Spice of Life Test #2 Review, Spring 2009
I.
Nutrition
 Be able to discuss the USDA Food Pyramid, and your own nutritional intakes,
particularly:
o Name the 5 basic categories of food in the pyramid, and tell how many
servings of each of these should you have per day (assuming a 2000
calorie diet)?
o Within each dietary category, be familiar with the rules of thumb for
healthy eating that are outlined in the pyramid itself (eg. Under fruit, to
eat a variety, choose fresh, frozen, canned or dried, and to go easy on
fruit juices).
o Be able to pick two fat-soluble vitamins and two water-soluble
vitamins. For all four, tell whether or not you get enough of them in
your daily food intake (based on your food diaries), give the symptoms
of deficiency, of toxicity (if such exist), and tell a few foods that you
could eat in order to make sure you get enough of that vitamin.
 Differentiate between fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins. Which tend to be
the most toxic, and why?
 Be able to identify all of the vitamins in your Food Pyramid charts as either fatsoluble or water-soluble.
 Which vitamin cannot be easily found in non-meat sources? What are the signs of
deficiency of this vitamin?
 Why do B vitamins have to be added to many wheat products, when whole wheat
actually has most of them?
 Pick 3 minerals. Be able to discuss their roles in health and disease, and to list
foods in which they can be found.
 What are food additives?
 What aspects of food additives are Federally regulated?
 What aspects of food additives are not Federally regulated?
 Be prepared to briefly discuss why the following food additive claims are myths:
o Taking food additives can make up for a bad diet
o Natural food additives are better for you than Synthetic or Chemical
food additives.
o Food additives with ‘added enzymes’ are easier to digest.
o Timed-released food additives work better.
o B-15 (pangamic acid), B-17 (laetrile) and P (bioflavinoids) are really
cool new vitamins.
o Taking zinc shortens the duration of cold symptoms.
o Antioxidants prevent cancer and heart disease.
 Discuss why food additives can actually be very dangerous.
II.
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Food Safety
Outline how you would make a grocery-shopping trip that would minimize your
chance of getting a foodborne illness.
Be able to discuss the FDA “Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill’ rules.
How can you make sure that your cutting board stays safe?
What is the ‘danger zone’ for food cooking/storage?
What is the 2 hour rule, and how does summer change it?
Know the safe internal temperatures to which you must cook ground meat, ground
poultry, whole poultry (like a turkey!), and seafood.
How can you recognize when cooked fish is safe to eat?
How hot should reheated leftovers be?
Discuss how the rules for cooking using a microwave differ from those when
using a conventional oven.
What are three safe ways to defrost a turkey?
Differentiate between food spoilage and food poisoning
Differentiate between food poisoning and food infection. If your illness happens
within 3 hours of eating the ‘bad’ food, are you more likely to have food infection
or food poisoning? Why?
For each microbe in the list below tell 1) what kind of microorganism it is, and
where it is normally found in nature, 2) what types of foods can harbor it, 3)
symptoms of the illness, 4) how the pathogen causes the symptoms and 5) how to
prevent the disease.
o EHEC and ETEC
o Salmonella
o Clostridium botulinum
o Norwalk virus
o Giardia lamblia
III.
Fermentation
 What is lactic acid fermentation? What sugar gets fermented in milk? What
happens to the milk as a result of lactic acid fermentation? Why is lactic acid
fermentation such a good way to preserve food?
 Be able to draw ‘typical’ Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Bifidobacterium and
Yeast cells.
 Be able to discuss the science of Yogurt formation. In particular, discuss the
interplay between Lactobacilli and Streptococci, and the science of each step of the
recipe.
 Why do sourdough starters from different parts of the country taste different?
IV.
Antioxidant Properties of Food
 What are antioxidants? Be able to name several (at least 3) different types of
antioxidants that can be found in plants/other foods. How do you know if a plant
is high in antioxidants just by looking at it?
 What antioxidants are normally found in the foods you tested?
 What do antioxidants do in our cells to maintain normal health?
 What are the dangers of getting too few antioxidants?
 What are the dangers of getting too many antioxidants?