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This past week I was thinking up recipes that could be possible for college students, and came up with a new thing. Students can buy lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and other basic salad ingredients. They can chop and mix these together to make a salad, and can buy canned chicken to add in if the people want more protein and flavor. The healthy and simple meal is a good start for college students, because all they need to make it is a refrigerator, a knife, spoon, bowl, and chopping plate. Most people know how to chop vegetables, so this recipe will not take much cooking expertise. Another recipe I have thought of is microwave meatloaf with five-minute ready rice and green beans. This combination is easy to prepare and can control the size of the portions. A problem with restaurants now is the portions. Every time I go out to eat I have to either share my meal with someone in my family or take a to-go box. It is hard to tell when you should stop eating, because there is still a lot of food left when you start feeling full. This is a reason for some of the weight gain for college students, because they eat in the campus cafeteria and eat out without any parents to tell them that they are eating too much. Another aim of my recipes is to contain a good portion guide for the students, not just a serving size on a package that is ridiculously small to make the amount of calories seem small.

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This past week I have been able to almost finish the draft of my cooking guide. It includes detailed information about good foods to eat. One healthy alternative to sugar is xylitol.  It is a more natural sweetener that does not involve the bad excess amounts of sugar sugar has. Another good food to use as an alternative is fruit sweeteners. Instead of eating unhealthy candy, people should turn to fruit. Many fruits are sweet to appeal to the taste buds, but they are also healthy for the consumer. Fruits are an important part of the food pyramid, because the natural sugar provides the fuel for our activities. Another food that is important for the body and exercise, is protein. This provides the needed fuel to build muscles. I plan to finish the cooking guide within the next two weeks. After that I will be able to start creating my recipes portion. This will be especially helpful for college students, because there may be many recipe websites online, but many are too complicated and need the commodity of an oven to cook. College students who live in dorms do not have this, and most of the time only have a microwave. I will make sure that the recipes will be tasteful and possible for college students.

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This week I will be discussing desserts and sweets. It is good to have a little bit of sweets, but not too much that is overpowers the portion. Another important thing to think about when purchasing sweets, is the ingredients. Many sweets are full of almost all sugar and maybe some food coloring. This food may taste good, but the detrimental effects on the body are an important concern. Too much sugar consumed will outweigh the speed and amount of insulin available to process the sugar, so it will be just wasting away in the stomach and eventually out. Too much sugar consumed will build up and could lead to health problems such as diabetes. My research is helping serve as the guidelines for my cooking guide as I am writing it. I aim to make people realize that what they eat really affects their body and health. This will cause the body to become more susceptible to health problems later on, all depending on how you eat during your life. Just like how it takes 10 years for your lungs to return back to normal after even just smoking one time, bad food consumption can take a long time to bounce back from.

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After last week when I started discussing fast food, I decided to continue more about it. Many college students worry about health, but do not have the determination to break their habits of eating fast food with huge portions. My cooking guide is focused specifically on college students, because this is the time in their life that eating habits can make or break a person’s health. Normally this is the first time the young adult is living away from home, so many choices are coming into play. Students can choose to ignore their body’s needs and eat too little, or they can do the opposite and eat large portions of fast food from the college cafeteria or other restaurants nearby. My cooking guide will attempt to prevent those bad habits from starting by clearly stating the importance of cooking foods with the correct portions and amounts of each food type. I have finished my intro and will be writing the background information next to discuss the fast foods and types of food. I will include specific examples of good ingredients to use in cooking, and I will make sure that my recipes do not use any of the bad ingredients that harm a human body.

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This week in my cooking guide, I was focusing on discussing the audience that my guide is being tailored to. This will be included in my introduction, so readers can know if the book will help them immediately at the beginning. It is tailored to those who do not have much cooking experience and want to learn. It is also focused for the people who want to improve their future health and prevent weight gain caused by the slowing of a metabolism. By next week I plan to finish my introduction and start writing my background information using my sources. I will also need to start finding popular recipes and turn them into simple and easy to understand instructions for the amateur cooks. Cooking is an important skill to learn, because too much fast food can cause an overflow in grease, protein, and unnatural food into the human system. This food is very bad for the body, especially because of the portions are so large. The portions in the USA are overwhelming larger than in other countries, and our health is suffering because of this. Americans are changing from the tallest to the widest all because of too much unhealthy fast food and a decrease in exercise. I will go more in depth on this next week.

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As I started writing my information in my cooking guide, I discovered a new part of information from a website. The website, https://www.heath.gwu.edu/food-and-nutrition-college, discusses exactly what meal plans and food choices college students should follow to maintain prevent gaining weight. While this is important, people should not focus only on weight, but also health. People should not sacrifice eating to lose weight, because if they just eat the right foods then their weight loss will happen and they will not have to be hungry. This is one of the points I am trying to reach in my cooking guide. Eating the right types of foods is one of the easiest ways to stay healthy and prevent future health problems. Another point I want to focus on is what this means for college students. Young adults experience a lot of confusion in portions and what to eat when they enter college. This is caused by the organs in their body slowing down, so more of the weight stays instead of going right through. Many kids eat loads of junk food every day and still keep a healthy body, but once they enter college the habits cannot stick or else there will be a huge gain in weight. Less exercise and a slowing metabolism are the causes for this wake up call. I will be writing about this more in depth in my cooking guide, and will provide a plan to ensure college students stay healthy.

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This week I concluded my research. I have found twelve sources that provide a variety of information. There are sources about college life, nutrition, cooking, and college foods. One of the sources is https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/nutrition-college. It discusses nutrition and tips for college students. There is also information on what food is available for those who are dietary, vegetarian, or diabetic. Another source I have is very detailed about nutrition and servings for each food type. https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/nutrition-college It discusses the food type, how many servings of it you should get daily, why you need it, and examples. For protein it states it as "meat, nuts, peanut butter," etc. It says to "Aim for six to eight servings of different types daily" and it continues to go more in depth for each food type. This information is very useful for my cooking guide so I can have the information to write and teach college students. The same website also discusses the importance of “nutritional awareness” for college students. I will be able to use this part to make my cooking guide credible to readers by including quotes from my sources. Next week I plan to start writing my guide starting with the introduction and background information.

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This week I formatted my cooking guide. Using publisher, I found a template for cookbooks and made it into my own. I created pages for each subtitle in my outline in the recipes portion: Breakfast foods, Lunch & Dinner, Snacks, and Dessert, each separated as either for dorm cooking or apartment.

I also edited my outline so lunch and dinner are joined together because many foods could be in either section.
My cooking guide is formatted to be a modern style and the actual cooking part will be a whole separate section from my writing sections.
The main necessity of good health and nutrition is maintaining a good balance of the basic food types. Another necessity that many people overlook, is the importance of staying hydrated, especially when out in the sun or exercising. I will make sure to focus on the importance of balance in the parts of a healthy lifestyle in my cooking guide.

Another focus point in my cooking guide will begin in the next section. Children right now are growing up on microwavable mac and cheese bowls and Whataburger. The knowledge and nutrition they are missing out on will become increasingly evident as they grow older, and so when they need to start cooking on their own they will not know how. My cooking guide will include a crash course on basic cooking utensils and instructions to allow young adults to determine their own health, not the fast food companies.

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This week I found a source about college living and nutrition. 40% of the expenditures of college students go to discretionary things, such as entertainment, clothing, and travelling. It also includes useful information on what to avoid at fast food restaurants, and how many calories you are supposed to consume, based on gender and age. At the end of the source, there are 10 other sources that have examples of different foods dorm room students can make.
Using this source and others, I was finally able to begin outlining my cooking guide. I will start out with an introduction on what topics my guide will cover and the audience it is tailored to. Next I will include information about what young adults are supposed to eat and information about the basic types of food. I will follow that with information about types of foods you should eat when it is absolutely necessary to eat out. After that, I will begin a new section in my guide that is specific on the cooking aspect. It will include information on basic cooking utensils and examples of food that is available to eat either in a dorm or apartment. The rest of the book will have recipes. The recipes will be split up into two main sections, one for dorm room cooking, and the other for apartment. These two sections will also be subdivided into the different meal times, including desert sections at the end.
By next week I hope to finalize the rest of my research and start writing the first part of my guide.

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This week I found many sources on nutrition and health. I can use these as the basis for my cooking guide, by first knowing the portions the average person is supposed to eat and what foods are good. I also found a source on college dorm rules, but I will need more information on that still so I can know exactly what cooking equipment is normally allowed and what isn't. Based on what I find; I can know what recipes I can use. Also, I discovered that about 87% of college students live off campus, so many will be able to have more cooking supplies that is normally allowed in apartments or small homes. I will now be able to take notes on these sources I have found and start creating an outline for my guide. I also need to find sources more detailed about specific healthy ingredients and what is served at college cafeterias so I can know that recipes to include in my cooking guide.

By next week I will attempt to find more sources specifically on college nutrition and living so I can start creating my cooking guide while being specific about young adults. I will also try to finish my outline of the cooking guide.