Applying My Knowledge For You

I love the idea of FINALLY being able to use what I am learning in school to everyday life.  I feel like I’ve said this seventeen hundred million times in my undergraduate career, “When am I EVERRRR going to use this?”  For example, Statistics (Oh, the joy of just saying that word).  I will most likely never, on my own, have to compute the probability of some crazy, random event happening, but I guess taking the course makes me more of a well-rounded student(?).  I would beg to differ.

But now, as a nutrition major, I get to use the information I learn and apply it to my life.  Before the semester started, Dustin and I went to the book store and bought all of our books for this semester.  I came home and immediately started reading my Human Nutrition book.  Dustin looked at me, with a rather puzzled look and said, “What are you doing?”  As if I was committing a crime for “pre-reading” a book for class.  It’s exciting to me; It’s honestly like reading a health magazine just for fun.

Dustin and I have a project due in our Human Nutrition class in a few weeks so we started working on it last night.  I had been working on mine for around an hour and was about to head to bed and then Dustin asked me to help him with his.  My complaints started rolling, “Come on, Dustin.  It’s easy; you can do without my help.”  And here goes… his response, “But, Ashley, you love this stuff.  You really enjoy reading it.  It’s just like a Women’s Health to you.”  Ha… I mean he is right, but I’m not trying to work on projects at all hours of the night (I think it was around 11 pm @ this point :-)).  So he suckered me in and we got it done.

Anyways, the point of this post is to announce that I am going to start a questionnaire part to this blog.  Send me your health and diet questions, and I’ll send you the answers.  I’m not saying that I have or know all of the answers, but I know people who do, my professors (I’ve got people.). If I don’t feel that I can properly answer your question I’ll research it to ensure that I’m giving you the most educated response.  This will not only help you, but will also help me learn about the things people are confused about, and therefore will help me be a better R.D. down the road.

I’ve already had one question, from a dear reader, I’ll keep her anonymous, just as I would you and here it is…

I love reading your blog, and I have a nutrition question so I figured I would come to you! Is it possible to eat too much dairy? I never really thought about it until a few days ago, and I realized how much milk/yogurt/cottage cheese I eat. I don’t eat cheese really (besides cottage cheese and the occasional mozzarella on a caprese salad), but I have milk in my coffee and cereal and I eat AT LEAST one yogurt/cottage cheese snack usually more a day. Yogurt is my go-to food. Is that bad??

As far as dairy goes…no, your not eating too much but I would recommend that all of the dairy you do eat is organic. Dairy is one of the most important foods to buy organic because of the added steroids in non-organically raised cows (there are also so many other reasons organically raised cows are better, but I won’t bore you with the LONG list). Also, make sure that most of it is low in fat (preferably skim) because the fat that is in dairy is most saturated, unfortunately, causing a whole slue of problems in our bodies. If you do like high fat dairy, just pick and chose wisely, VERY wisely. Dairy, esp. yogurt, is a great source of protein, so I’d say keep it up! If you haven’t tried Greek yogurt, you should give it a try! It’s even higher in protein and has a thicker texture than regular yogurt. It’s a great idea to keep your cheese in take down, since most cheeses are high in fat, calories, and sodium; again, pick and choose wisely. I hope this helps you! Let me know if you have any more questions!

You can send me your questions through tumblr, Facebook or e-mail me your questions @ ashleym12940@yahoo.com.  I can’t wait to hear from you!

My sister and her best friend, Caroline, are headed down here today and we are off to Jacksonville tomorrow to the GA/FL game!  So excited to see them!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Or maybe, I’ll talk to you before??

(Photo from eatsalem.com)