Analyzing a Menu of Food

1. Analyzing a menu

Winston C

Firstly we can begin with the glass of milk that appears in both meals; there is no difference in that. So in that regard, they are equal.

Next up we have the mashed versus baked potatoes. From my reading there isn't too much of a difference between these two besides a couple small things. Typically mashed potatoes will contain more fats from butters and oils, baked potatoes tend to contain more protein but also more calories, and other little differences like this. I'd chalk this up to how you prepare them and what you do with them; do you stuff your baked potatoes, do you put sour cream in your mash, and so on. As a final note though, most people I find tend to prepare mashed potatoes skinless, and then when they do baked potatoes they leave the skin on. The potato skin is full of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and so on. Some might say the best part of the potato is the skin. So due to that, I'd have to say the baked potatoes of meal #1 are better.

As for the Baked Halibut versus pork chops, I'd have to give this one to the Halibut. When comparing equal serving sizes, the Halibut contains less fat, less calories, more potassium, and less cholesterol. Compare this to the pork chop that only has 2 grams more of protein and 5mg less of sodium. So meal #2 wins here.

Green beans versus cauliflower, the cauliflower of meal #2 wins here. Green beans provide a lot of good nutrition, but comparatively it's no match. One cup of steamed cauliflower contains 73% of your daily vitamin C, 19% vitamin K, 10% of your fibre, 3% of your magnesium, and well – the list goes on. Green beans provide a lot of the same nutrients, just less of them.

Another pretty obvious one, french bread gets defeated compared to the whole wheat bread. Typical french bread contains about the same about of nutrients as normal white bread; eg almost nothing at all. Unless you are a fan of a bit of iron, sodium, and calcium then you should be siding with the whole wheat bread. The thing is, whole wheat bread also has those things, but more – iron, fibre, minerals, and so on. So the bread of meal #1 wins this round.

So, in total we have

1 tie

2 points for meal #1

2 points for meal #2

Honestly, both of these meal choices are pretty good. But, I'd say meal #2 is better overall due to the fact that the “main dishes” of the meal are better by a long shot; the halibut and the cauliflower. The losses in the bread and potato department are essentially negligible. The nutrients lost in those dishes are gained back a thousand fold in the others. Not to mention how the potato round is basically a tie, and when it comes to bread that is no reason to suede your choice. You wouldn't choose to eat hypothetical meal number 5 just because it had better yams even those the rest of the meal is utterly rubbish food.