There has been a shift in the meals people are consuming nowadays making the cost of food become lower than it has ever been before. The constant rise in technology has made new possible improvements to how we manufacture our food products thus reducing the cost of labor required.

It is evident that there is a sudden rise in food prices in most developing nations with the level of inflation continuing to rise affecting food production. Some of the demands has led manufacturers and many other industries to come up with ways to how they can significantly reduce the price making it easier for normal consumers to purchase their goods. The reduction in prices has brought about a positive effect on many consumers bringing the prices of commodities down.

The main reason for these reductions in prices is because most of the manufacturing industries are now using fillers in most of their products in food making. The situation has made the cost of food to become lower than it has ever been which is evident in some of the processed meat that is being sold in major supermarkets nationwide. Most of these fillers put in meat lower their cost which makes the market price become lower than even the production price.

So, what are these food fillers?

Food fillers are mostly additives that help bulk food which is essential in lowering the prices of most commodities in the food basket. Many of these fillers are often found in meat products helping the price of the meat reduce at a margin of up to 30%. Lowering of food prices is a welcome to many consumers to whom many see it as a great idea, however, it is imperative to note that most of the additives and fillers to which we put in these food products are costly to us.

There are two types of fillers that are often used. They include the non-meat fillers which are often made of high starchy carbohydrate binders that are known to have a low nutritional value. Most of these fillers tend to include a processed food additive known as maltodextrin that is made from starch and can include proteins e.g. soy The other type of fillers is known as meat fillers that often are composed of mechanically deboned meat which are pieces left over from animal carcasses that are neither ingested by the human body. Most of these fillers are found in poultry meat and chicken breasts.

What are some of these additives that are added in most processed food?

1. Cellulose

It is a natural component often found in many plants which are used in the production of paper. Most of the cellulose that is often used is got from wood pulp then later used in making cereal, shredded cheese, ice cream, and salad dressing. It is widely known that humans are incapable of digesting cellulose thus adding it to the foods we eat makes for a non-fat filler. The above additive is often found in many high-fiber snacks and eating organic will not help one avoid it.

2. Soy

It is an additive that is mostly filled in a variety of foods such as frozen yogurt to ground beef. Most of the meals sold in supermarkets have Soy which is common in over 50% of the foods sold in the facilities. Soy acts as a cheap filler that helps lower some of the prices of food content and reducing the quality of meat. The above additive contains high levels of phytic acid which is known to eliminate some of the important vitamins and minerals from a person’s body.

3. Olestra

It is another additive that is normally used in as a fat substitute, however, the body cannot digest some of the big molecules that it is often made of. It explains the reason to why the body ingests some of the nutrients in it because of the zero calories. It is with the above examples that many food professionals and health nutritionists around the world are becoming worried about the kind of meals we are ingesting as a nation. Do you check some of the ingredients when purchasing food?

Every student undertaking a graduate degree is expected to undertake a final research paper for them to successfully finish graduate school. Many higher education programs require students to complete a capstone project or write a thesis in their final years.

So, what is a capstone project?

Capstone projects differ from each institution to how they are presented by every student in many colleges. Many projects very differently from each institution and thus some are more experimental which require students to relate whatever they have learned throughout their graduate program.

There exist many programs that require students to take capstone projects. Many nursing schools, public administration classes, mass communication, and liberal arts require graduate students to finish their project before being allowed to graduate. The reason behind the study for this project is that it gives students the opportunity to learning and use the knowledge they have acquired in the real world.

A capstone project is defined as a research paper that seeks in identifying an existing problem and try to come up with answers or solutions to the said problems. It is often done by applying most of the skills and methods learned to try and address the solution in a direct manner. Many of these projects are often geared towards research whereas others put much emphasis on solving problems.

What are some of the goals a student accomplishes when undertaking a capstone project?

A capstone project is useful in master’s programs since it focuses on defining a problem and deciding some of the techniques used in mastering and thinking of all the aspects to fixing an information problem. Some of the options may include using technology or conducting a technical analysis of past information.

Capstone project papers help create a positive difference needed in helping the community, an institution or a different organization in some of the solutions they may be having regarding an issue.

There are different types of capstone projects. Many are often case studies or surveys about a product or a case. Each program with which students go through has different sets of capstone project papers that they are required to complete when in their final year. Capstone project papers are known to take a considerable amount of time depending on the institution you are taking it from.

What are some of the ways of writing a capstone project?

1. Choose a Topic

A capstone project is known to take a longer period which is essential for one to identify a topic that naturally interests you helping you explain more and broadly about a given topic. Writing a paper about a topic you care about makes it easier for one to explore broadly and search for material to write about. A good topic should, however, be narrow enough and within the limits to explaining a topic thoroughly.

2. Writing a thesis statement.

It is imperative to start your capstone project paper by having a clear, concise thesis statement. It is important to choose your thesis statement carefully since it is the foundation around which your whole paper is built from. Conducting your own research is important before beginning to carry out your arguments and supporting them. Writing your thesis statement early is the sole reason why one should start writing their capstone paper early enough.

3. Construct an outline

Before officially embarking on your project. Ensure you have an outline of where you will begin from. It is best to start by listing down all the main points and dividing them into categories to which one can have them in an appropriate order into having a logical flow i.e. from the introduction to the conclusion.

4. Submission & Conclusion

It is important to have your capstone project paper in an engaging note ensuring that it ends the same way capturing their attention. Ensure that you revise your work by looking at the important details to check for any problems that arise with punctuation, grammar, and even word choice ensuring that one makes the necessary revisions.

Cohort studies are fundamental designs that are used in research fields of medicine, social science, psychology and any other relevant field that requires answers based on evidence. Cohorts studies are medical research used in investigating some of the causes of diseases and to establish links between the risk factors and the outcomes that come about.

Many of these studies often look at groups of people and thus can either be prospective (forward-looking) or retrospective (backward-looking). So, what are some of the examples of these types of studies?

Prospective studies are planned and thus carried out over a future period. Retrospective cohort studies on the other hand search for data that already exist and try to identify risk factors for conditions. Many of the interpretations are inadequate because researchers find it hard sharing incomplete and missing data. Some of these long-term studies are sometimes known as longitudinal studies.

In nursing cohort studies are known to observe a larger group of individuals occasionally recording some of their exposures to certain risk factors thus finding suitable indications for the causes to the diseases they are suffering. So, what is the need for a cohort study?

Although a person’s exposure at the beginning of a prospective cohort study is often known, it usually not the case. Some of the major advantages of prospective cohort studies are that patients are followed into the future, making it possible to ascertain the temporal relationship between the exposure and the outcome. It is useful in determining some of the risk factors that are associated when contracting a new disease since it is a longitudinal observation of the individual through time as the collection of data is done at regular intervals ensuring that a recall error is reduced.

It needs to be noted that cohort studies are expensive to conduct since they take a long follow-up time to generate useful data. Some of the results obtained from long-term cohort studies are known for their superior quality to those obtained from retrospective or cross-sectional studies.

Prospective cohort studies are known to yield the most reliable results whenever it comes to observational epidemiology. They enable a wide range of exposure-disease associations to be studied. Some of the examples of cohort studies in the nursing industry include the nurse health study to women’s health that was originally set up in the year 1976 to investigate the potential long-term consequences of the use of oral contraceptives.

Such examples explain some of the advantages and the strengths since standardization of outcome is possible limiting the influence of confounding variables since many of the subjects can be matched. It is known that the cohort study can sometimes be slow in yielding some of the results and may as well become expensive when conducting studies of rare diseases which can take years to develop.

Cohort studies conducted on populations are known to provide different outcomes that do not become apparent until later in the childhood whenever used in clinical teratology to comparing the frequency of birth defects among children born to women that have been treated with an agent during pregnancy to the frequency among children who have their mothers not treated. What are some of the limitations of this study?