4: Reflections!

1) What have you learnt about your eating habits?
2) Do you consider your diet a healthy one? Why?
3) Are the suggested nutritional tools useful? How?
4) Why is your suggested one-dish meal healthy?

I have learnt that I eat very unhealthily and I am almost perpetually hungry or eating something. I always have candy and chocolate in my room and sometimes I end up subconsciously finishing packets and packets of snacks within a short amount of time, while barely realising that I'm actually doing something other than using the computer. (I eat while I watch TV, I eat while I read, I eat while I use the computer - I think I sound like a really fat couch potato now but trust me, I am not. At least not yet.) Looking at the completed record of my diet as well as the results of my dietary analysis was shocking. I always knew I was unhealthy, but I never thought I would have a percentage of...900 per cent sodium. Or that I was getting more energy than I needed. In the process of completing this Performance Task, I not only confirmed my state of unhealthiness and unbalanced nutrition but further found out exactly how unhealthy I am, right down to the exact percentage of nutrient intake.

I definitely do not consider my diet as healthy right now. Ever since I was a child, I have had bad habits like picking at my food and refusing to eat vegetables. I eat a lot of fruits and I suppose the home-cooked dinners I have are rather balanced, but it remains that if I don't like something, I will barely look at it, but if I like it, I might end up finishing the whole plate by myself. Even too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. It's important to know the ideal balance of nutrients and different kinds of foods we should consume in order to live healthily and happily and avoid the risk of terrible diseases and illnesses, which according to my analysis, I am very susceptible to. Lately I have been trying to control my eating habits better and eat healthier, more nutritious meals. Once I stopped eating junk food like chips for a long while, and started going down to my neighborhood Cold Storage really often to purchase food that needs to be refrigerated but can be eaten straight away, like cold ham and smoked salmon that came in slices. I was soooo amazed at how "healthy" I was becoming - especially the salmon because it was FISH, something that is known to be healthy - until one day my mum told me that it actually wasn't good to eat so much PROCESSED food. I haven't eaten either for a few months now. And I guess I'm saving money too, looking at how expensive Cold Storage food is.

The suggested nutritional tools are helpful in that they help us to calculate our nutritional intake and then compare it to an official standard set by the governmental authorities, whom we know for sure are a trusted and experienced/knowledgeable source. Their advice on what to eat and how much to eat will help us to keep healthy. Seeing the exact values (I still can't believe my sodium intake is more than 900 per cent), calculated in as scientific and appropriate a manner as possible, could really be the one thing that jolts people with more severe diseases (e.g. obesity) and even more extreme diets out of their unhealthy lifestyles. The nutritional tools also give plausible suggestions on what we can do to improve our diets. We can gauge how far we are from the recommended intake and work towards that.

My suggested dish is healthy as it cuts down on the use of condiments such as salt and oil, too much of which could be very harmful to us. In general, the entire dish contains less fats and oil. I did not have many suggestions on how to make it "more healthy" per se, but rather "less UNhealthy", by cutting down on elements known to be unhealthy, such as chicken skin and fats.

As an afternote, I feel that the results of my analysis may not be completely accurate for various reasons - firstly, the HPB websites's Food Intake Assessment and Energy & Nutrient Compositions of Foods both do not have a very comprehensive list of possible foods and beverages consumed. As a result, I had to choose items that I felt were similar, but not exactly the same, as what I had actually consumed. The levels of nutrients in the different foods may vary largely or even slightly, which would have been magnified as I increased the serving size. Another thing is that I guessed the serving size for some meals and may have underestimated or overestimated how much I actually ate.

More prominently, this diet was recorded over the weekend - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - during which my lifestyle and diet become much more unhealthy. When I am in school, for example, I pack a healthy lunch (Kinder Bueno and apples) or purchase food from the school cafeteria, which is regulated so as to ensure that the food sold to students is not too unhealthy. I come home late from school and then eat dinner straight away. Dinner from Monday to Thursday night is ALWAYS decided upon by my mum and home-cooked by my maid: one plate of rice, one vegetable dish, one meat dish, one seafood dish (usually fish but sometimes squid, prawns or abalone) and one clear soup with vegetables (winter melon, carrots, corn, lotus root) inside, followed by a serving of fruits. During the school week, I don't have a lot of free time and usually only have one meal at home; that is, a well-rounded Chinese dinner approved by my parents. During weekends and holidays, however, I adopt bad habits like sleeping late and waking up really late, skipping meals and having snacks throughout the day and late at night - sometimes because...I just FEEL like eating even though I'm not really hungry, and also because fried food and processed food is so readily available in my home.

In conclusion, I would like to improve my dietary habits and learn to take note of what I eat and its nutritional value. I would like to work towards a healthier lifestyle - that is, eating nutritious and well-balanced meals at regular timings. I will try to eat as many fruits as possible and try not to subtlely push all the beansprouts off the plate the next time I eat kway teow. I will try to cut down on fried and processed foods. I don't exactly enjoy sports, but I will try to exercise more too. I will try to moderate my intake of nutrients like fats, cholesterol and ESPECIALLY SODIUM!!!, and also try to ensure that I can increase my calcium intake such that it is at a higher yet healthier level. I will try to increase my intake of vitamins and minerals so as to improve my physical health and consequently mental and emotional wellbeing in future.