810-Lancwttf Farming, Saturday, January 30, 1993
BETH WHITMAN PITZER
Cumberland Co. Correspondent
MECHANICSBURG (Cum
berland Co.) Students at
Mechanicsburg Area Intermediate
School are finding a fun way to
learn about nutrition. The youth
are using a special scale—The
Sentron Food Analysis
Superscare—for a hands-on
experience with the nutrient value
of foods. They weight ingredients
before adding them to a recipe and
in the process learn how much fat,
fiber, carbohydrate, and protein
are in the food.
Tony Holtzman thinks that,
“The machine is great. It makes
you want to go to home economics
class!”
Two recipes for muffins—
Newfangled Whole-Wheat Com
Muffins and Traditional Corn
Muffins were analyzed using the
scale. Last semester, 90 seventh
graders in Mrs. Rutherford’s
home economics classes used the
scale.
The machine works by weigh
ing ingredients for foods and then
analyzing the grams of fat, fiber,
calories, and other nutrients found
in the recipe. It draws from a
memory of 1,200 food items and
then displays the calculations on
the front of the scale.
Dana Lyons used the scale as
Dana Lyons cracks an egg to be measured by the scale
mumcKx
Seventh Graders Find Fun Way
part of a display at the Capital City
Mall in the fall. She showed peo
ple the composition of nutrients in
both cantaloupe and apples. She
thought it was interesting to com
pare the fiber in a medium apple
with the fiber in applesauce. The
apple won for fiber content.
Dana thinks that the scale is
“good for people with dietary
problems and would be easy for
them to use.” She likes it
because,” you can see whal’ r n
everything.”
Students liked learning about
calorie differences and were sur
prised how the number of calorics
could vary within different
recipes. Adam Maclay liked learn
ing about the science behind nutri
tion. He even changed his mind
about some things he thought
were healthy after using the scale.
He found it a fun way to find out
about facts.
Mrs. Rutherford provides the
learning experience for her stu
dents as part of a unit on The Diet
ary Guidelines. They learn about
sugar and fiber in seventh grade.
Making muffins and evaluating
their nutritional value fits perfect
ly into the unit.
In general, using this activity
“weighed” well with the students.
They liked leamhing about the
foods first hand without using a
To Learn About Nutrition
0
chart. They also were using math
and writing skills in the process.
Here is a recipe for Newfangled
Whole-Wheat Com Muffins for
you to try at home. Compare this
with your favorite recipe at home
for the fat and sugar content. Try it
with your family!
Newfangled Whole-Wheat
Corn Muffins
8 Muffins
Vi cup Yellow commeal
% cup Whole-wheat flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking powder
'A teaspoon Salt
Vi cup Skim Milk
1 Egg, beaten
2 Tablespoons Com Oil
Plus extra com oil for greasing
muffin tins.
1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Grease 8-muffin tin with com
oil.
3. Mix dry ingredients
thoroughly.
4. Mix milk, egg, and oil. Add
to dry ingredients.
5. Stir until dry ingredients are
just moistened. Batter will be
lumpy.
6. Fill muffin tins % full.
7. Bake until lightly browned,
about 20 minutes.
Gardening
As a child, you can learn quite a
bit about wintertime gardening
with vegetable scraps. Sweet pota
toes, avocados, citrus, and carrot
and pineapple tops all make inter
esting indoor plants.
Orange seeds are one of the
most enjoyable to plant even
though it takes a few weeks for
them to sprout. Healthy plants
have dark, shiny green leaves.
Some citrus plants will have
thorns. Choose plump seeds and
don’t let them dry out
Carrot foliage is a favorite be
cause it’s so ferny and delicate.
Start with the top half-inch of the
carrot, with the leaf stalks remov
ed. Thses slices will grow leaves
sitting in a saucer of water or bur
ied slightly in damp sand. Give
them good light. Carrot tops will
never root Enjoy the foliage and
then compost the whole deal.
Sweet, potatoes are interesting
because they know up from down.
Place one in a glass of water
wrong side up and nothing hap
pens. You can’t fool with Mother
Nature. The “top” is the rounded
part of the sweet potato, and the
“bottom” is tapered, and jisually
scarred. This is the area from
which new roots will develop
when placed in water. By the way,
some sweets are treated with a
sprouting inhibitor, so it’s best to
experiment with ones that are al
ready beginning to sprout. Keep
the sweet potato in the dark until
roots form. Then bring the plant
into the light. When the root sys
tem is well developed, you’ll be
able to put the plant in soil if you
want
, Adam Maclay weighs the bowls on the scale to get an
accurate measurement. The instrument is very sensitive.
Just blowing across the scale changes the numbers
shown.
With Vegetable Scrapes
I think the best thing about an
avocado is that you can get a
house plant from it. The roots
don’t do well growing in contain
ers, though, so it’s a mistake to gel
emotionally attached. But for a
few years, you’ll have a bushy or
even tall plant with big, lush,
green leaves.
This year. I’m going to grow a
miniature “hedge” of turf grass on
com cobs. Soak the cob in water
and sprinkle with grass seed. Place
Mouse
The house mouse - Mus muscu
lus - came to the western hemi
sphere with the early settlers. It is
a world-wide pest, living in all cli
mates and settings. Mus can sur
vive outdoors year round, but, in
the search for shelter, houses are
often invaded. There the creatures
may make a real nuisance of them
selves foraging for food and nest
ing materials and creating a mess,
causing destruction (not to men
tion mental trauma) in the process.
The typical house mpuse prob
lem is best solved with traps, the
simple snap trap being the prefer
red weapon. Mice usually eat
seeds and grain but are likely to
choose foods high in fat, protein
or sugar if available. So peanut
butter, nutmeats, chocolate, ba
con, marshmallows and dried fruit
make good baits. The traps must
be placed with the trigger end
against a wall or stationary object
To increase chances of success,
use two traps side by side at each
location and space traps not more
than 6 feet apart. Mice (unlike
the cobs upright in a container
with water in the bottom and stand
back.
Help-A-Saurus is an educa
tional program for parents provid
ed by Rutgers Cooperative Exten
sion. For more information about
Help-A-Saurus, contact Nancy
R. Spinner, Extension Home Eco
nomist of Hunterdon County, 4
Gauntt Place, Flemington, NJ
08822 (908) 788-1342.
Trivia
rats) are usually not leery of new
objects in their environment.
There are other types of effec
tive traps on the market (e.g. “one
way” box traps, glue boards). But
they have the disadvantage that
once the animals are caught they
must be “dispatched” in a separate
operation.
• weighs 2/5-4/5 oz. and eats
about 1/10 oz. of food per day.
• needs little or no free water to
survive.
• females n. > have 5-10 litters
per year; average litter is 5-6
young.
• produce* *6,000 droppings
per year (no wonder they make
such a mess).
• can climb electric wires and
almost any rough vertical surface
including weathered sheet metal.
• can gnaw through lead and
aluminum sheeting, wood, rubber,
vinyl and concrete block.
• can jump up to 18 inches and
enter through openings as small as
1/4 inch—no wonder it’s difficult
to keep them out!