Pita Chips

Look at these pita chips, don't you want one? yes you do. Now you can make them. This is what you need:

Pita . However much you want. 1 pita, 16 pitas, 5 pitas, etc.

Olive Oil

Garlic 'n herb seasoning blend (really you can use whatever seasoning you want, or you can keep it simple with just salt and pepper, or get creative with rosemary and thyme and basil. its all up to you)

Preheat the oven to 400'. Drizzle EVOO over a baking sheet that has sides. (if it doesn't have sides, the oil will run everywhere). Put the pita in stacks of 2 on a cutting board. Slice into 8ths using a pizza wheel. Arrange the pita slices on the baking sheet. In a small bowl, stir together some EVOO and the seasoning of your choice. Remember this will be brushed over the pitas, so go heavy on the seasoning. Brush the oil/seasoning combo over the pitas, being sure to hit each slice. Bake in the oven for 15 mins or so, but watch them carefully, they burn easily. these chips are good with hummus, salsa, dip, or by themselves.

Vegan Banana Dark Chocolate Shots

3-4 ripe bananas, mashed,

2 tablespoons water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/3 teaspoon baking soda

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350’. Mix and mash the bananas, water, and oil together. Its ok if the banana is a little bit lumpy. Add in the sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, and wheat flour and continue mixing. Add in the chocolate chips and stir. Break out the mini muffin tin, and grease each little muffin hole with love. Fill each mini muffin hole almost all the way. Bake the shots for about 20 mins, a toothpick should be able to come out clean. Then pop the shots out of their hole and enjoy!

Protein Princess

Look at this princess right here, isn’t she lovely? I think so. Look at the way she coaches. Look at her monochromatic outfit. Look at those snakeskin accented sneakers. As an athlete and a coach, it is important that princess gets enough protein, and keeps her calorie and cholesterol intake in check. And because princess loves sheep and chickadees as much as she loves athletics, she chooses not to eat meat. Now, you may be wondering “how does princess get enough protein if she doesn’t eat burgers? Or chicken?” Well princess has a little thing up her sleeve called tofu. Now let’s compare some nutrition facts.

Protein: Calories: Fat: Cholesterol:

Tofu (124g) 10g 94 6g 0mg

Chicken (87g) 18g 150 8g 56mg

Ground beef 15g 220 28g 62mg

80%l Lean (87g)

At first glance, this data may make you think, “oh princess should eat some chicken.” But no, look again. Chicken comes with a hefty price of 56 mg of cholesterol, about 20% D.V. And her portion of chicken would be much smaller than her tofu portion, because chicken is more caloric than tofu. Even when the tofu portion is larger by 37g, princess still gets more calories from the smaller hunk of chicken. Ground beef would weigh the princess down in an overwhelming amount of fat, calories, and cholesterol. The princess would not be able to engage in princess activities such as taking Dave Lyons to prom because the hunk of ground beef would prevent her from zipping up her dress. Tofu is really what princess needs to stay healthy for coaching and working out. Because it is lower in calorie than meat, she can eat more of it and therefore take in more protein. And when she eats more of it, her cholesterol level does not rise at all, and her fat intake still remains low. After a meal of tofu, balanced with some vegetables and brown rice, princess is ready to kick butt on the lacrosse field, or kick the butt of her team by making them run sprints. Or coaching them to defeat Nobles tomorrow. Yup, I said it.

Powering Displays of Athleticism

Look at this starter huddle. The intensity is burning. Now look at that bench huddle. Woah, i'm intimidated.

Tomorrow, The River’s Women’s Varsity Lacrosse Team will defeat Nobles in their last game. But victory can only be achieved if we eat properly. Keep these things in mind while powering up for a game, run, or Olympics.
-The day before the display of athleticism, load up on complex carbohydrates (ie whole wheat pasta, brown rice) for dinner. Your body will store the rice in your liver as glycogen, which you can easily tap into when you’re taking off to get the ground ball and box the Nobles girl out of the way. Remember to balance the carbohydrates out with lean proteins
-The day of the athletic event, avoid eating close to the game. It takes the body 6-4 hours to digest fat, 3 hours to digest protein, and 2 hours to digest carbohydrates. If you eat right before the game, your blood will be busy in your stomach digesting instead of bringing oxygen to your muscles, which will slow you down. If you are going slow, you won’t be there to make the stellar cut and shoot. Also, have you ever tried running on a full stomach? You feel like you’re going to puke everywhere. If you are super hungry before a game, munch on an easily digestible carbohydrate, such as saltines or a slice of bread.
-After the athletic event, your body will be repairing muscles and recovering from exhaustion. Give your body plenty of water, some protein, and a good night sleep. Don’t forget to give yourself a nice pat on the back for being victorious.

What exactly is sustainability? And why does it matter when it comes to food?

My AP environmental textbook gives me a nice definition of sustainability, and because i trusted this book enough to maybe give me a 5 on the AP exam, i can trust it to give me a solid definition.
Sustainability: A guiding principle of environmental science that requires us to live in such a way as to maintain earth's systems and its natural resources for the foreseeable future.
in not textbook English, that means using resources wisely, so next year when we need a resource, its still there. for example if you cut down every tree in a forest, next year when you need a tree, there will be no trees left. but if you only cut down a few trees, next year when you return there will be trees left.
So how does this apply to food? well unlike trees that take decades and decades to grow back, food (ie corn, tomatoes, rice) only takes a season or so, and we have enough land dedicated to food production, (12% of earth's land is dedicated to growing crops, this shocking statistic was also found in my AP environmental science textbook, good job textbook.) so if one region is in drought and cannot grow crops, other regions are able to make up for it. however, because we never seem to run out of food, many do not see how we are running out of the resources to produce food. in fact, producing crops takes a lot more effort than one might think.
i'm a tomato, and i live in California. i was planted in the ground by a truck that uses diesel. then the same diesel chugging truck continued to drive around me to spray me with pesticides and fertilizers. these pesticides and fertilizers were all made in factories. every day or so, when it doesn't rain enough (which is often), a sprinkler is turned on and i am watered. this water came from the Colorado river, which is very far from my patch of soil in California. to get the Colorado water to me, pipes were built and ground was dug up to put the pipes underground and segments of the river and its tributaries were dammed, resulting in loss of habitat and a change in the river's ecosystem. when i'm finally nice and plump, a diesel chugging truck comes and picks me. then i am sent to a processing plant where i am packaged in petroleum based plastics. then i am loaded in an air controlled, diesel chugging, tractor trailer that drives me all the way to a distribution plant in western MA. from there, another truck drives me to a supermarket. at the supermarket, some lady picks me up and then drives me to her house. later that evening, half of me is consumed. the other half of me goes bad in the fridge and then i am thrown out.
think of all the resources that tomato just took up, the diesel it took to grow it and ship it to your mouth, the chemicals that had to be produced to protect it from bugs and help it grow bigger, and all the people that were needed to drive the tractor, wrap the tomato in plastic, drive the truck, unload the tomato from the truck, drive the other truck, and then arrange the tomato on a shelf at the supermarket. all of this effort was put in for one tomato, and only half of the tomato was actually eaten. tons of non-renewable resources were wasted in this process. in order to keep eating, our current food system based on waste, unnecessary energy output, and burning fossil fuels will need to change and become more sustainable.

crust less tomato and spinach quiche

this magical egg dish can be a breakfast, lunch, or dinner. once you master the recipe you can mix up the fillings to include anything from mushrooms to rutabaga. whatever strikes your fancy. for this version, you need:
6 eggs
One cup skim milk
6 cocktail tomatoes
2 handfuls spinach
Choice of herbs
½ cup shredded cheese

Crack 6 eggs into a bowl and whisk together with 1 cup milk and a dash of your choice of herb. Chop tomatoes into bite sized chunks and rip up the spinach into similar sized chunks. Spray a pie pan with nonstick spray. Line the pie pan with the chopped tomatoes and spinach. Pour whisked eggs over tomatoes and spinach filling. Sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake at 375’ for 30 – 40 mins.

Kale Tomato Soup

-2 bunches kale

- 1 bunch collards

- 1 small fennel

- 28 oz can of peeled tomatoes

- 14.5 oz can of petite diced tomatoes

1 big box vegetable stock

Empty cans of tomatoes into a big soup pot. Put on a low heat. First, rinse off the collards and rip them up into lettuce sized bites. Throw them in the pot. Then rinse off the kale and rip it up as well. Add a little bit of heat to the pot (my stove is on a 1-7 scale, 7 being high, put it at about a 4) then chop up the fennel into little chunks, reminiscent of cubed cheese. Add them to the pot and pump up the heat. The collards and kale will cook down a bit. When they cook down, add the spices you are feeling to the pot ( I did paprika, cayenne and black pepper) but whatever you want works. It takes about 15 mins or so for the kale to cook down. Then put in a bowl, grab a big spoon, and try not to burn your mouth!