BE: Reaction to Salt, Sugar, Fat

I thought this book was very informative and interesting, it is very easy to pick up this book and get enlightened with knowledge that benefits the reader. This book might have been scary for people that were completely clueless to what they were eating and were getting told the harsh truth. I loved reading all the truths about the food that is commonly found in the market and consumed by the majority of Americans. The thing that sticks in my mind the most after reading the book is just how much sugar is in soda. This book makes every food company seem like evil organizations hungry for profit at whatever the cost. This book made me question why it is still allowed to have copious amounts of salt sugar and fat in almost everything we eat. Then I realized why the food companies are still adding this stuff, we the consumers are too blind to see what we are eating and are being slaves to salt sugar and fat. The book was correct when it said that we are addicted to eating salt sugar and fat, we really do get manipulated by the three to make us addicted to them. I will also remember that we consume 33 pounds of cheese and seventy pounds of sugar a year, these numbers make my head spin because I cannot envision that much sugar and cheese is being consumed by every single American. This book was a wakeup call for me to start changing my eating habits and make a conscious effort to look for healthier food. It also made me think that if I spend more money on healthy food now than buying cheap food it would still be the same as buying my health now rather than later like being in the hospital getting fed nutrients through my blood stream because I didn’t eat healthy throughout my life.

Thanks

BE: Thanks

Ten things I’m thankful for:

11.      Home

22.      Food

33.      Transportation

44.      Family

55.      Music

66.      Health

77.      Weekends

88.      Pets

99.      Laughter

110.  Electricity

BE: Family

BE: Family

            I come from a family where my father has 11 other brothers and sisters and my mother has 5 brothers and sisters. My entire family is easily over 150 people and still growing as my cousins and I get older and start to have children. As a kid I remember spending a lot of time with my cousins from my mom’s side of the family. Most notably my cousins Bernie and Danny, we were born just between the span of a year so we were pretty close already because of our age. We didn’t go to the same school, but even then I would still see them multiple times a week. We would sleep over at each other’s houses and play video games and watch funny TV shows. Growing up the three of us grew up liking the same things and it was really easy for us to get close. We were doing the same curricular activities, we were on the same soccer team as little kids, we were in the same karate class, and same guitar class. We are still really close to this day but we don’t see each other as frequently as we did when we were little kids. From my dad’s side of the family all of my cousins were at least 6 years older than me and I was the youngest. It was hard for me to connect as easily with my cousins because of the age gap, especially my male cousins because when they were 14 + I was just an 8 year old. As a young 8 year old boy they seemed kind of intimidating because they would play pretty rough and I was afraid to get hurt. Seeing that my male cousins were scary to me, I went with my female cousins and had much more fun with them because they were like motherly figures because they would look after me and be nice to me. My aunts and uncles are very likeable, they always seem to be very happy and understanding. Over the years all of my aunts and uncles have always been helpful in giving advice or taking care of me if my parents were at work. The three sisters of my mom Ana, Yola, and Irma have all treated me like their son at one point or another because my mom has done the same for their kids and we have always been kind to each other.

Materialism

   I agree with Lauren Smith when it comes to the subject of the holiday season and gift-giving. I agree with everything she said she is right about the holiday season being a time of selflessness to give gifts to your loved ones and be thankful for all the things you have. I also agree with her point of the holiday season being about spending time with your family and that each gift that is given or received is done with love and selflessness. I agree with most of what she says because I feel that the holiday season can be a time where everyone can feel special and loved. Growing up whenever I thought about Christmas and this time of yearI thought about getting a few gifts and having fun with my family and being in a living room eating a nice dinner with a Christmas tree and everyone laughing and having fun. I never thought about the holiday season too materialistic because the gifts that I would receive would usually practical things that I can use throughout the year. I would receive clothes, school materials, or accessories for my guitar or skateboarding ramps that I can use, and I remember giving cooking supplies to my aunts or tools for my uncles that they can use,  I can’t think of one gift that I have ever gotten that never had a purpose that was just a material item. My family deals with buying presents by looking at the black Friday sales and usually buying things from that day forward until Christmas. We usually get at least one thing for everyone in our family. It never mattered how big or small the gift was to our family because the most important thing for our family was staying safe and spending time with everyone and having a good time.

School

Blog Entry: School

            In general when I think of school there is nothing that comes to mind that I like. I’m on the neutral side about everything that has to do with school. The only thing that I would say that I like about school is whenever someone can make me laugh in school or I see something funny happen, but even that is not really school related so everything seems like whatever to me. The biggest challenge for me in school is doing projects or essays in advance of the due date and not procrastinating until the very end. I usually put off those kinds of assignments until the last second and panic and turn in things that are not my best work. Lately I have been trying to work on things in portions and work on things a little bit at a time and I found out that this method is a lot less stressful and can be more effective for me because every time I pick up from where I left off my mind is refreshed and focused on what I have to do, rather than doing everything at once and having all kinds of thoughts go through my mind. The workload for me isn’t too bad this semester because I have a lot of time to get things done and can work in a nice quiet space with no distractions. The ultimate pay-off for me is to get my degree so I can get a nice paying job and make a steady income to be able to support myself. I stay motivated by keeping a positive mindset and always try to smile and laugh as much as I can every day. My age keeps me going because I am only 17 and I want to graduate and my degree as soon as possible so people can be amazed at how young I am.

Opinions

Opinions

            I have changed my opinion about many things in my life, it is natural to think differently as you get older. The thing that I have changed my mind about the most is probably my opinion on school. As a kid I absolutely hated school because I did not like waking up early in the morning to go with a bunch of other kids in a classroom. I thought we were being held hostage as kids to be in this room with an adult to teach us things that we didn’t want to know. I just wanted to be free and run around in the open and play games and have fun. As I got older I started to like school more each year. I started to have fun in the classroom doing assignments and projects. I began to answer questions that the teacher asked and feeling rewarded by knowing that I answered the question correctly. I began to be happy at school because I could still play with my friends at recess and look forward to getting out of school to play even more with them. I realized that school was a good tool for me to not get bored and always have something to do. As I got older and got into high school I really started to enjoy school because I always had a blast in the classroom listening to the teacher tell stories and going to P.E. and playing sports with my friends. I now loved school because I had a lot of fun with my friends that I made in school and realized that without school I would have never met these people. Now that I am in college I like school even more because we make our own schedules and learn the things that we want to learn.

            

Fast Food

Food

            My history with fast food begins as a little kid. I loved to go to McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Burger King, Carls Jr, In and Out, and any other place you can think of. I loved eating there because it was so good. It had me hooked the first time I ever ate at one of those places because everything tasted good and I was a little kid that did not know how the food was made or what was in the food. I would just care if it tasted good or not. Fast food wasn’t that big a part of my childhood though, because I had my grandmother and my mother living with me and they made way better homemade food than any fast food place. Even though my mom was good at cooking she sometimes didn’t have the time to make food, so I would say that as a little kid I would eat at fast food places fairly often. Maybe like twice a month or less on average it wasn’t uncommon for us to eat fast food. I would get two double cheeseburgers any time we went and that was it for me I didn’t really like anything else at fast food places. As a kid I felt pretty happy whenever we would go to any burger place because it felt like a reward to eat there.

 

            I loved eating fast food all my life up until I got into my sophomore year of high school. My biology teacher Mr. Daw educated me on the reality of fast food and there evil ways. He showed us videos of how the corporations treated the animals, it was an awakening for me. In the videos all the animals were fed corn and were not able to run freely, because they are all caged in to a small confined area with no space to move. Then Mr. Daw showed us the right way for animals to be treated, they were free to run and eat grass and get exercise and they even had their own names and were loved by their farmers. Ever since I was in Mr. Daw’s class my perception of food changed drastically and I began to immediately see the reality of how bad fast food places are. Now I never even think of going to a fast food place because it just looks so disgusting and unhealthy to me now. Now has gotten much better I am very glad that I don’t go to fast food places because I feel much healthier now. Whenever I see a commercial of fast food on TV my stomach starts to hurt because I get memories of when I used to eat that and how horrible I felt. I also showed my whole family all of the things that Mr. Daw showed me and they also stopped eating fast food and thanked me for showing them. In conclusion fast food is nothing to me now I will never eat at any fast food place ever again.