Discussion Board Forum 1
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’s develop the rudiments of a maintenance diet for you—a desirable, workable, realistic, non-faddish maintenance diet—one you follow permanently. You have several reference sources:
– the Bible’s many prescriptive texts regarding nutrition (ignore “descriptive” texts)
– your textbook’s chapter on biomolecules; how they are built and used
– the course Presentation entitled “Biomolecules and Nutrition”
– trustworthy sources such as
– USDA MyPlate: https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate-Daily-Checklist
– the Mayo Clinic website. http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle
– Very Well website (David Katz’ site): https://www.verywell.com/
– Web MD: http://www.webmd.com/diet/default.htm
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. Click on the link below. This will give you a Word document “work table” to add your foods to. You may wish to print a copy for research purposes.
What Should I Eat – Work Table.docx 
2. Go to the “My Plate Check List Calculator https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate-Daily-Checklist-input Enter your data to determine how many calories your daily diet should contain. Record this number in your work table.
3. Now go to the USDA MyPlate web site: https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate-Daily-Checklist In the Table, about the middle of the page click on the box representing your caloric needs. Some serving amount data will pop up allocated into 5 food groups.
4. Record the suggested serving amounts in your work table to give quantitative values to the categories you will build your diet around.
“What Should I Eat?” – Work Table:
Total Calories:
/per day
Food Group:
Biomolecules in this Group in Order of Relative Biomass*
Serving Amount:
My Food Choices:
10 Fruits
Carbs, Proteins, Oils
My first food, my second food, my third food, my fourth food, etc.
12 Vegetables
Carbs, Proteins, Oils
12 Grains
Carbs, Proteins, Oils
9 Proteins
Proteins, Fats, Oils
7 Dairy Items
Depends on the Food
*as a generalization
5. Start to choose foods using the guideline comments given on the webpage. Use other web pages listed above to get commentary on foods you think (!) are healthy for you. Here are two useful ones to give you ideas:
https://www.verywell.com/macronutrients-made-simple-4128991 , https://www.verywell.com/the-basics-of-a-healthy-balanced-diet-2506675
6. Delete the sample foods listed in the “Fruits” category. They are there to show you the format for your own additions. List specific foods that you would eat for each group according the numbers indicated in the first column. The second column of the table will help you with your category accuracy. Do not reuse any food under a second category. You will thus select 50 foods for your diet—not a huge variety, but it’s a start! “Leafy greens” or “seafood” are food categories, not specific foods.
7. “Mouse over the upper left-hand corner of the table to find the tiny navigation box and click on it. This highlights (“selects”) the whole table. Copy it to your computer’s “clipboard”. You can now paste this table into the “Message Box” of your open “Thread” in the discussion board. Along with your table, you may submit up to two prescriptive Bible passages that you feel most constrain your dietary thinking.
Hints:
• Your goal is always to improve your own list. Please include about 70 words for your diet (50 foods, some hyphenated as needed) with space left over for two Bible verses for a total of 120 words. That’s your limit!
• 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: hard candy or a fig bar?
• What is in the food item you’ve selected? Check out: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ to find out.
• Suppose Mayo Clinic wisdom and Biblical wisdom seem to conflict. Which source will you defer to and why?