Topic: What Should You Eat?

You probably want to live a long and healthy life on this earth. What are you willing to do to make that possible? Here is an assignment that can improve the quality of what you eat, and hence, the quality of your life. Let us develop the rudiments of a maintenance diet for you-a desirable, workable, realistic, non-fad maintenance diet-one you follow permanently. You have 4 reference sources:

• Your textbook’s chapter on biomolecules-how they are built and used
• The Bible’s many prescriptive texts regarding nutrition (ignore “descriptive” texts)
• The course presentation entitled “Biomolecules and Nutrition”
• Trustworthy sources such as the Mayo Clinic website (e.g., http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/basics/nutrition-basics/HLV-20049477)

The foods you select will contain the same classes of biomolecules that you read about in your textbook: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, vitamins, and minerals. Use the following procedure to build your diet.

For your thread:

1. Work directly in the assignment’s text box, not in a Microsoft Word document, to avoid having to attach your work. Attached documents will automatically lose 5 points.

2. Go to the Mayo Clinic website: http://www.mayoclinic.com/. In the search box at the top of the page, type the phrase: “Healthy Weight Pyramid Tool” and click on the link to this program. It may take more than 30 seconds to load.

3. Fill in your personal data (maintaining weight is preferred to losing weight for now), clicking through the windows until you are given your own personal food pyramid based on a customized calorie-intact level.

4. In Blackboard, in your assignment text box, list the pyramid categories in this order: “Vegetables,” “Fruits,” “Carbohydrates,” “Proteins,” “Fats,” and “Sweets” (also listing your serving numbers beside each category).

5. Then, list 8 separate, specific foods (“leafy greens” or “seafood” are food categories, not specific foods) that are well known to be high in each category and that you would eat. Do not reuse any food under a second category. You will thus select 48 foods for your diet-not a huge variety, but a good start.

6. Along with your 6 lists of 8 foods each, submit 2 prescriptive Bible verses/passages that you feel most influence your thinking on this topic.

7. Spend the first part of this module/week optimizing your list. You may freely browse classmates’ lists to see what they have chosen (but then they become your authority). Your goal is always to improve your own list. Include about 54 words for your diet (6 headings + 48 foods), with space remaining for 2 Bible verses/passages (for a total of no more than 100 words).
Helpful Hints:

• Return to the Mayo Clinic website. In the search box, type the phrase: “Healthy Diet” and follow the search result links provided (e.g., “Healthy diet: Do you follow dietary guidelines?”). There are some excellent focusing suggestions here.

• Most really good foods are high in more than 1 category. This gives you flexibility in building your list. For example, salmon is high in both proteins and fats. Which is it higher in? Use it under only 1 heading.

• Foods differ in their density of a wide variety of nutrients as compared to just the calories they give you. Which sweet would be better for you: a hard candy or a fig bar?

• What is in the food item you have selected? Look at the following: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/

• Suppose Mayo Clinic wisdom and biblical wisdom seem to conflict. Which source will you defer to and why?