Warm Up 2 is due Wednesday, January 29, 2003 at 9:30 am.
The following three questions refer to material you were to read in preparation for class. These questions require you to write a three or four sentence response. It is OK to answer 'I don't know' - but STATE WHY you are confused! (Don't just say 'I don't know' - you probably DO!) Each WarmUp worth 3 points if answered on time and must be submitted via the web.
QUESTION 1:The USDA recommends that the average American diet for a person ~150 pounds (~2000 calories/ day) consist of
On a recent visit to Burger King, a hungry professor (no names, please) ordered her fave fast food meal. Take a look the Nutrition Facts for this Burger King Bacon Double Cheeseburger meal with King Size fries and a Coke (see the red "Total" line at the bottom; you may even want to print this out for easy reference). What amount of this person's total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, fiber, sodium, protein, and carbohydrate came from this one yummy meal? Do you have any comments about the nutritional implications of a fast-food lifestyle? Do you have any tips of how you balance healthy eating habits with the convenience of fast food?
From Nol: Q1 = In this one meal: 98.5% total fat, 120% saturated fat, 36.7 cholesterol, 32% fiber, 102.7% sodium, 64.6 protein, 72.3% carbohydrates of the daily recommended allowance are being consumed! Fast food may offer convenience, but it is not a good source of nutrition. The food is extremely high in calories, is loaded with fat, and has outrageously large amounts of sodium and carbohydrates present. A fast food lifestyle leads to an unhealthy diet and could result in heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and many more health problems. I like to enjoy fast food but I try to eat it sparingly. I also replace coke beverages with water. I think the most important thing to remember when eating fast food is to avoid the large portions.
From J: All of this makes even this food sound gross......but when I eat it next time I will cut out the fries. The bad part about this is that it is usually cheaper to get the meal! WHAT TO DO?????
From Earwhacks: Q1 = The person just nearly met their diet for the whole day-lol. The total fat is 64 g, saturated fat is 24 g, cholesterol is 110 g, fiber is 8, sodium is 217 g, protein is 42 g, and carbohydrate is 217. I would say that the best way to deal with eating fast food is to avoid it all together. As you can see, this isn't a very healthy way to eat. Can you imagine eating three meals like this one a day?? I would say that the best way to eat fast food is to get a grilled chicken or a salad with fat free dressing. I would also suggest eating at Subway.
From beenie: Q1 = This person has eaten almost their total intake for the entire day in just this one meal. The calorie intake on diet is 2000 in this one meal the person ate 1620 which is almost all the calories for the entire day. Not to mention all the fats and protien and carbohydrates. As for the soduim the person is over the average intake and then the fibers are low. For the cholesterol, there is still some room to eat more she was only at 110. As for what I think about fast food lifestyle is that it is convinent however it is a really "bad" diet. I mean that when one eats it is very much "empty" carbohydrates and a lot of soduim. I think that it is ok to eat fast food once in a while but for the most part I think that it is very bad for a person. I think a balanced diet will help result in great health and I do not think that fast food is very balanced. My sister is a diabetic and we always talk about making a diabetic fast food, meaning low carbs and splenda instead a nutra sweet and low sugar desserts. Other than that I really do not have that many tips on the fast food subject.
From Dr. Marrs: Great comments from the class...while fast food can be YUMMY, we all know that it is not that good for you. Enjoy in moderation...we'll talk a little more about nutrition in class today!
QUESTION 2: Starch (like bread, pasta) is a glucose polymer that gives us energy, but cellulose, an almost identical glucose polymer, is indigestible. Why do you think that ONE of these almost identical molecules can be digested, while the other can't? Why is cellulose (non-nutritive and indigestible) a very necessary part of our diet?
From Megs: Q2 = Starch has a linkage of a-glucose but cellulose has a linkage of b-glucose. I am not really sure what exactly that means, nor do I know if that is the correct answer, but I am excited to learn about this and know for sure on Wednesday! I wasn't really sure why cellulose is a necessary part of our diet so I looked on http://www.bodywise.com/bwcatalog/ingredients/cellulose.asp and found that "Cellulose is resistant to human enzymes. It is referred to as an insoluble fiber. Generally, insoluble fibers are found in higher concentrations in cereal, wheat and vegetables. They increase GI transit time, increase fecal weight, and slow starch breakdown and glucose absorption in the blood." These sound like good reasons to me!
From Mommy to be: Q2 = Starches are used to store energy, cellulose is used for stuctural support. The bonding of cellulose stabilizes the chains into a tightly bundled pattern that resists being digested by enzymes we have in our bodies. Starches have spiral chains that are not as stable, and consist of other chains branching off that are even less stable. Since these chains are not very stable, they are more prone to being digested by enzymes.
From Dr. Marrs: Plants put sugar (glucose) molecules together in a slightly different ways to make starch and cellulose. Starch is a long spiral chain of sugar molecules that plants link together to serve as an energy reserve for their cells. (Even though it is made of sugar, because it is a long chain it doesn’t taste sweet to us.) We eat the plants and get energy from their starches - ‘carbos’ like pasta, potatoes, bread - because in our body (or in a plant’s cells) the starches break down to sugar, which is broken down farther for energy (ATP). Cellulose is the main structural material in a plant cell wall – it is rigid and holds the plant up. (Wood is almost pure cellulose – we use it as a structural polymer too! ) Because of the way the sugars are linked together in cellulose, almost no living organisms can break it down – a good feature for a polymer that the plant is making to hold itself up!!! Even though we can’t digest it, cellulose serves a useful purpose in our diet, as “fiber”.
QUESTION 3: Butter and oil are both lipids. Why is butter a solid at room temperature, but corn oil a liquid? What is "soft margarine"?
From RM: Q3 = Butter is an animal fat that contains saturated fatty acids. These fatty acids have weak bonds that hold them together at room temperature. Vegetable oils are liquid at room temperature because their same fatty acids have "kinks" in their tails that prevents any bonding that could make it a solid. Soft Margarine has saturated fatty acid tails with kinks that allow it to be softer than butter at room temperature.
From Soccer Kid: Q3 = Butter is solid at room temp. because all of the saturated fatty acids in it and corn oil is a liquid because it has unsaturated fats and less hydrogens. Soft margarine is a little bit more solid than liquid just because it has a little more hyrdogens.
From Stoner: Q3 = Well I really don't know what "soft margarine" is but I am going to guess that there are different kinds of lipids just like there are different types of molecules and cells. Therefore there can be a solid and a liquid of lipids.
From Dave Q3 = …. I'm not sure what margerine is made of. It is one of the freakish side effects of technology much like Velveeta. : ) From Dr. Marrs: Good answers. Animal fats have saturated (“full of hydrogens”) fatty acids, which pack closely together, resulting in a solid at room temp. Plant fats, or oils, have unsaturated (loose, kinked fatty acids ) that don’t pack together into a solid at room temp. Margarine and Crisco are liquid vegetable oils that are chemically turned into solids by adding hydrogens to the vegetable oil, ‘stiffening’ the fatty acids. Soft margarine has a few more hydrogens than oil, which adds some solidity, but not as much as regular margarine! As for Velveeta and American Cheese - “cheese foods” - they are plant oils chemically converted to solid, - plus some real dairy products and attractive fluorescent orange coloring! Ooh yummy! What is Olestra, or “fake fat’? We’ll talk about it!
QUESTION 4: Optional: Do you have any questions, helpful suggestions, grumpy complaints, or glowing comments about class so far? :)
From jessymarie: Q4 = no:)i like class..and I Like the way you have interaction (the web site, etc.) Plus, I like the 'break' in between/group work! It keeps me awake :)
From NOLA: Q4 = NOPE THIS CLASS IS GREAT
From Macka Doodle: Q4 = I like this class because it makes you think about things that you wouldn't normally think about!! :)..... I never realized how much fat was in my cheeseburger and french fries! :)
From Mom: Q4 = I like the class (now). I was reading another language when I first started and panicked at my lack of knowledge. The worksheet last week over cells through me for a loop, as 99% of the information was new to me. Hopefully, I can retain all of this information for the exam. It is very helpful to have topics linked to daily life. Thank you for taking time to give us notes and examples!
From bioboi: Q4 = Here are the positives and negatives. Positives: Biology is interesting, my last class was in ninth grade when I was a goof. The organization/technology involved is impressive. All the hard work that is put in for us to easily click on links and hop around to very interesting websites that I would usually not come across is very much appreciated. Negatives: There are just way too many students in the class, its Biology, I have questions and interests. How can I interact with students and one teacher when we have such a huge class. I paid almost $1,500.00 for this class (non-resident), the university should take a different approach. One big thing I discussed with peers is that the pace of the class is too fast. The vocabulary and concepts are hard to digest so quickly. I would rather slow down and walk away at the end of the semester with some Biology I have learned and that will stick with me. Thank you for asking and reading my response:)
From Nol: Q4 = Class is more interesting than I expected from a lecture course, so that's a plus. I wish I had more of an idea about what concepts I needed to grasp for the test. I would especially like to know how detailed the test will cover on the carbon compounds section.
From babydoll: Q4 = The only thing I have a concern on is how do we know what to read to be prepared for class? I know that on our notes pages it says readings and then it lists page numbers, but does that mean we are only responsible for those pages when a test comes or ar we going to be responsible for the whole chapter as well?
From Scott: Q4 = Well I do not really have any complaints about the class, but I have one concern and that is the fact that the questions asked on the warm-ups are not directly mentioned in the reading. At least I did not find the material. I found that the concepts of the questions were mentioned in the reading but after that you had to go a step furher and answer specific questions based on basic concepts that were not to helpful with the line of questioning that you asked. This is more geared toward warm-up number 2.
From BL: Q4 = This class kicks ____!!!
This Warm Up exercise is copyrighted under the name of Dr. Kathleen A. Marrs, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003. There are no restrictions on its use by educators or by non-profit institutions as long as its content not modified, proper copyright acknowledgement is retained, and this statement is not removed.
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