Ergonomics

Caulton & Dickson (2007) define ergonomics as “constantly making slight invisible adjustments to an activity to adapt the needs of those taking part and ensure that it continues to work for its intended purpose”.

I hear you ask what does ergonomics have to do with cooking. Stubbs (2000) emphasizes that ergonomics is concerned with the "fit" between person, task and environment. In other words it is about creating the most affective relationship between the environment (i.e. the kitchen) where the individual (i.e. me) carries out their activity (i.e. cooking) and the skills they use and need while participating in their occupation.

Here is a brainstorm that was done in class to give us some ideas about person, activity and environment.

Person	Activity	Environment
Age/gender	Beyond the cookbook	Available equipment – rich amount?
Stage of Life	Adaptations	Spatial organisation
Sense of responsibility	Pacing/rhythm	Cultural aspects – how things are done in the household and how we do things
Perception	Time of day	Seasons
Preferences	Robustness of the materials (breakable)	Social perceptions and expectations
Time available	Other types of Equipment – like having a sharp knife	Accessibility
Health deficits	Costs	Seasons
Financial circumstances	Degree of engagement required	Distractions

Here is a brainstorm that I did in class about my activity relating to person, activity and environment.

Person	Activity	Environment
Financial abilities – what I can afford to buy with my weekly grocery budget	This activity can be done at anytime of day. I mainly cook at night but I do occasionally cook my breakfast or lunch if I am home at the time. Cooking can occur at any time of day and can take a few seconds or a couple of hours.	The physical environment in my kitchen- small bench space, a few cupboards, the kitchen has a small floor space which can create havoc if more than three people around
I bring basic and complex skills to my cooking	I sometimes follow recipes depending on what I am cooking and how while I know the meal.	Have a lot of cooking equipment in the kitchen
Time available – the length of my school day and the amount of time it takes to cook a meal	Adapting – I can only certain foods due to my diet so I have to adapt the way I cook.	Cultural aspects – how I cook, how I wash up, how I prepare my food etc
I cook healthy food so that I can improve my overall health and I enjoy good food	Flexible – I am able to multitask and do other activities while I’m cooking.	Seasons – this will affect the price of the foods I buy. It will also depend on what I cook as well. Seasons also affect the type of vegetables and that I buy as well
Cooking is way that I can learn to shape what I want	I feed myself and others with this activity	Freedom in the environment to do what I want i.e. what time I use the kitchen to cook and eat
I’m able to control what my freedom – I cook and eat what I want and when I want	Certain foods can be eaten while others are excluded.	Stoked fridge, freezer and pantry.
I cook food that will give me energy and will help with my appetite	The diet has structure – what I eat, how much I eat, when I eat.	Able to control what I eat and when I eat.
Choose quick and easy meals to prepare and cook	Cooking can be an individual or group task	Social environment as people are always popping in and out of the kitchen during the day.
	Costs – I cook for myself so its more expensive than cooking with others.

References

Caulton, R & Dickson, R. (2007). What's going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J. Creek & A. Lawson-Porter (Eds.) Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. Chichester: John-Wiley & Sons Ltd

A Little Bit of Information about the Dukan Diet

As you know my activity is cooking but within this cooking activity I am following the Dukan Diet. I know you’re probably thinking “No not a diet, why bother?” but before you knock it carry on reading a little bit more about it first =)

I first read about the Dukan Diet a couple of months ago in a Woman’s Day magazine that I had bought. When I first read about it, I was quite intrigued by this diet that was created by Dr. Pierre Dukan and that in order to lose weight you just had to follow four different phases that he wrote. I automatically jumped on Google to try and find out more about this diet, but sadly to say there was not a lot of information that I hadn’t already read in the magazine. Just when I was about to give up I saw that there was a book that I could buy to learn more about it. I searched 5 different book shops in Auckland for this book but only one actually had the book in store. YAY I had finally found the book I was dying to read.

The Dukan Diet

Dukan (2010) states that the Dukan Diet can be broken down into four successive phases:

The Attack Phase – average length: 5 days

An initial Attack phase led by the ‘pure protein diet’ which creates a stunning kick-start, almost as quick as fasting or powdered proteins but without the drawbacks (Dukan, 2010).

The Cruise Phase – average length: 3 days for each pound you want to lose

A Cruise phase led by an ‘alternating protein diet’ when pure protein days alternate with pure proteins and vegetable days, which allows you to reach your chosen weight non-stop in one go (Dukan, 2010).

The Consolidation Phase – average length: 5 days per pound lost

Dukan (2010) states that when the weight that you have achieved is consolidated: a phase designed to prevent the rebound effect that occurs after any rapid weight loss. This is a period of high vulnerability when the body has a tendency  to very easily  regain the loss weight.

The Stabilisation Phase

Finally, and most importantly, permanent stabilisation based on 3 simple safety measures that are easy to follow but indispensible if the weight loss is to be maintained (Dukan, 2010).

Dukan (2010) states that these steps are:

1. One pure protein day every Thursday for life
2. No more lifts and escalators
3. 3 tablespoons of oat bran a day

I know that the diet sounds intense but let me just say that this diet has been amazing for me and has helped me with my weight loss (which was why I was so interested in it). It has also allowed me to improve my general health and concentration.

References

Dukan, P. (2010). The dukan diet (pp. 1-13). London, England: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Cooking: My Story

Written on 30/09/11:

Planning a meal is one of the most important steps in the process of cooking a meal for oneself. If you don’t plan a meal, you pretty much don’t cook in my experience. My planning starts in the morning when I wake up and go through to the kitchen to get breakfast. I fill the kettle up and put it on to boil. While I wait for the kettle to boil I get out a tea bag and a cup from the cupboard and place them near the kettle. I then walk to the fridge and grab the yoghurt bottle and milk out. I place them on the counter. I stand in front of the fridge and look at my shelf to see what I have. Meat, vegetables, eggs such a choice to choose from, if something isn’t there I check the freezer next. My planning always starts with the question: what do I feel like? From this question I ask myself do I want a large meal or a small one. Due to that fact that I am on a diet my planning has to be pretty onto it. This diet allows me to eat protein and certain vegetables so I need to make sure that I have everything I need so I don’t stray from the diet. As the kettle boils I contemplate what meat I want to eat chicken, tuna, steak or prawns such a variety of choice for today’s meal. Today I picked chicken =D

Once I’ve decided what I am eating, I can finally start cooking.

At the end of a long day, I know that all I have to do is walk into the kitchen and start cooking as I have already planed my meal =D

Tonight’s meal is chicken, scrambled eggs and vegetables = YUMMY hehe

I turn the stove on at the wall and switch one of the plates on and place a frying pan on it. As the plate and pan heat up I am dicing the chicken on a board so that it is ready to be cooked. From the fridge I grab 3 eggs, the cabbage, lettuce, green beans, peppers and carrots. I cracked the eggs into a bowl and mix them together with a fork and leave it to sit on the counter. Once the pan is hot enough I place the chicken in it with a couple of drops of oil and stir the chicken a couple of times. While the chicken it cooking I move on the prepping the vegetables. I steam my vegetables in the microwave to get the most nutrients out of them. I grab the steamer and put some cold water in the bottom of it and place the grate on top. Once the grate is in place I add a large amount of green beans and cabbage and a small amount of carrots to the steamer and place it in the microwave to cook. Once the vegetables are cooking I turn back to the chicken and stir some more, I also add salt, pepper, crushed cumin seeds and Italian herbs on the chicken to add some flavour. Yum everything is starting to come together and smell delicious. Once the chicken is cooked, half of it goes onto my plate and the other half goes into a container for leftovers for the next day. I place the eggs into the pan that chicken was in and cook it omelette style =). The vegetables are then placed on the plate once they are done. I then add the eggs to the meal. To top it all off I put some salt and pepper on.

Once the meal is complete I can finally enjoy a healthy home-cooked meal that tastes delicious.

Practical Considerations

While I was in the process of picking my activity I asked myself what are the practical considerations of doing this activity for 2 hours a week? Practical considerations are what I had to take into account when picking the activity.

Some questions that I asked myself were:

·         Do I have 2 hours a week to spare to do an activity on top of my studies?

·         What will be my weekly budget to buy food?

·         What will I prepare each day?

·         When will I cook? Early or Late?

My practical considerations were:

In order for me to engage fully in this activity for 2 hours each week, I must ensure that I manage my time well so that I can have time to cook and relax so that I can cook my food without having to worry about my studies and in order for me to have ‘me time’. I need a fully stoked fridge and freezer of all the foods that I can eat so I don’t cheat and get takeaways. I also need a fully equipped kitchen with good lighting, a stove, pots, pans and microwave. I also need a fair bit of space to prepare and cook my food. I have also considered the best times for me to cook in the kitchen without having to share it with 5 other people. I always cook with music playing in the background which helps me to have fun and not think of cooking as a chore. I have a weekly budget for food as I cook for myself and I am not allowed to go over that budget so I always make sure that I have a list of what I need and I write on the list the amount of money I have in my bank account so I forget my budget. I also make sure that if my food is in the freezer that I take it out to defrost before I leave for uni in the mornings, so that I don’t have to worry about it later.

An Introduction to Cooking from my perspective

This table below is a brainstorm from our first tutorial about what activities we could possibly analyse. We looked at the different activities under the following headings, food, paper and plays. Culture can come under all three headings which is why it is on top of the table. All the activities that are in (brackets) are quite difficult to analyse and are quite airy fairy thus they are not really acceptable activities for this course.

Culture
Food – everything that is consumed.	Paper – all the permanent things in the world.	Plays – how we express ourselves and engage with other human beings.
Cooking	Sewing	Facebook
Eating	Writing	Writing with an audience
Shopping	Building – bookshelves	Netball
Showering	Landscaping/gardening	Music and dance
Cleaning	Painting	Reading as a community
Gardening	(learning – education)	Garden tours [gardening]
(Physical Fitness)	(Spirituality)	(Student on placement)
Coffee		Social coffee
		Social cooking
		Sharing culture

The next step in this tutorial was to pick our activity and write information under the following headings:

·         What it means to me?

·         Cooking – my experience

·         What it means to me as an OT?

Cooking
What is means to me?	My Experiences	What it means to me as an OT?
Allows me to have fun	Have been really fun	Life skills
Ways of expressing myself	Time consuming depending on what you cook	Fun
Gives me choice in what I eat	Sociable	Gives me an identity
Quality time spent with others	Experimentation of foods and ideas	Engagement
Gives me control over an aspect of my life	A way to learn from others	Teaching myself and others
Relaxation	I always try what I cook	Forms of assessment
Allows me to be creative	Baking for others	Belonging
Thinking time	Calming and allows me to think	Groupwork
A way to learn from other people	Learning new recipes and ways to cook	Breaking down an activity
Allows me to connect with my past	Don’t have to follow recipes for some meals	Ways for intervention
	Learning new skills	Team work
	Gets better with practice	Nutrition
	Quality time with the family	Responsibilities and roles
	Burnt a few meals	Building rapport

Cooking and its Importance to Me

Cooking is an occupation the one must do in order to survive. We must cook some form of food day in and day out. Green (1986) states [that cooking is] “The gathering of nourishment, however, is not only necessary; it is also endless. Once done, it must be done again. Answering as it does to the requirements of life itself, it can end only with the end of life. The purpose of this activity is to provide for the seeds of consumption: food is taken from the earth, after all, in order to be consumed”. I thought that this quote describes cooking very nicely and it sums up the meaning and the importance of this activity for us as humans.

Simpson & Weiner (1989) authors of the Oxford English Dictionary define cooking as “preparing food or a meal by heating the ingredients, it is heated in order to become edible”. To be honest I find this definition of cooking to be seriously lacking. There is a lot more to cooking than just heating something up and besides not all food needs to be cooked in order for us to eat it. There’s creativity, passion and the excitement of creating a meal that you and others can enjoy. Taste is such an important aspect of cooking; if something doesn’t taste good then you wont eat it.

The Meaning of Cooking to Me

Personally I have my moments with cooking. There are days when I want nothing more than spend the day in the kitchen cooking and then there are days where I just can’t be bothered cooking anything and I have to force myself to do it. Cooking does have a tendency to take up quite a bit of time depending on what you cook and how much you are cooking, but I do enjoy experimenting and having fun in the kitchen. I came up with a few words to describe cooking: fun, expression, yummy and experimentation. Cooking also allows me to connect more to my family as everybody has different recipes for the same meal. For example my mum makes an amazing lasagne but then so does my aunt but her one is richer than my mums. So cooking allows me to spend time with my family learning their wonderful and yummy cooking secrets.

References

Green, T.F. (1968). Work, leisure and The American schools. New York: Random House.

Simpson, J. & Weiner, E. (1989). The oxford English dictionary (2^nd ed). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Welcome to Participation in Occupation 2

Hey Everyone =)

Welcome back to my blog =)  This paper is a continuation from last semester's blog but will have a different title: Participation in Occupation 2!!!

This semester I will be looking at an activity that I do in everyday life. Once I have picked an activity I will be analysing it in depth with a variety of resources as well as my own experiences.

My activity is COOKING!!! YAY

I hope you all enjoy my blog this semester =D