Week 7 at UIUC

This week turned into a mash-up between working on projects and helping out at the dining halls. It offered a nice balance between the two.

I have greatly enjoyed all the projects I have been assigned here at the University of Illinois, as they mostly have to do with nutrition. One of the projects I completed was researching and writing an article about the FODMAPs diet. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. I know it’s a mouthful, but basically it just includes all those foods that have high amounts of lactose, fructose, sugar alcohols, and other kinds of sugar.  Recent findings have suggested that a low-FODMAPs diet can significantly help those with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The other project that has taken up most of my time deals with healthy meal selections through the dining halls cycle menus. I managed to come up with a ‘healthy meal’ for lunch and dinner, for every day of the week for the two cycle menus. Each ‘healthy meal’ included a source of protein, grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy and remained under 650 calories, 35% fat total in meal, 10% saturated fat in meal, and 750 mg Sodium. What I found most interesting about this project was that it proved most foods can be incorporated into the diet if consumed in moderation.

As I have mentioned before, the University has a contract with the Student Sustainable Farm to use its fresh produce in the dining halls. Unfortunately, most the students are gone for the summer, so the dining halls have to find creative ways to use the produce or save it for when students return. One such way to do this is to use the abundant amounts of tomatoes that come from the farm to make pizza sauce and then blast chill it for later in the year. So guess what I did? I helped to deseed 700 lbs. of tomatoes at FAR for this purpose. Before the tomatoes are deseeded, they must be cored and the skins must be removed by boiling them in the kettle. That night I dreamed tomatoes, but tasting the final process after the sauce was cooked, made it all worth it. It was wonderful to meet more of the staff at FAR, who also shared in this task and have the best conversations. I even had a brief cameo in a training video shoot that was taking place at FAR one day.

This Saturday I finally had a chance to venture out to Urbana’s Market at the Square, a great Farmers Market located a little over a mile from campus. You have to get there early to get the best produce, but it is worth it! I, myself, bought a quart of snap peas. In my opinion, fresh food always tastes better than store packaged foods. They had everything from produce, to delectable bakery items ( I had a pear almond Danish), kettle corn, waffle car, and crafts you can buy! Farmers Markets are a great way to get a feel for the community!