Steak Tacos

In the unit Birth for the course Food For Thought we studied processed food vs. organic food. We watched a movie on Netflix called Food Inc. It was about the way big food companies treat the animals and how the companies feed the animals corn so they can get fat. We also read chapters from Pollan's books, about his view on todays food. A major thing that we are using from his reading are the 5 transformations on the foods. For our project we study the difference between restaurant food vs. homemade food. We had to chose a food that we like and that we can make. Then after that we had the option of doing a written food review or a video about our experience. I chose steak tacos and I did a video. I made the tacos with the help with my mom and I have cooked steak tacos before so it was easy for me to make. I really liked the experience because this project made me think of processed food and organic food. For that I had to use my 5 senses so it was very interesting to try something that is the same but has a difference. Throughout this project, I learned how to distinguish processed food and organic food. Another thing that was interesting was one of the ingredients that I used, which is the seasoning.It had an ingredient called citric acid. Citric acid is a flavoring and it is cheap so it is used a lot and it is safe. One thing that I am proud of was my voice over because I basically had to the write  review, then do the voice over and I was the only student who made a video.

Script -

Taqueria:

I went to a taqueria called Los Dos Primos. Once I got there I ordered two steak tacos and waited 10 minutes. When the dish came the aroma of the steak tacos filled the room and as it came closer to my table I became more hungry. Once I got my plate I was able to hear the steak bubble a little. In taquerias they give you two tortillas so I had four tacos. The tacos had steak, cilantro and chopped onion. When I took the first bite the steak was soft and juicy in my mouth. The tacos were a little salty and spicy (because of the hot sauce) but overall they were appetizing. From what I tasted and what I could see the meat wasn't dry or old it was fresh, the cilantro and onion were also fresh.

Home made:

A day after I went to the taqueria I made my own steak tacos. I bought all the ingredients necessary to make good steak tacos. In the process of making them I sprinkled the meat with a sour/salty dressing. Then I put it in a frying pan and started cooking it. When the steak was cooking it released a pleasing smell and while the steak was cooking I heated up four tortillas. Once the tortillas were ready, the meat was almost ready too. When everything was cooked I put the meat in the tortillas. Then I added cilantro, onion and a little bit of hot sauce on the tacos. The tacos looked small, a little dry but delicious. The meat sounded a little crunchy but soft in my mouth. The good thing is that there was a lot of meat in the taco. Since the tacos were small, I could eat more than I usually eat with regular size tortillas in tacos. I would say the tacos were fresh because of the cilantro and onion. The meat was also fresh.

Comparison:

In comparing both tacos, I prefer my homemade tacos because the meat tasted better and I could put whatever I wanted on the taco. Since I am a picky eater I prefer to make food my way. A difference that I noticed between the two tacos was the size of the tortilla and the quality of the meat. I like the meat that I used for my tacos better than the one the taqueria had. I would recommend home made steak tacos because you can make them how ever you want and you know what ingredients are in your food.

Pollan’s food transformations:

My experience relates to Pollan’s Food Culture to Food Science transformation. It relates to it because people now think of foods as numbers instead of just eating a delicious food.People now are concerned about calories, fat, sugar, ect and they don't actually enjoy eating food. The reason why we now think like that is because since processed food loses its nutrition people add different ingredients to the food. An example would be my tacos, if the taqueria used processed meat then they add different ingredients from other countries to get the same nutritional value or taste. Tacos is Mexican food and they are delicious but in the US the tacos are americanise or are in the process of being americanised, how? Well american culture and Mexican culture are being mixed together and the food loses its original culture. Mexican tacos are greasy and have lots of meat but now there's barely any meat and mostly no grease.

A new kind of cupcakes

In the second unit of the course Food we studied cooking, specifically the chemical reactions that happen when you mix the ingredients. The first thing we did was look at the 5 essential ingredients used in baking. We studied the purpose of each ingredient in baking, the product of their chemical reactions and how when they mix together they make bread. For our action project we made cupcakes, following the recipe in the control group and replacing baking powder in the experimental group. The reason why we did this was because there was a cooking magazine that was focusing on the Passover. Passover is a time when Jews don’t eat certain food because their was a plague that destroyed their crops like leavening agent (baking powder), to symbolize that they didn't have time to let their bread rise because they had to make a hurricane escape from egypt. Therefore we had to submit a cupcake recipe without baking powder. We had to pick two ingredients that would substitute baking powder. During this project I learned how to put the proper amount of ingredient to put into each cupcake. I am proud of how I baked the cupcakes and how they tasted so delicious.

     

                    JV. Experimental group.2014.                                                                          AC. Controlled group.2014 


                      

Title of your Lab Report

Substitution of baking powder.

1. Introduction

This lab report contains the data from our cupcake experiment. We worked in groups to find ingredients to substitute the baking powder for the experimental group. My team and I chose lemon juice and olive oil. The way that baking powder works is by having an acid mix with a base. The way a acid-base reaction happens is when the acid gives a way a hydrogen and the base obtains it. By mixing together they neutralize, make salt, co2 and water. Which then helps the dough rise. Therefore we substituted lemon juice is the acid with a pH level of 2 and the olive oil is the base with a pH of 8. What we did was put different amounts of lemon juice and olive oil in the six cupcakes to see which one of them will rise the most. For the controlled group we just followed the recipe. It was an interesting experiment to test to see. 

2. Research Question

Will an acid and base mixture in a cupcake rise as high as leavening agent?

3. Hypothesis

If we replace baking powder with lemon juice and olive oil in a cupcake recipe then my cupcakes will rise as high.

4. Materials

Lemon juice
Olive oil
1/12 cups of sugar
1/48 cups of flour
1/24 cups of butter
1/24 cups of milk
⅙ eggs
⅙ tsp of vanilla extract
⅓ tsp of baking powder

5. Procedure

For Control Group:

1. We preheated the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melted the butter for 10 seconds. 
3. Mix together the sugar and butter in a medium bowl. 
4. In another bowl we beat the eggs, then we added vanilla and mixed it. 
5. Then we added the flour into that same bowl and mixed it using medium force. 
6. After mixing we added baking powder and mixed it again. 
7. After mixing we added milk into the mixture. 
8. Combine sugar and butter into the mixture. 
9. Grease a muffin pan with a nonstick spray. 
10. Mix all the ingredients until it is smooth. 
11. Finally pour the dough into the pan. 
12. Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes. 

For Experimental Group:

1. We preheated the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melted the butter for 10 seconds. 
3. Mix together the sugar and butter in a medium bowl. 
4. In another bowl we beat the eggs, then we added vanilla and mixed it. 
5. Then we added the flour into that same bowl and mixed it using medium force. 
6. Add the milk into the mixture and mix it. 
7. Combine sugar and butter into the mixture 
8. Grease a muffin pan with a nonstick spray. 
9. Mix all the ingredients until it is smooth. 
10. Pour dough into the pan. 
11. Add the measurements of lemon juice and olive oil into each cupcake.
12. Bake for 20 minutes. 

6. Data

Controlled group

After baking our cupcakes for 20 minutes they were light brown, dark or burned from the bottom. It smelled like vanilla and it was soft.

Chart of experimental group

After baking each cupcake with different measurements of lemon juice and olive oil. The first on tasted a little bit like flour but good, the second one doesn't have the lemon flavor but it did have the vanilla flavor so it was good. The third one tasted almost the same as the first cupcake, in the fourth cupcake you can taste the lemon juice more than the others so it has the strongest flavor. The fifth one you can taste the lemon flavor a little bit more it taste more like the first cupcake and the sixth didnt really taste like anything it was just bread no flavor in specific.

Ingredient	Cupcake 1	Cupcake 2	Cupcake 3	Cupcake 4	Cupcake 5	Cupcake 6
Lemon Juice (tsp)	1/16	0	1/8	3/32	1/64	7/64
Olive Oil (tsp)	1/16	1/8	0	1/32	7/64	1/64

7. Graph

This graph shows the difference between controlled group and the experimental group in terms of height.





                               





8. Recipe in Metric

Ingredient	Amount in cups/tsp	Amount in mL
Lemon juice	7/64 tsp	0.49 mL
Olive oil	1/64 tsp	0.07 mL
Sugar	1/12 cups	20 mL
Butter	1/24 cups	10 mL
Flour	3/24 cups	30 mL
Milk	1/24 cups	10 mL
Vanilla	⅙ tsp	1.22 mL
Eggs	⅙ egg	1.22 mL

9. Conclusion

In conclusion my cupcakes did rose but not as high as the ones in the controlled group. In the experimental group the highest cupcake reached 3.5 cm, 0.5 cm less than the controlled group which was 4 cm.The reason why the cupcakes didn't rise as well was probably because we didn't use an ingredient had a high level of base.The controlled group cupcakes had a base of 8.5 and the experimental group had a base of 8, so the 0.5cm missing is because we didn't have enough base.The cupcake in the experimental group that almost reached 4 cm was cupcake 1, cupcake 4 and cupcake 5. My hypothesis was wrong because the experimental cupcakes weren't the same height as the controlled group. I will submit cupcake 3. Although its height is 3 cm, this cupcake has more flavor than the other cupcakes and it is delicious. It was my favorite.

How Cherry was known

In the course Food For Thought our unit was called death. This unit is based on how our food system impacts humans and the environment. For our second project we chose a fruit and followed it's distribution chain, then made a prezi for it. I chose Cherry for my project. I chosed Cherry because I like eating them and because I thought it would be interesting to see how Cherries got to my home. Something that I found surprising was that even if you're not a farmer you can still be exposed to the pesticides. Another thing was that for those 42 pesticides that the Cherries have in them, they can cause a pandemic disease. After doing research on a food, I became aware of how important it is to clean your fruit well before you eat it and that foods can have lots of pesticides that you don't know about.