Meals on Wheels Project

   Here I am again talking about another activity that my class (and I of course) had done, under the orders of my 9th grade science teacher. This is its story:

 "Sarah Jones (my teacher's other identity hahaha) owns a company, Meals on Wheels, who delivers pre-made well balanced meals to a wide range of customers. She needs to add 2 diet menus to her list: a healthy and balanced menu that fits a long term weight loss program and a one week quick weight loss menu (she knows any quick weight loss diet is very restrictive and should not be done for too long so it needs to be as healthy as it can be)."

  So what we had to do was to evaluate three menus (Menus #1, #2, and #3): see whether they are, as said on the little story above, a long term weight loss program or an one week quick weight loss menu. We had to take the kinds of nutrients that are present in each menu, their importance, and their effects in our bodies, if ingested excessively or not, into consideration; in order to evalutate them. After doing that, we had to choose two menus that will be used by the project's company, Meals on Wheels.

 To do all of this work (oh boy), our teacher handed each group (oh did I tell you that this project consisted of group work? Well, luckily, it did. Phew!) a sheet, where we would write our plans for the project and for each member of the group. She also handed the menus.



  I had two members in my group (there was one more, but he was travelling to somewhere else-aaww I want to travel too!). Member #2, mostly took care of the visuals of our project's PowerPoint (oh dear, we also had to present it) and analyzed Menu #1, Member #3 had to evaluate Menu #3 and analyze the nutrients and the food in it (basically, she had to do all of the things that I mentioned on the third paragraph), and I, was the leader of the team, and therefore, had to keep ordering my teammates around (muahahahaha!)...nah, just kidding. Anyway continuing, I had to take care of the remaining menu, Menu #2 and with my superior artistic skills (not!), I also had to draw something to make our poster look fab (yeah, not only have we decided to do a PowerPoint presentation, but we also decided to utilize a poster)!



The cover of the poster



Inside the poster



  Thanks to my excellent leading skills (hohoho)...ok, and my fantastic teammates' help and dedication, I, no, we did a great job-in my opinion-and managed to do everything perfectly and according to plan. GO YELLOW TEAM (the name of my team)! Also, THANKS GUYS FOR HELPING ME IN THIS PROJECT, GOOD JOB!

To view the PowerPoint presentation, click on the link below:
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AQVRZYAGNu4MZGdxN3dwZzVfMmNodHdka3R4&hl=en_US

  After analyzing the three menus, my group and I came up with the conclusion that Menu #2 was the long term weight loss program and the best menu to utilize to loose weight in a healthy way, for it contains all the essential nutrients that the body needs, in order to carry out its essential processes. However though, since the purpose of this menu is to make the person loose weight, there are small amounts of fat present in it. Now Menu #1 is an one week quick weight loss menu, for it doesn't contain enough proteins and fats that our body needs, which leads to the body not being able to grow properly and to repair tissues (protein's job), plus to not have enough protection for its organs (fat's job). Although it makes a person loose weight faster (in a bad way), it is still better, than Menu #3 (also, a one week quick weight loss menu), which contains too much proteins and too much fat, which can lead to high cholesterol and uric acid stones. So then, the two menus we chose for the company, Meals on Wheels, were Menu #1 and #2. 

Uuum, this is a picture of an uric acid stone, I guess (yuck!).



During this nutrient-based project, my teammates and I learned new things too, such as the consequences of ingesting too much proteins, like uric acid stones, which occures when people eat too much red meat (noooo! Why does it have to be the red meat?! D:). The proteins in the meat are broken down into amino acids(http://www.ehow.com/facts_5513030_much-protein-cause-kidney-stones.html) and then, the huge amount of amino acids will gather in the urine, forming the uric acid stones( http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/stones_ez/). If you didn't understand my brief explanation, please check these sites.

 Thanks to this project, I've also started to remember all of the things that I learned in 8th grade about nutrients.I'm the kind of person that has a good memory that unfortunately, only lasts at least 2 days and in maximum, one week. I blame the vacations (oh curse the tempting fun stuff!)! Now, I am the NUTRIENT MASTER (...lame e.o)!

 Another good thing that occured in this project was that I've noticed that my leadership, organization, and time management skills have imrpoved. Why? Well, that's because with these three things, I managed do and present my project awesomely (hohohoho)...nah again! Okay, I'll be honest, the reason why I've noticed that those three skills of mine have improved is because:

1) I didn't feel shy or uncomfortable (like usual) while leading my group.

2) I managed to organize my plans properly, to the point that my group did manage to do everything according to plan; step by step.

3) I managed to do most of the activities (except the poster's drawings) on my created due dates.

Yay me! (...)
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