1.

Demonstrate knowledge of human nutritional needs and the role of

nutrition in improving individual health and the societal economic
impact of food choices.

My signature assignment shows a detailed knowledge of specific human

nutritional needs, but expands on a alternative perspective of only
meeting these requirements. The human body is immensely complex
and these complexities are exasperated when nutritional requirements
fall within the extremes of the spectrum, good and bad. Interestingly,
what becomes of only meeting basic nutrition is a void in personal and
eventual societal involvement, which exemplifies the interconnections of
the two.

2. Relate technological advancements in medicine and food

production to the advancement of the science of human nutrition.

My paper is based on the idea of using technology to bypass the normal

operations of consuming food. While advancements may seem
beneficial, unwanted consequences do eventually come to the surface.
For the foreseeable future, science will have an active hand in our food
choices, but what is important is to be able to objectively decide on a
personal level if this science is applicable or falsely being use d to
persuade diets or trends for the purpose of making money.

3. Explain the impact that the food industry has on human food
choices and the subsequent relationship to health and disease at
the individual, societal, and environmental level.

The food industry is centered on their own business values, which most
importantly is focused on manipulating the consumer to steer nutritional
choices towards the intended product. Advertising and interjection to
popular culture is undoubtedly an strong influence to the masses who
are receptive to daily life needs such as eating.
 4. Provide examples of past and present nutrient and diet trends in
modern society and the positive and/or negative implications on
human health and the earths resources.

I remember back in the late 90s when my father used the Adkins diet,
which consisted of consuming additional protein and fewer
carbohydrates. In an uneducated theory, this diet rationalize that
excess protein would be eliminated naturally while simultaneously
supporting metabolic needs and reduction in carbohydrates would
promote weight loss. However, regular protein consumption in America
is also parallel with uncontrolled fat intake and other detrimental
nutrients.

5. Provide examples of positive and negative interactions of

humankind with microorganisms regarding sickness, health and
food production.

Microorganism are essential to human life, so much so that if we did not

have bacteria in our gut, we would not be able to injection and
subsequently digest most foods. Gut flora p rovides not just an aid in
elimination of food waste, but also absorption of nutrients that normally
would be passed through.

6. Address diet and nutrient issues and concerns for weight control,
disease prevention, physical activity, food availability, and
biotechnology.

While weight control and disease prevention are significant activities to

aid in quality and longevity of life, solely adjusting diet has not been
proven to be a cure-all nor has a specific diet alone provided
immortality. What has been proven to be beneficial is a well rounded
multi-faceted approach to well-being that incorporates diet as well as
physical activity and mental agility. Our genetic predispositions are one
pare of the equation, our self control of our environment is the other.
Reflection:

1. Make connections between what you studied in this nutrition

course with what youve learned in other courses at SLCC or
before. Make specific references to your work in this class and in
the other courses. How did what you learn in the oth er courses
enhance what you learned in nutrition, and vice versa?

I have been taking this Foundations of Nutrition course at SLCC while

simultaneously enrolled in other nursing prerequisite courses. This
summer semester 2017 was my attempt to take all online courses to
enhance my time management and location flexibility. A benefit while
taking this class was the fact that I was also enrolled in a human
development course that addresses nutrition topics as well. This aided
my learning objectives since the two courses were intertwined in
various functions. For both classes, I referred to my other concurrent
textbooks to help in research and referencing. Assignments in my
nutrition course helped with my critical thinking skills and demanded
new perspectives of the world around me. With my newly trained eye for
nutritional choices and how they effect not just myself but society and
culture as a whole has been very interesting and will be a much needed
skill set that I can utilize throughout my life.

2. Reflect on how you thought about nutrition before you took this
course and how you think about it now that the course is over.
Have any of your assumptions or understandings changed? Why?
What assignments/activities/readings were influential in this
process? How will you approach (course topic) differently in the
future?

I have always respected nutrition and its role in human development,

but I had previously attributed my own personal choices (or lack of well
reasoned choices) based on my youth and plasticity of lifestyle. Now
that I am growing older, my bodys ability to overcome poor nutritional
choices is getting more difficult. The biggest reconciliation would be
that I need to take more of the nutritional information to heart in my own
life, and as I become a RN, a better advocate to my patients. The Fast
Food Availability assignment gave me a good perspective of the
plethora of bad food choices that surround us, yet the $10 food
challenge taught me a valuable lesson that healthy cheap food is lying
right underneath the surface.

Kyle Delaney
HLTH 1020
Nutrition Perspectives
Research Paper

The inspiring outside medium as it relates to human nutrition is a news series from Vice News

that examined the use of Soylent, a total food replacement product (Merchant, 2013). The lead

reporter, Brian Merchant, interviews the key players of the Silicon Valley startup company that

is producing Soylent and making some ripples in how humankind perceives nutrition. The

founder and CEO is Rob Rhinehart, who was a software engineer and self-taught basic

nutritionist, combined his knowledge to create a basic nutrition cocktail for everyday use, which

became the product Soylent. Interestingly enough, his initial motivations were a familiar theme

to current culture; those who are too busy to make and eat food can be given a more time

effective option. Rhinehart also envisioned a more altruistic economic and environmental role by

providing a cheap food source to feed the growing population while not stressing the agricultural

demand.

The Vice news story enters when the Soylent company is beginning to ship initial orders to

customers after successfully crowdsourcing close to 1 million dollars in one month. While the

author is performing his investigative journalism, he was simultaneously participating in a 30

day Soylent diet while recording his progression via video diary and medical monitoring. As the

program explored the societal pros and cons of products like Soylent, the trial conducted by the
author gave a more personal perspective of what it is like to drink all your meals for a month

straight. To relate the themes from this video to my nutrition course, I will expand on four main

themes; the social values of eating, basic nutrients, and sustainability.

Social values of eating

While the author Merchant was conducting the 30-day meal challenge, there emerged an issue of

the author feeling depressed and not wanting to engage socially with others, but this change in

psychosocial behavior was gradual over time. During the first week of using Soylent, Merchant

didnt mind drinking his daily Soylent meals. But by day 20, he smelled of Soylent, was

depressed, felt excluded by friends, and got sick from trying to drink alcohol socially. An

interesting observation from his video diary was the authors use of chewing gum to curb jaw

pain that arose from not using facial muscles to chew food.

Food is culture driven; and culture is driven by food. Eating influences start with our parents and

is shaped throughout childhood (Smith, 2015, p. 5). There is a common saying you are what

you eat; but this is more directed at the notion of health. I would also like to suggest that this

ideal can be said for ones sense of identity. The United States has often been call a melting pot

of culture or a picture mosaic, but it is in these distinct cultures where food, music, religion,

values combine to give each person a unique human experience. The process of eating food gives

us direct pleasure, either by the feeling of being satiated or more directly by a means of our

indulgences (Smith, 2015, p. 7). Food also provides a setting for socialization and sense of

community that is not much different from attending church, going to your favorite concert, or
even taking to your best friend on the phone. While I had previously given recognition of food

being a strong social and cultural tool, I had not imagined that such a void would be created by

altering our eating behaviors. I was not surprised that the author began daydreaming of food by

day 17, but I was surprised by his change in mood by becoming depressed and reclusive by the

end of the trial.

Basic nutrients

At the time of filming this segment, there were only 31 ingredients to Soylent that provided a

total of 2400 calories. While it is known that metabolic needs are different for each person, age,

gender, activity level, and basal metabolism, part of the ingenuity of Soylent is due to powdered

delivery system that just needs added water. The addition or reduction of calories can be adjusted

by the amount of powder added. However, the adjustment of individual nutrients cannot be

adjusted in a specific way. The human body has an impressive capacity to generate some

important nutrients that may not be adequate in the system, such as Vitamin D, but there are

limits. Conversely, the body can also eliminate excess of materials like potassium, but chronic

high levels of many chemicals can cause various ailments, diseases, and even death (Smith,

2015, p. 284). Our health is driven by our allostatic load that we put on ourselves, meaning the

more unhealthy things we do in our life eventually catches up to us (Berger, 2016, p. 392). To

extend our lifespan, we must start early in our lives and this philosophy can be reduced down to

adequate sources of basic nutrients.

I remember being a young child watching Saturday morning cartoons. More specifically The

Jetsons, which was a futuristic family living their lives in a dystopian future. I remember scenes

of the characters taking prescription looking pills as food, or putting a small pill in a microwave

and instantly creating a huge thanksgiving dinner. Scientific engineering of the 1950s gave us

orange Tang and other chemically derived foods. Enriched breads and rice provides essential

nutrients to countless amounts of people who would normally be threatened by malnutrition

(Smith, 2015, p. 127). We put fluoride in our public drinking water to help prevents tooth decay

and cavities. Physicians around the world regularly recommend prenatal vitamins to possibly

pregnant or expecting women (Berger, 2016, p. 393). We live in a world today that is safer and

healthier due to the nutritional supplementation backed by science.

I have always been aware of meal replacement products, but always viewed them as a fad. On

the other hand, working in medicine, I was aware of liquid meal nutrition for bariatric or ICU

patients. While the use of nutrition supplementation in a clinical setting has been around for

decades, there has been a very delicate balancing act of being able to provide nutrients with

metabolomic demands. By using this news segment as a current food trend perspective, I enjoyed

my ability to critique and reinforce the nutritional knowledge I have gained with this course.

Sustainability
With a world population approaching more than seven billion people, there are still 1 billion

humans who daily deal with hunger and food insecurity (Smith, 2015, p. 546). This significant

population size is even more devastating since there is simultaneously 1.4 billion tons each year

of food waste, and developed countries are some of the worst accusers. Rheinhart speaks to this

fact during the news segment, and feels that Soylent can help diminish or even eradicate hunger.

And there is some truth to this theory, why couldnt a cheap basic nutrients drink be used to

provide society with a strong tool to help those in need? Rheinhart even goes as far as to desire

that Soylent will be piped into households, just like drinking water public utilities.

Another purpose of Soylent according to Rheinhart was to ease the environmental impacts of

mass production of agricultural products and to enable a more local small scale farm to table

process. The increasing trend of a more informed public about their food choices has made

organic and natural food products billion dollar industries. Additionally the environmental

concerns of using pesticides, GMOs, and carbon waste of transportation are becoming food

choice priorities for many people (Smith, 2015, p. 561).

The main theme that I took away was the social impact of eating. With our current culture of fast

paced on the go eating, it is easy to justify bare bone nutrition supplements over calorie laden

fast food. But what I found interesting was that during the authors 30 day challenge, his

psychosocial state began to change and even become alarming. The social satisfaction from

eating food with others and sharing experiences is not lost on me, but I definitely had not given

so much merit to these actions.

Reference List

Berger, K. S. (2016). Invitation to the life span (3rd ed.) [with Salt Lake
Community College supplement]. New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Merchant, Brian (2013). Soylent: How I stopped eating for 30 days, Vice Media,
2013. https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/life-after-food-soylent-
motherboard/55cb6ae51ce00c683baee7a9

Smith, A.M (2015). Wardlaws Contemporary Nutrition: A Functio nal Approach

(5 th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education