffy apple pancakes.”  You just take some eggs, milk, flour, and salt, and mix them all together in a bowl.  Then you melt some butter in a baking pan, and pour two tablespoons of sugar (I used maple syrup) on top of the butter once melted.  Next you arrange some sliced apples in the pan, and then pour the egg mixture over the apples.  Finally, you bake it in the oven.  It ends up being kind of like a sugary egg souffle with apples in it.  It was quite delicious.

10/20/2008 – 10/26/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the most recent weekly nutritional analysis.

10_20_2008-10_26_2008-graph

This weekend I was really into the whole breakfast for dinner thing.  I had scrambled eggs, toast with butter, and vegetables earlier in the week.  Which was of course delicious.  And then last night I had french toast with carrots and collards, and, of course, maple syrup on the french toast.  One of my mod-mates had made french toast earlier that week, and upon seeing this I immediately thought to myself, “French toast!  Why haven’t I been eating more french toast!”  Thus I decided that I should make french toast for dinner at least one night over the weekend.  It was so delicious!  It will certainly make an excellent addition to my recipe list for any meal of the day.

10/13/2008 – 10/19/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the nutritional analysis for last week.

10_13_2008-10_19_2008-graph

I have two things I want to mention this week. First of all, I did my economic food expenditure analysis for September. I may post the charts I have later. But anyways, the results even surprised me. In the initial comparison I did between how much I spent buying local food and how much buying that same food would have cost me at your typical, giant corporate grocery store, I actually saved about $44.05 buying everything locally.

The second topic is about two of my favorite things, cheese and vegetables. I have recently rediscovered the joy of simply cooking up some vegetables, and then smothering them in mozzarella cheese. It is so simple and delicious, and it is a great thing to make if I’m in a hurry.

10/06/2008 – 10/12/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the graph for last week’s nutritional analysis.

10_06_2008-10_12_2008-graph

There are two things that I’m especially excited about related to my project at the moment. The first is that my chest freezer is almost completely full. There’s still a little room left in it though, which I plan on filling with broccoli. The second is that I actually started writing the, what I’ve been calling, the “casual” section of my Div III. I think I am going to split this section up into four different parts, one for each month this semester. So yeah, that’s pretty exciting.

09/29/2008 – 10/05/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the graph for the nutritional analysis for the past week.

09_29_2008-10_05_2008-graph

My cholesterol intake was lower this week.  Which isn’t really surprising, seeing as how I didn’t eat as many eggs this week.  Vitamin E continued to be a constant research and consideration topic for me throughout the week.  If you all look at the comments of last week’s post, there are some interesting reflections from a viewer about Vitamin E, as well as a response to said post by me.

I continue to be unsure about where I stand on Vitamin E.  I am eating a balanced diet, and the literature seems to agree that if you eat a balanced diet, you shouldn’t really worry about Vitamin E.  But the numbers don’t add up.  As I mentioned in my comment reply for last week’s post, I personally tend to favor the balanced diet of whole foods view of the issue.  In order to get my Vitamin E levels up to a more desirable level on paper through sunflower oil, I would need to take 1 to 2 tablespoons of it a day.  The whole fact that so many Americans don’t get their daily recommended Vitamin E intake is another interesting fact to consider.  I was hoping that the more research I did on Vitamin E, the easier my decision as to whether or not take sunflower oil as a supplement would become.  However, it would seem that that decision has become more complicated instead.

09/22/2008 – 09/28/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all, here’s the nutritional analysis for the dates 09/22/2008 through 09/28/2008.

09_22_2008-09_28_2008-graph

The most exciting news this week is, at least for me, the fact that my calorie counts were above 100 percent.  I did some more research on Vitamin E sources as well.  Apparently most high sources of Vitamin E in food are oils (non-animal oils) and many nuts.  Unfortunately, we don’t have local access to any of the nuts that are high sources of Vitamin E.  Sunflower, on the other hand, is something that is an excellent source of Vitamin E.  We were supposed to be getting sunflower oil.  However, given the weather conditions late season this year, and the fact that the combine that all our sources of sunflower oil were going to be using is broken, we do not currently, and it looks like we might not have, local sunflower oil from this season.  There are some other good sources of Vitamin E we do have access to, such as carrot juice and tomato paste, and (as I mentioned earlier) green leafy vegetables like broccoli.  Seeing as how I honestly don’t think I have time to be making enough tomato paste to last me through the coming winter (it takes a lot of tomatoes to make just one cup of tomato paste, and I would ideally be using at least half a cup of it a day), the tomato paste doesn’t seem like a logical option.  Also, in order to meet my daily recommended Vitamin E intake from, let’s say broccoli or kale, I would need to eat 1,034 grams (2.3 lbs.) of broccoli or 1,765 grams (3.9 lbs.) of kale.  Now I love both of those vegetables, but that is a lot of broccoli and/or kale.  Carrot juice seems like the best local option to be honest.

If my Vitamin E counts remain low, I might have to supplement some non-local sunflower oil into my diet.  If I do do this, I would probably just be taking a tablespoon of it a day or so.  I came into this project with the recognition that I might need to introduce some non-local ingredients into my diet.  If I do choose to buy non-local oil to help supplement my Vitamin E intake, I have decided it will be sunflower oil for two main reasons.  First of all, we were supposed to have local sunflower oil.  Second, it is simply an excellent source of Vitamin E.

This whole sunflower oil thing brings up a great point to be addressed about eating a local diet.  In a global food system, if you have a crop failure or some other issue that delays or diminishes a harvest, you can probably just get that product from somewhere else.  If you are completely reliant on your local agricultural production, and there is a crop failure, you probably just won’t be having that product during the current season.

Even though I am doing this local diet project, I am not suggesting that everyone should eat an all local diet.  I do believe that people should eat more local food, where it is available, and where it is not available, it needs to be made available.  Do I think people in the Northeast eat too many tropical food products on a constant basis, probably so.  Do I think that people should not use certain simple products like vegetable at all just because they are not local, probably not.  In reality, I believe what we should strive for is a more balanced food system.  I do think that we should adapt our diets to be more accomodating to our local regions, eating more local food and less foreign food.  Afterall, even before the age of fossil fuels, people in New England still traded some agricultural products with foreign communities, it just happened on a much smaller scale.

09/15/2008 – 09/21/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all.  Here’s the graph for the nutritional analysis for 09/15/2008 to 09/21/2008.

09_15_2008-09_21_2008-graph

The calories are still a little low.  However, I was feeling a little under the weather due to allergies one day of the week, and I ate significantly less that day.  So that day dropped the overall calorie count for the week.  And while I’m on calories, I am pleased to report that this current week, I have been meeting my proposed calorie intake, and even exceeding it on some days.  Although several of these calories are coming from eating more dairy and eggs, thus driving up my fat and cholesterol intake.  The cholesterol numbers are still deceiving though, as a significant portion of my cholesterol intake is from eggs, which many people argue has enough good cholesterol to really help balance out the bad cholesterol.  Although I would expect that my cholesterol, even if the dietary analysis program did take this into account, would still be above 100 percent.  Honestly though, I’m pretty sure that this has been the case throughout my entire life.  I’ve always loved and eaten lots of dairy, now I’m just currently eating a bit more.

Vitamin E continues to be quite an elusive little fellow.  Supposedly green, leafy vegetables are supposed to be a good source of this nutrient, and I do eat a decent amount of kale, so I’m surprised it’s still so low.  Broccoli is supposed to be an excellent source of Vitamin E, but unfortunately the late broccoli crop didn’t do so well overall this year.  I actually think the only broccoli I’ve eaten since I’ve come back up to school was a little gift of raw broccoli given to me by everyone’s favorite, friendly greenhouse folk.  I’ve been doing the bulk of my grocery shopping at local, small grocery stores, and since broccoli isn’t all that abundant this season none of the  have been carrying local broccoli.  They do seem to have it at the farmer’s markets though, which I would assume means they have it at farm stands as well.  So either today or tomorrow I plan on doing some broccoli hunting.

One wonderfully delicious development over the past week or so has been milk with a little bit of maple syrup in it.  I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it, seeing as how much I love maple syrup and maple syrup ice cream, but I saw Emily putting maple syrup in her milk one night, and I was most intrigued by the combination.  I recommend you all try it if you haven’t before.

09/08/2008 – 09/14/2008 Nutritional Analysis

Hey all. I just finished the first week long nutritional analysis. My calorie counts are a bit low, but I’m working on figuring out how to get them to go up more consistently. Given the fact that I am eating such a produce heavy diet, and produce is not all that calorie dense, this is not all that surprising to be honest. I started drinking more milk over the course of the week, as it is a good source of calories, calcium, protein, and Vitamin B12. I had some concerns going into the challenge about meeting my Vitamin B12 needs, and I was thus quite excited when I saw that I was averaging 139% of my daily Vitamin B12 needs. My Vitamin E intake is low, so I will probably be doing some research on good, vegetarian, local sources of Vitamin E.

So anyways, here is the graph for the first weekly nutritional analysis.

09_08_2008-09_14_2008-graph

On another note, I purchased my first gallon of apple cider yesterday, and it is quite delicious. I heated some up to have with muffins for breakfast this morning. It was quite a wonderful, soothing beverage to start the day with.

Introduction

Hello all.  As you probably gathered by the title of this page, my name is Justin, known as Goat by some.  I am trying to eat a local diet like my fellow participants, but I am coming at it from a slightly different angle.  For those of you that don’t know the Hampshire system, your education here culminates in something known as Division III, which is essentially a large project which students usually work on for the last year of their undergraduate education.  This local foods project is the basis of my research for my Division III.  Essentially, I am doing a nutritional and economic analysis of the project.  This information will then be utilized in an attempt to analyze the broader feasability of a local diet in New England.

Through this blog, I will be doing journal updates about my experience, as well posting weekly nutritional analyses.