4March 2012Hi Times Issue 6 Vol. 103

Unique eats, tasty treats and __

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, and it is time to prepare traditional St. Patrick’s Day meals. Many families take part in eating the traditional corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty’s Day, but why do we eat corned beef and cab-bage only on this green holiday? Corned beef and cabbage is a meal started by Irish-Americans in the mid 1800s that is similar to the traditional Irish dish of bacon and cabbage. “I actually hate only five foods, and these are two of them! I think corned beef taste like puke! My father made me and my brothers sit at the dinner table for 13 hours until we ate a Rueben. I never did,” said LPHS math teacher Mr. Olson. Corned beef and cabbage is the well-known traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal, but some families of students at Laporte High School have their own traditional meals for this holiday. “It is a tradition for my family to eat green eggs and ham for this holiday,” said sophomore Alondra Bonilla. Eating green foods and drinking green beverages is also a tradition on St. Patrick’s Day. “I am going to try to eat and drink only green foods and beverages on St. Patty’s Day,” said senior Andrew Schuelke. Stores and restaurants come out with all sorts of weird green food for St. Patrick’s Day. Some popular green items found are condi-ments, such as mayonnaise and ketchup. Special holiday treats can be made by adding a little green food coloring to just about any-thing. “I am going to try to eat my weight in green mashed potatoes,” said Olson. St. Patrick’s Day is a fun and unique holiday. This year, get out and try corned beef and cabbage or maybe some other type of crazy,

green food.

By Erica LangStaff Writer

What are you drinking? Is that the Shamrock Shake? What is that? All questions one must an-swer when an unusual drink is cradled by the hands of a thirsty consumer. Many crazy and bizarre drinks have emerged as time has pro-gressed. McDonalds features the Shamrock Shake. The Shamrock Shake, a mint flavored, green-dyed vanilla milkshake, is a sea-sonal dessert sold at McDonald's during March to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. “I love the Shamrock Shakes at McDonalds. I don’t even like mints but it’s so good,” said senior Brandon Kreighbaum. In the 1980s, McDonald’s used the character of Uncle O’Grimacey to help advertise their famous green shakes. Since then, the hairy and green monster has been dropped from the marketing group. Building off the shake, the company introduced the Shamrock Sundae. The sundae consisted of vanilla ice cream topped with mint syrup. Unfortunately, after one year, the dessert was discontinued. McDonalds isn’t the only company that has come up with an out-standing drink. The brand Fuse has many flavors that may seem like odd combi-nations to people. An example is Fuse Banana Colada. It is a drink with the blended fruits of pineapple and coconut. There is also the Fuse Cranberry Raspberry. “My favorite is the (Fuse) Strawberry Melon,” said senior Dj Hill. Gatorade has a huge variety of flavors to choose from, as well from the original G-series to the new G-series Fit, gatorade provides fla-vors like lemon-lime strawberry and orange strawberry and cucum-ber. Aside from Gatorade’s crazy flavors, they have also come out with a new line of drinks. It’s called the G Series, and it caiters to the bodies of athletes. There are three different stages to the G Series: the ‘before’, the ‘dur-ing’ and the ‘after’. The ‘before’ is also known as ‘01 Prime,’ ‘during’ is also know as ‘02 Perform’ and ‘after’ is known as ‘03 Recover’. Athletes take a drink out of the 4-oz. pouch 15 minutes before their game or practice, and it is said to ‘provide energy by the maximizing the availability of carbohydrate energy to muscles’. The ‘during’ is an actual bottle of Gatorade, designed to hydrate and refuel the athlete’s bodies. The ‘after’ looks like a taller version of the normal Gatorade bot-tles. It is the first protein and carbohydrate beverage formulated to help with muscle recovery. All three stages provide maximum performance. Starbucks drinks have a reputation of being delicious; however, not many are aware of the unique treats they offer. One example is the Tazo Green Tea Creme Frappuccino. The in-teresting part of this drink is the the color of the blended beverage. It’s green hue tends to turn heads, but customers shouldn’t be too turned-off by the interesting color. The Tazo Green Tea is actually infused with subtle hints of tropi-cal fruit flavors. Regardless of the color, the taste is quite sweet. According to Starbucks.com, the tea is best-known as a key part of the Japanese tea ceremony. It is known as a serene drink. All of these drinks have certain creativity that people like. What drives companies to blend random flavors together? It is a question known to few, but many of people find it intriguing to try the next, cool flavor.

By Tommy SnyderStaff Writer

School lunches are made out to be gross, repulsive items that aren’t even supposed to be con-sumed by humans, right? What does a school lunch even consist of? Who chooses the lunch that is slopped onto the trays? Actually, the food is chosen by students similar to the ones walking the halls of La Porte High School. The state requires taste testing by students to see what pleases them. Ultimately, the menus are cho-sen by students, food service managers and the food director. “Elementary students normally do the taste testing while mid-dle school students are the ones who share their opinions most withus [directors], and of course we try to have our high school stu-dents sample the food as well,” says food director Judy Kine. “Although we want to please the students, but the food has to pass certain requirements before we can put it onto the trays to serve.” The food has what seems like an infinite amount of require-ments to pass. Fruits and vegetables have to be fresh and frozen or in their own juice. Breads must be whole grains. Everything must have a child nutrition label that’s less than 30 percent fat to 10 percent saturated and 30 percent sugar by gram weight. Milk must be 1

By Jenna DiehlStaff Writer

School lunch details unveiled Festive St. Patty’s Day foods become popular

LPHS lunch workers pose as they prepare burritos for students.

Photo by Jenna Diehl

Interesting beverages wake-up taste buds

Who’s changing their food color for St. Patrick’s Day? St. Patrick’s Day takes place each year on March 17. Traditions have been started from this very green holiday. St. Patrick’s Day is known for turning people’s everyday food green. Dr. Seuss encouraged the change of color in food by his story Green Eggs and Ham. Now people have tried varieties of new recipes for turning their favorite food green.

Green Eggs and HamINGREDIENTS:1/4 teaspoon green food coloring5 tablespoons watersliced ham2 eggsnon stick cooking spray

DIRECTIONS:Mix food color and water, set aside. Separate egg white from egg yolks. Place two teaspoons of food color with egg white and mix. Put two tablespoons of food mixture with egg yolks. Brush ham with food color and fry ham until cooked, remove from pan. Place egg whites in fry pan and cook just until they start to set. Place egg yolks on top of the egg whites. Add an additional teaspoon of color mixture to egg to help steam eggs. Put a lid on top of fry pan and finish steaming eggs until done. If the children prefer scrambled eggs, you may want to add two teaspoons of food color mixture to eggs and scramble. When cooking scrambled eggs, cook on medium heat stirring briskly until done.

Irish Shamrock CookiesIngredients:1/2 cup butter, softened 1 (3 ounce) package instant pistachio pudding mix 1 1/3 cups baking mix 1 egg 1 tablespoon white sugar

Directions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheet. Cream together the butter or margarine and the pud-ding mix. Blend in the baking mix, egg and sugar and mix well. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 3/8 inch thickness and cut into cookies with a shamrock cookie cutter. Place cookies on the prepared baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 9 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges. Let cookies cool on rack. Frost with green colored icing if one

desires.

Irish Beef StewIngredients: Vegetables (Your choice)2 cups of beef brothDirections: Mix vegetables and broth in a pan. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 6 hours.Add seasoning for flavor.Enjoy and serve with festive smiles!

By Taylor Crider Staff Writer

Saint Patrick’s Day inspires green recipes for tasty holiday treats

percent or fat free. New regulations also limit fat and sodium requirements. Most recently, new regulations limit starchy vegetables. That does mean the mashed potatoes had to go, and the pasta and whole grain rice had to move in. “I miss the potatoes. They were filling and tasty, I thought that the pasta was a creative way to work in a healthier diet, though,” said sophomore Taylor Goodwin. School lunches must be healthy considering the pro-cesses they go through to reach the lunch tray. The food follows hazard analysis and critical con-trol point, or HACCP. La Porte County Health Department in-

spects the kitchen each trimes-ter and during the summer. Em-ployees are Serve Safe Certified and the expiration dates are fol-lowed. Even the times that the food arrives are recorded. There will not be steak and eggs appearing in the lunch lines anytime soon; however new, tasty and healthy choices are being implemented at all times during the year. “At this time many changes are in the works and as we put these in place we will ask for student help to make sure they are ac-cepted,” said Kine. Just remember- everyone is a part of the choosing process for school lunches, and yes, the

meat is actually edible.

Photo by Tommy Snyder

McD’s Shamrock Shake.

Hi Times Issue 6 Vol. 103March 20125

Student Spotlight

By Kelsie LongStaff Writer

Pretend its Saint Patrick’s Day, and you’re not wearing green. What do you have against

Saint Patty?

“I don’t care for the Irish. I’m a Purdue Fan!”

–Isaiah Owen, senior

Do you believe four leaf clovers are re-ally lucky?

“No, it’s just something people say.” –Eric Dearing, junior

What’s your opinion of McDonald’s Sham-rock shake?

“They are pretty good.” –Stephanie Peo, sophomore

The March saying is “come in like a lion and out like a lamb.” What does

this mean to you?

“It means go in strong and come out neu-tral.”

–Chase Hunter, freshman

interesting drink secrets emerge

During an era of technology and advanced methods, major companies use strange adver-tising techniques to promote new products. Though the companies may have weird commercials, bill-boards or magazine ads, the biggest surprise comes when consumers learn of the unique trending product flavors. Companies such as Kellogg's, Kraft and PepsiCo are con-stantly coming out with new products to essentially boost their sales. Do weird food flavors really pay off or are they purely for entertainment? "I think these companies' mar-keting strategies really do pay off," said freshman Kailee Mar-tin. "I know that I'm a real sucker for trying the newest, weird-est foods and I'm sure there

By Brittany ZarazeeStaff Writer

By Nicole GriffinStaff Writer

The next time someone or-ders at Temple News Agency or Rocky Mountain Café, they should consider making a healthy choice. According to WebMD, new research studies cannot show a cause and effect of how coffee is truly healthy it’s possible that coffee drinkers can have more advantages, such as better di-ets and protective genes. Plus, research also shows that coffee drinkers are more likely to ex-ercise. It is shown that drinking four or more cups of coffee can re-duce the risk people run for con-tracting colon cancer. Regular coffee drinkers are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and demen-tia. Although it has not been prov-en to prevent these conditions, drinking coffee can also help

people avoid certain cancers, heart rhythm problems and strokes. Coffee is antioxidant rich, and it also contains magnesium and chromium, which helps the body use insulin. This is how coffee can help against diabetes, and if people lower the risk of contracting diabetes, they are lowering their likeliness of get-ting heart disease or having a stroke as well. However, the real benefits come from the caffeine in coffee beverages. That’s right, not only coffee reduces the risks for the medical issues previously talk-ed about, but so do the favorite lattes, cappuccinos, and frap-puccinos as well. Cappuccinos and Lattes are drinks made with espresso and steamed milk or soy milk. The only difference is that the milk in cappuccinos is frothed, giving the drink that frothy texture. Every time a person drinks one cup of regular coffee, they

receive 138 mg of caffeine, and every time a person has ¼ of a cup of espresso they receive 125 mg of caffeine. But why is caffeine so good for people? Caffeine can speed up metabo-lism and break down fat, freeing fatty acids which are immedi-ately burned. Senior Jenna Else said, “I love coffee and whenever I have a headache, drinking coffee will get rid of it.” Coffee is highly popular among students because while the fat is being burned, the glycogen, glucose and amino acids (blood sugars) are being reserved. This means that the blood sugar levels remain higher for longer. This is good because low blood sugar means more hunger. The brain functions exclusively on glucose, and higher blood sugar levels facilitate thinking. So, next time a pick me up is needed remember these healthy facts.

It is not everyday that a new restaurant opens in the greater area of La Porte County. When I heard about the restaurant India House, located off of Franklin in Michigan City, I knew I had to check it out. I decided that I should bring someone else with me for a second opinion, and my brother Jake ended up tagging along. We pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, which is hidden within the strip where the old Hobby Lobby used to be, and prepared our taste buds for what we hoped to be a quality dinner. Immediately upon entering India House, you notice the refreshing atmosphere. As the host sat us at our booth, I took in the colorful walls, chandeliers and paintings. We sat down in a roomy booth with plenty of space, and within seconds, our waiter brought us a basket of traditional Indian chips which were served with two sauces. After our waiter gave us a moment to browse over the menu, I looked around the restaurant and was impressed with what I saw. There were two large buffet lines in the back of the building where a daily lunch buffet is served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. I also noticed the abundant amount of seating within the establishment. Traditional Indian music quietly played in the background as I admired the painting of the Taj Mahal that was hung above our table. It was a great atmosphere. Other than ourselves, there were four other tables. As I looked closer to the menu, I realized just how authentic the India House was. Many dishes I had never heard of before and the thought of tasting something new excited me. I ended up ordering the Chicken Tikka Marsala, and Jake ordered the Aloo Tikki. Within ten min-utes, both of our orders were on our table and we were ready to dig in. My Chicken Tikka Marsala came with a dish of white rice and a small bowl of tender chicken in a slightly spicy and creamy tomato sauce. The combination of the rice with the chicken and sauce was excellent. It had just enough kick to keep things interesting without causing me to gulp my entire glass of water at once. Jake’s Aloo Tikki was essentially potato cakes. We each shared our dishes and his was equally pleasing. The outside of the Aloo Tikki was crispy and seasoned, and when you broke your fork into it, steam rose from the soft middle. He liked the Aloo Tikki so much that he wanted a second helping, and he is a very picky eater. After finishing our meals, we ordered a customary Indian dessert to share. We chose the mango Kulfi, which is like ice cream. The Kulfi was delicious, and I felt happily satisfied after finishing the last portion of our meal. Our service was very attentive, and I found the staff at the Indian House to be very helpful. I was very new to authentic Indian cuisine and our waiter answered all of our questions with great detail. The service was speedy and effective, which is key to a good meal at a restaurant. The food was definitely authentic and their menu had a large variety of options. I was not disappointed in the least in my trip to the Indian House. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who wants to broaden their horizons. This being said, it is not for those who prefer to order within the box, so to speak. In my opinion, the Indian House is less of a restaurant and more of a cultural experience.

Coffee can improve health

India House spices up MC cuisine By Courtney WestEditor-in-Chief

are other people out there like that." Different companies use differ-ent marketing devices. As typically seen with Kel-logg's, a unique new flavor or food product is what they be-lieve will catch one's attention. "The companies are trying to get their share of profit, so these marketing strategies would be good for their business," said business teacher Mr. Goers. Although many people find some of the products bizarre, there is still a large selection of customers purchasing the products to 'test them out.' "Americans are willing to try new products to open up their [food] pallets," said senior Con-nor Huber. Kellogg's recently came out with a Confetti Cake Poptart flavor. Although it is just a tempo-rary item, many people have fallen for its 'remarkable taste.' "[Confetti Cake Poptarts] are

delicious," said Huber. Aside from the new Poptart flavors, Kellogg's has been promoting their new, Krave cereal-- a blend of Chex and chocolate. "I have never tried [Krave cere-al] but it looks good and I want to try it," said Martin. Such marketing strategies may be important for youth to teach them about how to make a company grow, but does Laporte High School highlight on this enough? "I believe our marketing and management classes in par-ticular discuss marketing and advertising techniques in re-lationship to new products or designs," said Goers. Although it may not be evi-dent, advertising techniques like these may be tremendously helpful in the working environ-ment; so keep them in mind… and try something exotic-- like chocolate covered grasshop-pers.

Unique products emerge to show-case advertising skills