Balanced Living

September 2006

Bon Bon Appétit!

September is National Food Safety Education Month

How much do you know about food safety? September is National Food Safety Education Month and the following are a few important things to consider next time you're fixing dinner.

Cooking By Degrees
You're about to cook a culinary masterpiece, and you've arranged gleaming utensils on the counter with all the care of a surgeon. But where's the thermometer?

A kitchen thermometer is one of your most important weapons against food-borne illness. The thermometer will help you make sure that the internal temperature of meat and poultry rises high enough to kill harmful bacteria, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says.

If you're relying on color changes to tell when food is done, beware: Research shows that color and texture indicators aren't reliable, the USDA says. There are two basic types of cooking thermometers: The large, oven-proof kind you insert in meat before cooking. Place it two inches deep in larger meats, but away from bone, fat, or gristle that could give you a false reading. And the smaller, instant-read units that display temperatures during cooking. With thinner foods, like a burger or chicken breast, you can insert an instant-read thermometer from the side -- even if you're cooking on a grill.

What should that thermometer say? Safe temperatures vary for different dishes. Your medium-rare steak is done at an internal temperature of 145 degrees, but heat that chicken or turkey to 180 degrees.

Don't go overboard, though -- charred meat can be unhealthy, too. High-temperature barbecuing, frying, and broiling can produce chemicals called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that some studies link to an increased risk of cancer. The connection remains unproven, and experts plan more research, but the risks seem greater when meat turns black from cooking longer at high temperatures. Luckily, studies also point to a solution: Minimize the time the meat spends over the coals.

You can cut HCAs up to 90 percent by microwaving meat briefly (even for two minutes). You can also par-cook meat at lower oven temperatures immediately before tossing it on the grill to add flavor at the finish. Don't precook food and let it sit -- you'll put its temperature into bacteria's growth range.

Washing Food Is Not a Fruitless Effort
You're in a convenience store looking for a snack. You pass up the cookies and focus on a plump peach. As you bite into it, should you congratulate yourself for passing up the junk food?

Sure. But you should also be concerned. It would have been a good idea to wash that peach first. Depending on where the fruit was grown, you may have to worry about pesticide residues and even bacterial contamination. Some experts recommend washing and peeling all produce, if possible. Although most produce grown in this country is relatively clean, imported produce can be a problem. In recent years, imported raspberries, strawberries, and grapes have been found to contain bacteria or pesticides.

To wash vegetables and fruits, use running water. Some people use a mild detergent. If the produce has a rind -- cantaloupe, for instance -- remove it before eating the fruit. If a produce has outer leaves -- lettuce or spinach, for example -- remove those before using the rest of the vegetable. And always wash your hands before and after handling fruit and vegetables.

Another misconception is that most of a fruit's or vegetable's nutrient value is in its peel. The nutrients are found throughout the fruit. Even without the peel, you're still getting good nutrient value.

So, get busy washing and peeling.

More food-handling tips
After you've cooked your chicken, don't put it back on the same plate you used to bring it to the stove or grill. Juices from raw chicken could contaminate the cooked food with campylobacter or salmonella bacteria, the main culprits behind food-borne illness. Use separate utensils, plates, and dishes for raw and cooked food, and wash them between uses.

Use disposable paper towels instead of a kitchen sponge or rag, where salmonella or other bacteria can grow and spread.

If you want rare beef, eat a steak, not a hamburger. E. coli may affect the surface of a steak (where cooking will kill it), but it won't penetrate the interior. In a burger, contamination can reach the center. The USDA says ground beef must be cooked to 160 degrees -- hot enough to kill E. coli.

You don't have to overcook pork to be safe. Many people cling to outdated fears about the parasite that causes trichinosis, but farming practices are safer now and don't expose livestock to the parasite. Pork is safe at an internal temperature of 160 degrees, even if it still looks pink.

If you like raw seafood, get to know your fish merchant and restaurateur. The risks from raw oysters drop if they come from unpolluted waters. Sushi or uncooked marinated seafood may be flash-frozen to kill parasites. Cooking will kill live contaminants.

For more info:
http://www.nraef.org/nfsem/
https://fhahelps.personaladvantage.com/content?sub=10000262

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Get Fit Quick!

September 27th is National Women's
Health and Fitness Day

September 30th is Family Health and
Fitness Day

Moderately intense activities (activities during which you feel some exertion, yet can carry on a conversation comfortably during the activity), such as walking briskly from your parked car to the mall entrance and taking your dog for a quick jog after dinner, won't help you train for a sport. However, they can help you achieve and maintain a healthful weight and improve your overall fitness level.

They can also help reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, put you in a better mood, and improve your balance, coordination, and agility. You have dozens of opportunities each day to increase your activity. Here are 13 ways to help get you started.

Pace when you're talking on the phone instead of staying put. Though this won't burn a lot of calories, getting out of your chair throughout the day can help improve your circulation.

Deliver memos in person instead of having your assistant do it, sending them via interoffice mail, or faxing them. Consider these excursions exercise breaks.

Go window shopping or browsing in your spare time. Shopping is the ultimate easy-walking workout. Wear athletic socks and walking shoes.

Paint your house. You'll burn an average of 300 calories an hour and get a good upper-body workout.

Clean your house vigorously. You can burn about 420 calories an hour cleaning floors, vacuuming carpets, washing windows, and scrubbing tile.

Do your own yard work and gardening. Hoeing burns about 360 calories an hour, the same as playing badminton. Cutting your lawn with a push mower burns about 420 calories an hour, on par with playing tennis. Trimming trees burns about 500 calories an hour, equivalent to swimming the crawl.

Turn lunchtime into an exercise adventure. Don't eat at the company cafeteria or the same old place. Instead, discover new restaurants within walking distance from your workplace.

Carry a basket instead of pushing a cart if you're getting just a few things at the supermarket. Consider it a free weight that keeps getting heavier. Switch the basket from hand to hand periodically to balance the effect on your upper-arm and shoulder muscles.

Park your car in the garage and leave it there if you're going anywhere less than a mile away. Taking the hilliest route possible when you're walking will burn extra calories.

Sign up for a corporate fitness challenge. Whether you walk or run, you'll have fun and feel a sense of accomplishment that can spur you to stay in shape long after the race is over.

Limit sedentary activities during your leisure time. For example, turn off the television several nights a week. Without TV programs to distract you, you'll move around more than you would otherwise.

Make exercise a hobby. There's nothing like getting involved in an activity to take the chore out of exercise. Whether it's salsa lessons or learning to play golf, you'll be working out without even knowing it. Dancing can burn as many calories as walking, swimming, or riding a bike. Square dancers covered nearly five miles in one evening, one study found.

Use the stairs. Each flight of stairs you climb burns 10 calories. That doesn't sound like much, but taking 10 flights a day for a year can result in a 10-pound weight loss.

For more info:
https://fhahelps.personaladvantage.com/fitness
http://www.fitnessday.com/

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Coming Home

September is National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

This September is the 17th annual celebration of National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. Recovering from alcohol or drug abuse can be tough, especially if you're around friends who used to drink or do drugs with you and may still be using. Residential treatment programs, where you live with other recovering addicts for a period of time, are a good way to break the cycle. Yet, what about when you come home from residential treatment? What help can you find when you return to school and family and are surrounded by the pressures that may have gotten you started drinking and drugging in the first place?

Part of the answer is aftercare. Aftercare refers to services and programs that can help you stay clean and sober after treatment. It's such an important part of recovery that most treatment centers make planning for aftercare a part of the residential treatment process. That way, you leave the treatment center with an aftercare plan in hand.

Kinds of Aftercare
Aftercare programs may include 12-step meetings such as Alcoholics Anonymous, professional counseling, support groups with other teens in recovery, and support groups for the whole family. Some schools offer aftercare for their students. These groups help you and your family members talk about feelings and ways of handling your concerns. You learn to identify and deal with your feelings and build self-esteem. They give you the support that helps you to resist the temptations of alcohol or other drugs, and give you a chance to help others resist. They also help you build friendships with people who are living a sober life.

Staying Involved Is Key
If you're in aftercare, keep this in mind: Studies show that the more you and your family get involved in your aftercare, the more likely you are to stay clean and sober. This means attending all the meetings and participating in all the programs.

Support When You Waver
What if you have a relapse and find yourself drinking or doing drugs again? A relapse is a mistake - not a tragic failure. Aftercare can help you pick yourself up and start again. In your support groups, you can talk about what made you relapse and what you can do to avoid it from happening again. Other students can share stories of how they overcame such lapses. Together, you make each other stronger.

What You Can Do
If you have a friend who is in aftercare, encourage him or her to stay involved. If you're in aftercare, remember that staying involved may mean the difference between sobriety and addiction. For more information on aftercare for teens, ask your school counselor or a teacher you trust for advice. You can also look in the yellow pages of your phone book under topics such as "Alcohol and Drug Abuse" and "Youth and Teen Services." You may also contact your treatment center or a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

For more info:
http://www.recoverymonth.gov
https://fhahelps.personaladvantage.com/alcohol

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Deter Deter, Detect, Defend

Battling Identity Theft

While there are no guarantees with avoiding identity theft, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk and minimize the damage if a problem occurs:

• Deter identity thieves by safeguarding your information.
• Detect suspicious activity by routinely monitoring your financial accounts and billing statements.
• Defend against ID theft as soon as you suspect a problem.

Identity theft is a serious crime. How does it happen? Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes. While you can't entirely control whether you will become a victim, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk.

If you think your identity has been stolen, here's what to do:

1. Contact the fraud departments of any one of the three consumer reporting companies to place a fraud alert on your credit report. The fraud alert tells creditors to contact you before opening any new accounts or making any changes to your existing accounts. You only need to contact one of the three companies to place an alert. The company you call is required to contact the other two, which will place an alert on their versions of your report, too. Once you place the fraud alert in your file, you're entitled to order free copies of your credit reports, and, if you ask, only the last four digits of your Social Security number will appear on your credit reports. Here are the numbers to reach the three consumer reporting companies: Equifax: 1-800-525-6285, Experian: 1-888-397-3742, Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289 and the Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1- 800-269-0271
2. Close the accounts that you know or believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. Use the ID Theft Affidavit (http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/pdf/affidavit.pdf) when disputing new, unauthorized accounts.
3. File a report with your local police or the police in the community where the identity theft took place. Get a copy of the report or, at the very least, the number of the report to submit to your creditors and others that may require proof of the crime.
4. File your complaint with the FTC (ftc.gov). The FTC maintains a database of identity theft cases used by law enforcement agencies for investigations. Filing a complaint also helps the FTC learn more about identity theft and the problems victims are having, so that they can better assist you.

For more info:
http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/ddd/

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Score that Goal!

How to Set Priorities

When you've decided on a major goal, how do you plan out the steps to reach it? Part of your planning includes the question, "What's important to reach my goal?" By being specific about the big things, we can make sure that we do what's needed to get us there. This is called "setting priorities."

Develop a Strategy
Let's say you've decided you want to save enough money to buy a house. In order to do that, you need to save $100 extra each month. One of the important steps might be to open a savings account specifically for this. Then, every payday, you'll deposit $50 into the account. In order to have an extra $50 to deposit, you might have to work five hours of overtime in each pay period. That's important to reaching your goal. So the overtime becomes a priority.

Know What's Important
After you've saved $300, you see a class advertised that can teach you how to buy real estate. The tuition is $300. Well, you say, you're going to buy some real estate, so you wonder if you should take that class and spend the $300. Isn't your goal to buy a house? Of course, with your timetable, you won't be in the market for another three years, and by then some of the information you spent your savings on may be outdated.

Investigate Alternatives
Some activities take a lot of time, effort, and money but don't help you reach your goal. You realize that your goal is to save enough money to buy a house, something that may never happen if you spend your money on things you don't need right now, such as real estate classes. Instead, you decide to read books from the library for free. Then, when the time comes to buy a house, you'll take a class if you still feel that you need it.

Reaching Your Goal
By looking at your goal and your plan to reach it, you'll be able to put your own priorities in place. That's the way to reach your destination.