Food Journal

28 April, 2009

Around 8:00 P.M.

* Chicken with ginger & green onion sauce

* A bowl of white rice

* A cup of 2% Milk

* Some Veggies

* Apple & Orange

Before I eat, I not as hungry as I usually is. But my mom has a proper schedule of when we supposed to eat dinner (I guess she believes that eating at a certain time like following a schedule is healthier than you just eat whenever you wanted to), so I have to eat even I don't want to. We did talked about random stuffs and the topics were kept switching around, nothing much seems important. We eat with chopsticks and bowl, no difference. My mom is the one who cooked yesterday, but not always. Also, she is the one who buys the food from Chinatown everyday.The cooking part took about half an hour, and the dinner last around 45 min. During the middle of the dinner, we did watch some shows on the computer and we just talked random things about the show. Then we ate some fruits as usually, after the dinner, and that is pretty much it. Overall, the dinner is fine, and I am satisfy because I do not have to suffer hunger like other kids in the other part of world.

29 April, 2009

Around 8:00 A.M.

* Water

No Breakfast.

Around 12:30 P.M.

* Meatball

* Chocolate Milk

* Water

I do not feel like eating during lunch time, and I just ate 2 meatballs and drank the chocolate milk. I am not sure if I am not hungry or I just don't want to eat (I guess is both). I do not know where does those food came from, and how they cook them. It doesn't look bad, but I don't really feel like eating them. I used a fork to eat my lunch and while I am eating with my friends, we play cards and talked about random things (teachers, schools,swine flu, jokes...etc.) I do not have any feelings towards the food, but the lunch time went well, because I spend time with my friends and we talked.

Around 8:00 P.M.

* Noodles

* Korean Frozen Pre-fried Fish Cake (Tofu)

* Veggies

* Chicken Soup

* SPAM

* Water

* Apple

My sister cooked, and I ate with my brother and sister using chopsticks and bowls. Most of the food are from the supermarket and I can't decide whether is health or not. We were watching TV shows while we are eating and we just commenting the shows because we are kind of into it. It took around 20 min. to cook and the dinner last about 45 min. I am satisfy after I eat because the food is good and I am little hungry before the dinner. During the dinner, we also talked about what happens in school and our day. Overall, the dinner went well as usual, and I felt fine.

Food Cultures - Home & Corporate

In my Chinese culture family, usually is the women's duty to cook and to do the shopping. The overall process of cooking a dinner or lunch has nothing to do with men. It does not have to do with the gender, but usually the kitchen belongs to the females in the family. A regular family dinner often cooked by the housewives, and usually the other females would help in the kitchen, too. A dinner would take about an hour or two, depending on the numbers of family. When I was in China, if there are only me, my mom, brother and sister, sometimes my dad, the dinner would take about an hour for my mom to cook. Also we would have less food (around 3 dish, soup, white rice). But during the weekend or vacations, when we go to grandma’s house to eat, usually there would be 10 or more people in the family. So the dinner would take 2 hours to cook and everybody would sit around the table and eat. Usually only the adults or young adults are allow to sit on the table to eat. (The age matters in my family, the older ones get more respect and get to sit on the width of the table and the other adults sit on the length). The kids have to sit on a separate table to eat with smaller dishes of the same food. We do have the television on, but usually the adults are talking and the kids are watching TV or playing while eating. The manner is very important too, we have to wait for everybody to gather around the table, then we are allow to pick up our chopsticks.

The women are the ones who are responsible for everybody’s food. Especially for my grandfather, he never gets up and serves himself. My grandma is the one who usually serve him and help him to get rice or soup. Soup is one of the most important things that most Chinese family values. The soup is not from the cans, but from a lot of the ingredients. Usually there is one type of meat; it could be chicken, pork, and duck, (sometimes snakes and a type of turtle) with some other Chinese medicine herbs. The more expensive ones would be abalone and ginseng or shark fin. The other foods on the table would be usually 7 to 8 dishes within mostly pork, beef, fish, shrimp, goose, duck, chicken, (*frog*) and vegetables. Sometimes there would be steam egg, fried fish or steam fish. Chinese food do not values seasoning, but only oil, salt, soy sauce, sugar. The heavier ones would be spicy peppers, some type of liquor, or vinegar. In a very traditional family, sodas or juice are not allow in a family, and we are only allow to drink soup because it takes more than an hour to decoct. I think the Chinese culture believe that from drinking soups that decoct for a long time, with extracting the flavor from pork and other medicine herbs is healthy for our body. Also every night the proportion of eating vegetable is more than meat. Unless there is a holiday, we would make special foods with flours and other food. Or else, everyday the food is pretty much make with the similar ingredients.

When I came to the United States, my lunch is usually fast food for the purpose of convenient and speed (American way), and the dinner is similar as what I described above. But now I only eat with my sister and my brother, sometimes my mom. So we will have less food on the table and sometimes no soup. In the U.S., we do watch TV when we eat, and the dinner took around half an hour to make. Usually are still pork, beef, chicken, and some other vegetables like green pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, green shallot, celery, and egg plants. Everything is homemade, and we no longer have soup every night. We usually just drink milk or juice or soda to replace the drinks. Compared to the American way of making food, I think it is very different because we do not eat ham for dinner, turkey, corn, potatoes, cheese, burger buns…etc. for dinner. Also the Chinese food is all cooked, and the American way of making food is to put the vegetables together into a salad with some sauce. In addition to that, I think the people in the U.S mainstream make food or eat with a lot of sauce like ketchup, mustard, mayo…etc. What is very different was that the mainstream dinner for white Americans seems to be very independent and everybody is responsible for their own food (own dish). Also the process of cooking the dinner is fast and everybody just trying to get over with it. But there do have some similarities are that we do sit gather around the television, and we do eat together as a family. Also we eat white rice very often, too.

I think the Chinese culture of making food is very different from the American mainstream way of making food. Perhaps different cultures values different things while Americans concerns with the speed and convenient, and the Chinese concerns with more family interactions and manner. However, I think both culture do not really concern about is the food they are eating is really healthy or not although now a day everybody talk about organic food.

Food Internet Research

How many meals a day is best?

Basically my research is saying that 3 meals a day is not enough, people should be eating more than 5 meals a day in order to take advantage of their metabolism. It doesn't mean that 3 meal is bad, but depending on your diet, people should be eating more than 3 meals to get the "maximum potential". It also mentions that having a healthy diet requires a whole life time to process, and you can not just do it for few months.

How Many Meals A Day Is Best?

"Comparing three "squares" to six meals a day is like comparing a Porsche 911 Turbo to a Yugo. Yes, you can get some results with three well constructed meals, but you'll never get anywhere near your maximum potential (and it will take a lot longer).

The benefits of frequent eating include:

a. Faster metabolic rate
b. Higher energy levels
c. Less storage of body fat due to smaller portions
d. Reduced hunger and cravings
e. Steadier blood sugar and insulin levels
f. More calories usable for muscle growth
g. Better absorption and utilization of nutrients

h. Reduce bloating

Depending on what your diet and goals are, you should be eating at least 5 meals a day. These "meals" are not supposed to be platters of food, but rather a small meal which consists of the appropriate amount of protein, carbs and fats.

On the other side, too often people think that if they throw in an apple or a protein shake in between breakfast and lunch, they have having a meal. But unless you are eating a balance of all macro nutrients, you're not taking full advantage of your metabolism."

Refrigerator Assignment

Most of the food in my refrigerator are vegetables and fruits. The others are ginger, garlic, ketchup, mustard, butter, milk, condensed milk, egg, ham, and some other condiments.There are also some Chinese herbs and ingredients that my mom use for soups. I think my list of food has to do with my diet and I think they shows whether what I am eating is healthy or not for me and my family. I don't really see my relationship with food regardless of the fact that I eat them everyday. The fact that I realized there are a lot of plastic boxes with left overs from dinner, it really shows that my family waste food because we cook more than the amount we can eat. Also once the food are in the fridge, nobody will really goes back to the fridge and eat them.

Health Project

In the health topic, we have learned about different aspects of health such as physical, social, spiritual, emotional, mental, and moral. The ones that stand out the most in these investigations is moral and emotional health because these are the two that we interact with the most in my daily life. Although physical, social, spiritual, and mental healthy also interacts with us a lot in our lives and all of them are related, I think emotional and moral health are the ones that we have to deal with the most and seems most resonant.

Every day when we wake up whether we have a restful sleep or a horrible night, it affects our emotions and it will have effects on the rest of the day. Also, emotions will directly affect that way we make decisions which it has to do with our morals. In class, we have discussed whether a person is emotional healthy or not when they kept having the same emotions and we been defining what is emotional health. For instance, if a person is constantly happy for a long time, is that healthy? We said that in class that it depends on the situation, if the person is happy for a reason behind it, it is healthy. But if the person does not know why they felt that way, and just constantly feeling happy, we said that is unhealthy. Therefore, I define emotion healthy as a person who knows the reason why they felt certain way and being able to manage their feelings. We also discussed in class that whether being emotional healthy meaning always happy, we said that mostly yes, because everybody who are living on this earth are mostly consuming happiness as the way of living a good and meaningful life. But when something horrible happened to us, we shouldn’t be happy and we should be able to face our true feelings. If that person constantly feeling depress and unable to change his/her feelings back to happy or positive, then there is a problem which is consider emotionally unhealthy. To be emotionally healthy, it doesn’t mean that we have to be always happy. But we should know why we feel certain way and be able face our true feelings instead of avoiding it.

Throughout our lives, we face a lot of emotions and there is a big possibility that caused people to have a long depression. We should be aware of the therapy we used instead of just going to a random therapist. The different kinds of therapies are interesting to me because when a person has emotional problems, they just randomly go to a therapist without even searching whether it will have an impact on them or not. By learning different kinds of therapies make me realized that it is important to know your situation before going to a therapist, because some therapy might really be unable to help you to fix your situation but even make it worst. The one that I did research on, “Existential Therapy” is the one that I found most interesting to me because it really drags me into thinking about the purpose of living in this world, and knowing that I should not always have negative feelings in my life because I have goals/future to look forward to. Having long depression will definitely get me stuck in one spot and unable to move on. What it really stands out to me in this therapy is that it makes people to realize that they are themselves and they should be taking responsibility of their own life. Thus, this therapy is the one that I found it really useful when I think I am emotionally unhealthy. Other therapy is pretty interesting too like CBT and psychotherapy, but I think what is most important is to know your own situation before using the different kinds of therapy.

While doing research on the “existential therapy”, I found one quote by a French existentialist philosopher that is really appealing was that he believed “it was nearly impossible to live without such self deception”. I think it really touches the topic moral health, because as human, we always criticize whether doing this is right or wrong. Such as, referring back to the quote, we can see it contradicts each other because in order to live we need to sort of lie to ourselves and have hope, but in the other hand, we should not pretend in terms of moral since we all have conscience and we should do the right thing helping the others instead of pretend they are not here. Considering some moral dilemmas, often in our lives it is hard to determine what we do is right or wrong. Before judging, knowing what standards of morals that we are looking at, it will make it clearer. Based on Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, it consists of six stages within three levels. The first level is Obedience and punishment orientation and self-interest orientation. The second level is interpersonal accord and conformity and authority and social-order maintaining orientation. The third level is social contract orientation and universal ethical principles. Our daily choices that we made in our lives reflect on our levels of morality and moral values. One of the scenario that we discussed in class is should a man rescue the little baby on the train track or a car that he has spend a lot of money on. This scenario reflects on a lot of the decisions that we made in our daily life. Without watching a movie or buying a new pair of sneakers that we do not necessary need, we could help some babies from the other part of the earth to live. But we turn out keep spending the money on luxuries instead of helping a live of a baby. All these kinds of moral issues are moral dilemmas and are hard to determine. So should we always give what we have to help the others like the sixth stage, universal ethical principles, or should we care about ourselves more like the second stage, self-interest orientation?

In my personal opinion, these choices are hard to make and often make people feel the sense of guilt for not helping but spending on luxuries. It really depends on how the person is raised in the society. Everybody have different moral values and therefore making the choices is hard to decide. I do not think people should look at moral issues in terms of right vs. wrong. It is really based on the person’s conscience of doing certain things. For instance, a man steals the money to buy food for his daughters, and got send into the prison. Perhaps the man is not a good person in terms of social norms, but he is considering a good father. I think we should look at these moral issues in different categories because even a bad person doing something wrong is for the purpose of their love ones. Therefore, we should not judge whether a person is good or bad, right or wrong, but in terms of the different situations and standards. As long as you can get over with your own conscience, making any choices will lead you to a lesson. We are just humans, and we all have sins. Without making some wrong choices, we will have less experience and never learned or know how it feels to be certain way.

In our lives, often making a moral decision is difficult and it will definitely affect our emotions. Sometimes we donate some of our money to help others as thinking we did something good, it will change our emotions and it makes us feel great inside for doing something “good”. Therefore, moral health and emotional health definitely interacts with each other a lot and are the ones that are most resonant to me in my daily life. Throughout this topic, learning health has changed my definition of health and it deepens my way of seeing what health really is. Before learning about it, I am thinking of the way that the media taught us, that in order to be healthy, it mostly have to do with what you eat and being skinnier…etc. But after learning about health, I have different views of looking at it, and notice that health is not just about the five aspects of health, moral health is something that we do not really think of in our lives! Changing the way I looked at health, it makes me to realize that it is not just all about our bodies; emotions are really one of them that are very important. The actions I will take to deepen my health would be mostly my own emotions and morals because emotions are the one that I see it affects me the most. Therefore, I will definitely face my true feelings and make the “right choices” according to my moral values.

Break HW - My Emotional Health

During this break, I think my emotions are pretty balanced and healthy. In my own opinion, the definition of emotional healthy is when a person have the ability to manage their feelings and know why they feel that way. For example, in this break, sometimes I have the notion thinking that "I am wasting the break for nothing and I should have done something else", and I end up just sitting there and feeling down. I think this state of emotion is still healthy, because I am able to think through it, and figure it out myself by knowing why I felt that way. More importantly, this state of thinking did not last very long or result as a depression. I am able to manage my feelings and get back on track to my daily basis.

In this whole week of break, the notion that I mentioned above comes pretty often. In 7 days, there are 4 days I felt that way. At very beginning, right after the break, my emotions were very healthy because I feel very restful and comfortable, because it has been a long time that we do not have a long break. Also is a time that I can put school aside and start doing something that I really wanted to do. I am able to catch back my sleep and just rest at home. But right after the weekend, when Monday starts, I felt a bit empty inside because my habit or daily routine has changed. It is like a sudden twist that I have to plan for something else. So I just decided to make a plan, like go online and look up for some college things and get rid of some homework to avoid the feeling of waste time. Out of my expectation, there was a fire next to my apartment building for the first time in my life and it broke the Internet and my home phones. Thus, I end up sitting at home and start doing some house cleaning at home and watch TV since it is a rainy day, too. Since my plans got ruin, it affects my emotions and it caused me to have the feeling of emptiness. Things aren't going the way I expected and therefore I am upset becasue it is not better than the fantasy. By knowing why I felt certain way, I am able to pull myself back to my regular state of feelings and start planning for something else to do to avoid thinking that way, because by thinking that way, I don't get anything out of it but just sitting and thinking, getting stuck. Doing some actions like going out to take photos or helping my cousin on the magazine or reading my friends exhibition helps me to keep my emotions healthy because I am using my time efficiently and I won't make my mind think too much pointless things that get myself stuck at some point. Thinking to the positive way helps me a lot because it helps me to see things in different angles and knowing that it is not just the only choice. I have many choices to choose from.

I think if a person is constantly happy, it could be healthy and unhealthy depending on the situations. If the person lost a family member and he/she still feels happy instead of grief, I think it is emotionally unhealthy. If a person is constantly happy because he got a good grade or won a lottery, I think it is healthy. But in the long term, if a person constantly have the same emotions and did not experience other emotions, I think this is unhealthy. Because I don't think a person can only have one emotion "happy" throughout their life. I think he/she must have more words to describe his/her emotions like what we discussed previous in class. Therefore, I think to determine a person's emotions are mostly based on the situations and reasons behind it. A lot of people think feeling sad or depress is emotionally unhealthy because it is negative, but if the person is sad for a reason or fit that situation, it is healthy.

We have discussed some therapies in class to help people on emotions, and I think existential psychology really helps in my case. Because when a person does not feel right or their emotions are unhealthy, this theraphy helps them to look forward instead of foucsing on their past. However, I think every theraphy is based on the situations. The existential therapy helps me a lot because I know why I feel that way as the reason, so I am able to fix it by asking myself how to change this as a way to make myself to look forward. Since I am looking forward to my future, and mostly igonored my unhappy past, it helps myself to know why I am living and what is the reason that motivates me to live. By knowing the reasons that I exist, I think the person's emotions will be pretty balanced and they won't think pessimistically becasuse they will take responsibilty of every choice they make and they will not avoid the problems that they meet in life. They will just live for their goals and keep move on instead of getting stuck on emotion problems becasue of their situations.

Research a Strategy of Emotional Health

"Existential psychotherapy is partly based on the existential belief that human beings are alone in the world. This feeling of aloneness leads to feelings of meaninglessness which can be overcome only by creating one’s own values and meanings. Existential psychotherapy suggest that in making our own choices we assume full responsibility for the results and blame no one but ourselves if the result is less than what we desired. The psychotherapist helps his or her patients/clients along this path: to discover why the patient/client is overburdened by the anxieties of aloneness and meaninglessness, to find new and better ways to manage these anxieties, to make new and healthy choices, and to emerge from therapy as a free and sound human being."

"The existential psychotherapist is generally not concerned with the client's past; instead, the emphasis is on the choices to be made in the present and future. The counselor and the client may reflect upon how the client has answered life's questions in the past, but attention ultimately shifts to searching for a new and increased awareness in the present and enabling a new freedom and responsibility to act. The patient can then accept they are not special, and that their existence is simply coincidental, without destiny or fate. By accepting this, they can overcome their anxieties, and instead view life as moments, in which they are fundamentally free."

"Existential belief suggests that it is possible for people to face the anxieties of life head-on and embrace the human condition of aloneness, to revel in the freedom to choose and take full responsibility for their choices. They courageously take the helm of their lives and steer in whatever direction they choose; they have the courage to be. One does not need to arrest feelings of meaninglessness, but can choose new meanings for their lives. By building, by loving, and by creating one is able to live life as one's own adventure. One can accept one's own mortality and overcome fear of death. "

Existential Psychology

From doing the research on Existential Psychology, I think I believe in what their view points in human beings and minds. Basically, the existential therapy's view point on human mind is that all human beings are alone in their own world and we all are trying to find the connection between each other as the meaning to live. However, we are unable to depend on the others for "validation". Therefore, we come to believe that we are fundamentally alone when we came to the world, and our validation must come within and not from the others. I think by helping people to realize this, people will begin to be more independent and not relying on luck or destiny. In addition to that, we would be more responsible for who we are and making good choices and not blaming the others because we take controls of our own lives. According to Sartre, he believes that people who think that making choices is such a burden and pretend there are no choices are not taking responsibility of their own lives, as he called living in Bad Faith. "He believed it was nearly impossible to live without such self deception."

Another interesting thing about this strategy is that the existential thinkers are trying to avoid putting clients/patients into categories. Therefore, they analyze people based on experiences and creating four world. The physical dimension (natural world), social dimension (public world), psychological dimension (personal world), and spiritual dimension (ideal world). I think these categories are pretty much well covered the whole, because according to these worlds, they shaped pour attitude towards our life experiences.

Health Internet Research

1. What is health?

Health is being compare into metabolic efficiency and inefficiency. Nobody is perfectly healthy and everybody is a combination of health and sickness according to their unique abilities and disabilities including both physical and emotional.

What is health?

2.Why is health important?

Based on this article, the author is saying that health is important because "health is money". Many people think money is the most important thing in their life instead of "health". The author also mentioned that "You are what you eat" and "health is everything". Without health, you will not be able to achieve your goals or dreams. Also, you cannot contribute to the society. Adults or kids are not the only one who should concern about health, everybody in different ages should being aware about health because it helps us all to function in daily life. In addition to that, "health enables us to enjoy life". If we do not take care of ourselves, we will end up suffering.

Why health is important?

3.In what standards does it consider healthy?

A good health means you keep the balance of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements. In order to form a strong, healthy person, the 4 elements have to interact with each other. Without anyone of them, it will result as imbalanced. Therefore, you are not healthy.

Defining health

4. What does it means when someone said you are "emotionally healthy" ?

"If you are emotionally healthy you will have ways of dealing with and overcoming depression, anxiety, chronic pain, loneliness and grief. Emotional health can best be described as a state where you are in control of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. You feel good about yourself and your relationships and can keep problems in perspective. Emotionally healthy people can still have emotional problems and mental illness, but they have learned of ways to cope with stress and problems and know when to seek help from their doctor or counsellor. "

Emotionally Healthy

5.Why is it important to be healthy?

"Being healthy is the most important thing you can do for yourself and your family. Your health should be a top priority no matter what else is going on in your life. Its not hard to take care of yourself, but it does require some dedication. " Another reason is that you can be there when your family needs you such as children and other members in your family who might not be able to do it themselves.

Why is it important to be healthy?

6. Why does physical health means?

"Physical fitness refers to good body health, and is the result of regular exercise, proper diet and nutrition, and proper rest for physical recovery. A strong indicator of the health of localized population is their height or weight, which generally increases with improved nutrition and health care. This is also influenced by the standard of living and quality of life."

Physical Health

7. What is the definition of spiritual health?

"Spirituality is having meaning & direction in life. It involves development of positive morals, ethics & values. Being healthy spiritually helps us to demonstrate love, hope & a sense of caring for yourself and others."

Definition of Spiritual Health

8. What does healthy diet means?

"A healthy diet is one that helps maintain or improve health. It is important for the prevention of much chronic disease such as: obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. A healthy diet involves consuming appropriate amounts all of the food groups, including an adequate amount of water. Nutrients can be obtained from many different food, thus a healthy diet may vary widely."

Healthy Diet

9. What is the definition of "mental health"?

"1. A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life.
2. A branch of medicine that deals with the achievement and maintenance of psychological well-being.
3. A person's overall emotional and psychological condition."

Definition of Mental Health

10. What is the definition for "unhealthy"?

"Not in a state of good or normal health; in an unsound, weak, or morbid condition."

Definition of Unhealthy