Watch Out! Food Safety Begins With You

Watch Out! Food Safety Begins With You

Food Safety is no joke. As we turn the calendar to catered meals, alfresco dining, outdoor barbecues and garden-fresh, you have to watch out for food safety. The Center for Disease Control estimates that each year 1 out of 6 Americans or 48 million people have a food-borne illness from contaminated food. Food borne illness is dangerous, costly and preventable.

As a professional I'm well aware of the do's and don'ts of food safety, but a recent bout of a food borne bug knocked me off my feet. My malady was the result of my choice at a quickserve restaurant that I've eaten in numerous times. Now I'm not dissing the quickserve industry, just keep in mind that food safety is in the hands of those preparing and serving the food. This can include people who may be more or less conscientious about following food safety rules and recommendations.

In keeping with my mantra and goals encouraging you to make healthy choices, I am sharing guidelines for food safe meal preparation and eating. The very first caveat is to start with clean hands, clean work surfaces, and clean fruits and vegetables. I realize some may think this is common sense, but it is always good to have a reminder. Following are additional guidelines to aid in keeping you food safe.

Eating out, be alert, generally speaking food preparers should:

have their hair covered with hairnets, caps or some type of head covering

the cashier should not be making change and dishing up food

wash their hands before leaving the bathroom

If the restaurant is extremely warm and the air-conditioning is not working, you may want to rethink eating there that day.

At the neighborhood barbecue:

Do not thaw foods at room temperature, always thaw food in the refrigerator. When thawing meat, place the meat on a tray or in a pan to catch any leaking meat juices.

Do not marinate foods at room temperature, marinate in the refrigerator.

Do not use juices from marinating on the food. Discard the marinade.

Keep hot foods hot and cold food cold. Cooked food should not remain at temp between 40°F to 140°F for more than 2 hours.

When prepping food, take care to not cross contaminate by spattering uncooked meat juices onto other surfaces or other foods

Use separate utensils and platters for uncooked food. Once it is cooked use a clean set of utensils to remove it from the grill and place it on a clean platter.

Cook foods to the proper temperature. Use a food thermometer to make sure the food reaches the recommended internal temp for doneness.

145°F for whole beef, veal, and lamb, fresh pork ham and fish. Allow these foods to rest three minutes before carving and consuming

160°F for ground beef, veal, pork and lamb, and for egg dishes.

165°F for all poultry, including ground chicken and ground turkey

Place Deviled Eggs on the table, just before serving the food.

Change of Plans

If plans change, place cooked food in shallow containers, cover loosely with aluminum foil and refrigerate. The refrigerator should be at a temperature of 40° F or below.

My bout with the food borne illness bug was a good news bad news scenario. The good news, I am recovered and feeling great and the not such good news is that I was reminded of how often people may not handle and serve food properly. Be food safe---you always want people to remember a meal for all the delicious reasons.

The Dangerous 10 - Top 10 Worst Food Additives

The Dangerous 10 - Top 10 Worst Food Additives

Food additives are substances added during the processing or making of a certain food in order to preserve flavors and freshness and enhance taste and appearance.

Although some of them have been used for centuries, the use of certain food additives is becoming really widespread and some of them are extremely dangerous for your health, I would say toxic even.

I'm not talking about the once-in-a-while consumption of a certain processed food containing additives, which can't harm anyone. I am talking about daily use. Statistics show that the average American spends about 90% of his/her budget on this kind of food; which means that if you open an American fridge or look up on the shelves you'll find tons of canned, dehydrated, artificial or processed stuff, which is extremely unhealthy, and its persistent consumption can cause health problems.

Typically these food ingredients are very difficult to identify, both for the variety of names and codes they're labelled with and the very minuscule fonts used to lists them on the ingredient list.

Here is the list of the top 10 toxic ingredients.

Go get your detective glass and start reading labels!

1) HFCS - High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a highly-refined artificial sweetener made from corn starch and found in almost all processed food such as: bread and baked goods, salad dressing, candies, yogurt, soda etc. And according to some studies has become the number one source of calories in the US.

Indeed, its easy handling and cheap cost made it the number one granulated sugar replacement: The amount of refined sugar we consume has declined over the past 40 years, while we're consuming almost 20 times as much HFCS.

HFCS is linked with weight gaining, it increases your LDL ("bad" cholesterol) levels, and contributes to the development of diabetes and tissue damage, among other harmful effects.

Also, recent researches published by the American Association for Cancer Research found that the fructose in HFCS promotes cancer growth, specifically pancreatic cancer.

2) Sodium Nitrate & Sodium Nitrite (NaNO3- NaNO2)

Both of them are chemical compound used as a food additive to preserve and give to cured meats, smoked fish and poultry a nice red pinkish color. Although their purpose seems harmless, these ingredients are highly carcinogen and their consume is linked with gastrointestinal cancer and heart diseases.

In fact, under certain conditions, they can form nitrosamines compounds, molecules that cause cancer in animals and humans.

Also, in massive doses, nitrite - and nitrate, which under some conditions changes to nitrite - can lead to a condition called methemoglobinemia. In our body, nitrites, indeed, have the ability to change the structure of the hemoglobin into methemoglobin: the binding of oxygen to whom results in an increased affinity for oxygen in the remaining heme sites. This leads to an overall reduced ability of the red blood cell to release oxygen to tissue and it may occur in tissue hypoxia.

Can't give up on eating salami, bacon or ham? Choose the uncured ones.Sodium Nitrate is listed under its INS number 251 or E number E251, Sodium Nitrite has the E number E250.

3) MSG - Monosodium Glutammate

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer commonly added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. While the Glutamic acid is naturally present in our bodies, and in many foods, such as tomatoes and cheese, the ones exploited by the processed-foods industry is chemically produced through hydrolysis of vegetable proteins with hydrochloric acid to disrupt peptide bonds or by the fermentation of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane or molasses.

The substance produced has the ability to excite our taste buds and make everything taste delicious, which wouldn't be a big deal if it hasn't been shown that high levels of MSG can seriously screw with brain chemistry causing damage to areas of the brain unprotected by the blood-brain barrier.

Food, Friend or Foe?

Food, Friend or Foe?

The subject of food is a wondrous topic for debate and discussion, since food is relevant to all of us. People eat food for many different reasons: nutritional, emotional and even social. Within these motivations is a goldmine of information for raising our consciousness about food. Is food my friend or my enemy? What is driving me to eat? What is my soul hungry for? What do I truly need? Ultimately, what we eat is a personal choice for each of us.

Our food choices and motivations for eating can have a positive or negative effect on our health, especially over time. There is an old saying, "eat to live, don't live to eat." This adage warns us that eating can take over the focus of our lives, rather than choosing to enjoy food as a form of nourishment to fuel our energy.

 When a person becomes obsessed or compulsive in their thinking about what foods they eat, then unacceptable foods may be perceived as "the enemy." Mental judgments about foods can create so much stress in the body/mind complex that they ignite fear in the system, which may compromise the body's immune functioning. Food then becomes a foe rather than a friend. This belief that certain foods are shameful or forbidden can be handled in a more positive way. Consider my friend Leela, who eats for nutritional reasons.

Leela was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years back. She had to have surgery and follow up physical therapy. As soon as she received the cancer diagnosis, she started researching how to improve and change her diet to be more life sustaining rather than eating a cancer-inducing diet. She took responsibility for her future by eating consciously. This new regimen encouraged health and wellness by eating living food. By eliminating sugars, fats, GMOs, meats, dairy and processed foods, and eating fresh organic vegetables grown locally, she came alive again.

 She eats organic food now and takes a myriad of herbs and supplements, drinks life enhancing green drinks, and carries filtered water with her. I have been at a couple of social functions with Leela, and observe her when she cannot get the foods she prefers and instead, has to eat non-organic food. When this happens, I observe her blessing the food and asking for her body to be rejuvenated from it. She allows the light of consciousness to guide her to eat mindfully, rather than worrying that pesticides from non-organic carrots are going to kill her. She laughs and says, "The fear of food is more harmful than the food choice itself, so let's just enjoy it!"

Emotional eating is a common practice for many of us. In this case, food often vacillates between being the best friend or the worst enemy. Emotional eating can include: dieting, over-eating, under-eating, bingeing, purging or eating compulsively. During times of stress, food may be the one friendly comfort that is available and handy. However, using food as a tool to numb our feelings doesn't enhance our wellbeing. It may lead us into a cycle of restricting food through the week only to binge on pizza and rice dream over the weekend. Instead of food being a friend and healthy companion through our lives, it becomes the enemy that must be defeated. Consuming food rather than dealing with uncomfortable emotions is a pattern that we can change over time. Eating mindfully starts by asking, "What am I truly hungering for?" Maybe a walk and a talk are more aligned with our emotional wellbeing.

How about social eating? Eating in restaurants with friends is a frequent social activity. Since healthy choices are limited in many restaurants, these times call for creative ingenuity to adapt what is on the menu to our particular dietary needs. Some restaurants are OK with this and others frown upon changes to the regular menu. I go to a Thai restaurant regularly with friends and order steamed broccoli and brown rice with a fresh veggie roll, rather than rich, spicy dishes.

 When the food arrives, everyone is happy with the meal they chose and nobody seems to care that I am eating differently. We socialize at restaurants to visit and share our lives with each other. Food is simply the conduit for that to happen. We can choose to order foods that work for us without compromise. This habit has helped me relax around food and eat things that I know will make me feel nourished and alive.

Super Natural Foods

Super Natural Foods

When do natural foods become, super natural foods?

Can Mother Nature's super natural foods cure everything from cancer to hay fever?

Natures foods give modern health consumers everything we need.

A hit of essential nutrients in an edible form (even if it's not always to your taste).

There's also that hint of the exotic which appeals to consumers willing to experiment with peculiar foodstuffs.

It's pretty clear that our appetite for natural foods is becoming increasingly insatiable.

Super Natural Foods - To you and I, it seems that super natural foods are popping up faster than birds infected with the avian flu virus.Barely have you managed to track down a good source of the latest data when it seems it has been superseded by another.

Super Natural Foods - Pomegranates are already yesterday's news.

The latest super natural foods is the wolfberry.

This deep-red, dried fruit is grown in China. It's about the size of a raisin and tastes like a cross between a cranberry and a cherry.

It's a small powderkeg of goodness, containing 500 times the amount of vitamin C by weight than oranges, with even more antioxidants than pomegranates, and it is the richest source of beta-carotene of all known foods.

Wow, how's that for a heavy hitter?

Super Natural Foods - Recent research has found that wolfberries, also called goji berries, significantly reduced blood glucose levels, bad cholesterol and triglycerides (fatty acids in the blood stream that lead to heart disease, diabetes and weight gain).

Meanwhile the journal International Immunopharmacology has reported that wolfberries had a significant effect on the size of cancer tumours in mice.

Further research in China has found the fruit to be effective in preventing the growth of leukaemia cells.

Chinese studies also suggest that wolfberries have anti-ageing properties.Super Natural Foods - perhaps if the wolfberry isn't appealing, you could opt for maca.This addition to the super natural foods group is a root vegetable, sort of like a sweet potato but sold in the West as a powder.

It's been dubbed "natural Viagra", with double-blind trials suggesting that it improves sexual desire, sperm count and sperm mobility.

Super Natural Foods - then there's hemp oil, one of the richest sources of essential fats.

Hemp oil plays a key role in our brains function, reproduction and food metabolism, also in ailments such as heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and arthritis.

This oil is also a good source of GLA, which is believed to help in the treatment of pre-menstrual tension.

A recent study published in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment, compared dietary hemp oil with topical treatments for dermatitis and significant improvements were noted in the group taking the hemp oil.

The problem with our super natural foods list is that the foods themselves are often expensive and can be hard to come by.

Super Natural Foods Update - The humble broccoli stalk no longer quite cuts it in the "new" super natural foods category.

It seems the more far-flung the source, the more we love it.

More importantly, there is no single authoritative definition of what makes foods "super" natural.

Ask your doctor which super natural foods will work best to combat heart disease, alleviate osteoarthritis or normalise the pH of your stomach or prevent cancer (claims all being made for the pomegranate) and chances are you'll get a blank stare.

We believe that foods become "super" if they are nutrient-dense and capable of combating serious disease and restoring our body.

Super Natural Foods - There are over 200 fruits and vegetables that have already been called superfoods or are awaiting the necessary publicity -- such as the strawberry which, it appears, is going to be this years blueberry.

Super Natural Foods - A true super natural food provides the most concentrated, usable form of nourishment to cells which govern our immune systems, our hormones, our weight and our ageing processes.

It's important we not rely on a single super natural food and expect it to achieve wonders.

Many can only be eaten or taken in small quantities.

They do provide extra help, but the most important path is to maintain a varied and healthy diet.

Super Natural Foods - The British Nutrition Foundation agrees.

While acknowledging the benefits of less common super natural foods such as bee pollen and sea vegetables.

The key message is that a wide variety of the less expensive fruits and vegetables is necessary to keeping us all healthy.

Super Natural Foods - What identifies super natural foods comes down to who you ask.

A nutritionist is more likely to opt for natural foods that are the most nutrient-packed and most easily digested.

A doctor might list those fruits and vegetables that have been subjected to the most scientific research. Among the recent being broccoli, which is rich in isothiocyanate and sulphoraphane.

These are substances that are believed to help the body fight cancer.

Any fruit and vegetable will help your health and the more the merrier.

Super Natural Foods - According to a recent study in the medical journal The Lancet, reports that there is strong evidence that we should eat more than five servings a day of these foods if we want to maximise our protection against heart disease and stroke.

Best Bet Food Sources for Vitamins

Best Bet Food Sources for Vitamins

I work a lot with natural foods and supplements in my practice. If I can be assured the client will eat the right foods, there is often no need to supplement. If the deficiency is mild, specific food supplementation works perfectly well. And it does often turn out that the client just loves the foods they need anyway!

Best Bet Vitamin food sources are listed in order of most often identified as the foods most beneficial for a specific vitamin. The Best Bet Foods are only the most common items I have found during testing in the last 12 years; there may be more foods that contain the particular vitamin that are listed on my website under the Diet/Nutrition section (see resource box for that link.)

Because each person is an individual with many different nationalities within their bloodlines, it is important to determine which food items are best suited for your body. And easy way to do this is to find out your blood type and eat foods that are beneficial for that blood type. You can find a list of those foods at http://www.dadamo.com. Overdosing with foods is almost impossible. I like that. It's very safe! So, here's the list:

Beta-Carotene: Best Bet Food Sources-- Dark Green vegetables, carrots and tomatoes. Note: Beta-Carotene natural form is comprised of two molecules. The synthetic form only has one molecule. Therefore, natural food sources are best.

Bioflavonoids: Best Bet Food Sources-- Citrus fruits (especially the white part of the peel), apples, soy hawthorn berries and green tea.

Biotin or Vitamin H: Best Bet Food Sources-- Eggs, raw fruits, mushrooms, poultry, soy or soy products, whole grains and oatmeal.

Choline: Best Bet Food Sources-- Choline tablets, beans, and eggs.

CoQ-10: Best Bet Food Sources-- Fish and spinach.Fat SolubleVitamins: See Vitamins A, D, E and K.

Folic Acid or Vitamin B-9: Best Bet Food Sources-- Wheat Germ (refrigerate after opening as it turns rancid easily), eggs, salmon, mushrooms, citrus fruits, and chicken.

Hesperidin: Best Bet Food Sources-- NutriBiotic's Grapefruit Seed Extract. Note: Hesperidin is in the bioflavonoid family and is thought to stimulate the immune system and fight yeast infections.

Inositol: Best Bet Food Sources-- Standard Process(TM) brand Inositol, blackstrap molasses, fresh fruits, nuts and seeds, wheat germ.

PABA or Para-aminobenzoic Acid: Best Bet Food Sources-- Spinach, blackstrap molasses, mushrooms, rice.

Riboflavin or Vitamin G: Best Bet Food Sources-- Sprouts, nutritional yeast, milk, meat, some forms of algae and Standard Process Labs Uses for Vitamin G: Night sweats, burning feet, red hands, paralysis, edema secondary to liver failure, eye syndromes, nervous indigestion, and liver disease. Riboflavin is the heat-stable factor of the Vitamin B complex.

Vitamin A: Best Bet Food Sources-- Parsley, sweet potatoes, watermelon, nettle leaf, broccoli, carrots, dark leafy greens, eggs, and mangos.

Vitamin B Complex: Best Bet Food Sources-- Any brand that you test energetically strong for. The wrong brand can be responsible for some annoying side effects. For me, that is urinary incontinence. To get the whole complex from foods you would want a wide variety of raw fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Lead in Our Food? Now, THAT is a Heavy Meal!

Lead in Our Food? Now, THAT is a Heavy Meal!

The heavy metal lead is naturally found in the earth; in rocks, soil, rivers, lakes, seawater, and even the air (dust). It has no taste or smell. It is the heaviest of all non-radioactive metals. It is found in virtually everything you eat, drink, and breathe. During the Twentieth Century the earth became "coated" in a layer of lead due to the mining and burning of fossil fuels and combustion of leaded gasoline

. Fortunately, over the last 30 years efforts to reduce lead contamination have accelerated. In a perfect world we would not be exposed to lead at all, as there is no use for lead by the human body. High lead exposure may lead to neurological damage and high blood pressure. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. We have "soiled our nest." However, we are able to limit our exposure to lead, despite a baseline level that will always exist. And, even though there will always be lead in our food, water, and air, it does not have to be toxic levels. Our food and water are safe for consumption. There are dangerous, life-threatening aspects to our food and beverages with which we should be more concerned than the current levels of lead.

High-glycemic foods (simple sugars, low to no fiber), trans fats, and a depletion of nutrients from our diets are much more concerning than the amount of lead in our food today, and have caused, and continue to cause more death and disease than lead ever has or ever will. Obesity, atherosclerosis, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are result of high-glycemic foods and trans fat. Ironically, the high-glycemic processed foods contain LESS lead than the complex carbohydrates and food made with whole grains. We all know it is important to focus on a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and we should continue to focus on these foods.

 The reason the healthier, whole grain foods contain more lead than the processed foods is because the plants pull out minerals, including lead, from the soil. And, the whole grains, with relatively shallow root systems, take up the lead that is found in the top few inches of the soil. The more unprocessed the food (i.e., whole grains), the more lead it may contain. However, the lead levels are usually far from toxic!

In no way am I saying that lead is safe, or not a health concern. It obviously is. However, due to the clean up effort in the U.S. and other progressive countries the amount of lead contamination has dropped, and the amount of lead contained within our food, beverages, and water has declined to levels not associated with death or disease.

Another major source of lead is cigarette smoking. Five hundred micrograms of lead is obtained with each inhalation of cigarettes, and 1000 micrograms of lead is contained in just one pack of cigarettes. Most of the lead that is inhaled during smoking is immediately exhaled, but a concerning amount is obviously getting absorbed through the lungs. A smoker may be absorbing more lead each day from smoking than all of their food and drink sources combined. Despite the lead exposure from smoking, much more death and disease comes about through all the other toxins in cigarette smoke (that cause oxidative damage) than from lead toxicity.

For over 2500 years humans have worked with lead. Utensils, cups, plates, and pottery have all historically been made out of, or included lead. We now know this is dangerous. Old china, cookware, and pottery were glazed with lead, that provided a unique luster. However, food that sits on such cookware will absorb lead. The longer food is in contact with these lead-containing objects the more lead that gets into the food. Heating the food in lead-containing cookware will increase lead absorption. Therefore, beware of what cookware and plates are used to heat up and eat food.

The real contamination of our planet came during the 20th Century. From 1920 to 2000, over 300 million tons of lead was mined and distributed throughout our environment.

 It was distributed throughout the atmosphere via combustion of leaded gasoline, burning of fossil fuels (coal), burning rubber, metal (brass and steel) factories, lead paint, manufacturing and improper disposal of batteries, lead plumbing through which our drinking water flows, lead in the solder used in making the seams holding our cans of food, ...and as mentioned, our cookware, pottery, and glassware.