Advertisement

firehouse pizza banner

Patty Craig: A Slice of Time

 

No matter what time of year, health topics seem to make the news. We certainly want healthy bodies. I recently read about three health-related issues: safe minimum cooking temperatures, healthy sinuses, and the eye drop legal dispute. Each of these topics caught my attention because of the familiarity of the problem.

With warm weather, we will enjoy more grilled and smoked meats. Personally, I love the taste of both. A food safety article recently reminded me that we should test the internal temperature of meats: “Use a food thermometer to ensure that meat, poultry, seafood, and other cooked foods reach a safe minimum internal temperature. Remember, you can’t tell whether meat is safely cooked by looking at it” (https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html). This site also mentioned “rest time” for some meats. Why is rest time important? A few meats need rest time – a time when the meat’s temperature remains constant or continues to rise, destroying harmful germs. This website also provided the following information for minimum internal cooking temperatures:

Category

Food

Temperature (o F)

Rest Time

Ground Meat & Meat Mixtures

Beef, Pork, Veal, Lamb

160

None

 

Turkey, Chicken

165

None

Fresh Beef, Veal, Lamb

Steaks, roasts, chops

145

3 minutes

Poultry

Chicken & Turkey, whole

165

None

 

Poultry breasts, roasts

165

None

 

Poultry thighs, legs wings

165

None

 

Duck & Goose

165

None

 

Stuffing (cooked alone or in bird)

165

None

Pork and Ham

Fresh pork

145

3 minutes

 

Fresh ham (raw)

145

3 minutes

 

Precooked ham (to reheat)

140

None

Other information on the site included temperatures for egg dishes, casseroles and seafood (https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html).

Second, the April 2018 issue of Spry Living included information about spring allergies. Since the peak allergy season has begun (March through May for most of the U.S.), many people are dealing with sinus issues. Although I am an allergy sufferer, I had not considered two of the author’s suggestions in relation to better sinus health. Both are common sense solutions and easily implemented. The first recommendation was to shower at night. The author explained that washing the pollen from your hair and skin will keep you from continuing to breathe it in at night. The second recommendation was to wash bedding weekly. The author recommended washing bedding in hot water and drying bedding in a hot dryer, thereby minimizing contact with allergens such as dust mites. Many people already do these two things; if not, they would be easy changes.

Third, according to “Drug Companies Want Supreme Court to Take Eye Drop Dispute” (by Jessica Gresko of The Associated Press, Daily News, April 1, 2018, 11A), a disagreement has developed related to the medical field. Drug companies’ bottles dispense eye drops that are too large, leaving wasted medication running down people’s faces. This may not sound like a problem, but it happens frequently to my mother. She has glaucoma and uses two types of prescription eye drops daily. The problem is that the human eye will only hold a certain amount of liquid. The drops come out of the bottles at a larger size, resulting in wasted medication. So, she either has to do without the medication for several days because the drops don’t last the number of days predicted due to the waste or she has to refill the eye drop medication early. This disagreement should be settled in the consumers’ favor, and the Supreme Court should not have to settle such a dispute. Drug companies should redesign the droppers on their bottles to dispense the correct amount of medication. The current situation is wasteful and forces many to make unhealthy decisions (such as going without medicine when the bottle is empty).

Daphne Oz said, “Everyone has their own definition of a healthy lifestyle, and mine has come to mean making health a priority but not an obsession” (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/health). When given good information, we can make more healthy choices. And health should be a priority.

 

Tags: 


Bookmark and Share

Advertisements