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Don’t Forget Food Safety This Easter

March 31, 2010 By

The 5,400 dozen eggs Hertzfeld Poultry Farms donated to the Northwest Ohio/Toledo Food Bank last week were a wonderful gift to needy families that surpasses the eggs we dye and eat during Easter celebrations.

Eggs are more than an Easter item. While we consider eggs a necessity in everyday cooking and baking, they are also a bargain in terms of nutrition.

These small marvels of nature are self-contained packages with 13 essential vitamins and minerals, high-quality protein, unsaturated fats, and antioxidants. All that and the calorie count is just 70 to 75 before we add all the extras that eggs are compatible with.

Tom Hertzfeld, Jr., grandson of the founder, says the company began with a few hundred chickens. Today there are 1.2 million chickens laying eggs that are distributed through the tri-state area and as far away as New York. Easter, along with Thanksgiving and Christmas, are the busiest seasons in egg sales, Mr. Hertzfeld said. Large-size eggs are the most popular, but whatever size is chosen, the veteran egg man says, “they are the best protein value you can buy.” He also has advice to people who shop for brown eggs believing they are more healthful. “That is a misperception,” he said. “Brown eggs are no different in nutritional value than white eggs.” The only difference is, brown hens lay them.

Compare the huge Hertzfeld operation with a two-acre farm near Bowling Green, where 60 free-range chickens produce about three dozen eggs a day. It’s almost the time of year for Amy Charlton to buy a new flock of Golden Comet chickens that will also eat free-range. “I am not sure if the eggs are totally organic,” Ms. Charlton said, “because they do get some commercial grain. But otherwise they roam free and eat everything that we, or the dog, don’t eat. Our eggs are only two days old.”

The chickens share the two acres with vegetable gardens. The Charltons don’t have a name for their business. Once in a while she puts up a sign “Fresh Eggs,” but most of the sales are by word of mouth. Here’s a tip. It’s on Kellogg Road, north of Bowling Green, and last week large eggs were $1.50 a dozen.

The same day they were $1.39 at Kroger, and I bought a dozen for 99 cents at the Market House in Hudson. Egg prices vary, especially at Easter, but wherever they are from or whatever the price, the eggs must be treated the same way in the home kitchen.

Easter is such a beautiful season it seems out of context to issue food safety warnings, especially for the egg, which we consider nature’s perfect food. It may be perfect in the hen house and all the way to the store, but in the hands of the consumer there are rules to follow.

Refrigeration is the key to safe egg use. Even though appliance manufacturers design units with egg storage racks, the USDA and the American Egg Board say that’s a no-no. Keep the eggs in the cartons in which they were purchased and find another use for the egg rack.

Another habit that is hard to break is the old trick of separating whites and yolks by passing them back and forth in the shells. The outside of the shell and the contents should not touch, according to the rules, because there might be some contamination on the shell. It is best to buy an egg separator. I remember when the late James Beard did a cooking demonstration in Toledo that required separating eggs. He simply cracked the egg with his right hand and let the white slip through the fingers of his left hand, leaving the yolk in his palm.

To avoid salmonella, ignore any recipes calling for raw or undercooked eggs. The exception is to use egg substitutes, which are pasteurized and safe. Whole pasteurized eggs also are marketed. Homemade mayonnaise, hollandaise sauce, Caesar salad dressing, homemade ice cream, and eggnog are some of the recipes that may call for raw eggs. Avoid undercooked eggs in casseroles, French toast, pasta dishes by being sure they are cooked in the center.

Before wishing you Happy Easter, my most timely egg tip is hard to swallow, but very important. The display of hard-cooked dyed Easter eggs may look pretty on the dining room table so all can admire the family artwork. But the limit for leaving hard-cooked eggs out of the refrigerator is two hours. That means the display basket should be trashed and a backup batch of dyed eggs should be waiting in the wings of the refrigerator.

I have been hospitalized with salmonella after eating a decorated Easter egg that was not in the refrigerator. It even had my name on it. The two-hour rule also applies to next Sunday’s Easter egg hunts. Just be sure all the eggs are gathered within the time frame and that there are no stragglers that will be found later. Or use plastic eggs that don’t spoil. By Mary Alice Powell, Toledo Blade

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Unique Breakthrough

March 30, 2010 By

It seems a lot of people today have neglected one of the easiest aspects of natural health which is getting a good night’s sleep. Though there are plenty of reasons and excuses of some individuals for probably not getting a good night’s rest, yet, really it’s not an easy task at all. Well, mattress shopping tends to be a stressful event always, unless you know exactly what you want and you also have the money to purchase it.

One thing to remember is that just because a mattress has a certain name at one store, it will not have the same name at another store. Hence, this innovative sleep experience delivers the revolutionary pressure relief and comfort benefits that only a good mattress can provide while delivering dynamic support a truly unique breakthrough in sleep technology.

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Wide Use of Weight-Loss Surgery

March 30, 2010 By

After spending the majority of her 48 years trying to slim down, Veronica Mahaffey was still 50 pounds overweight – not morbidly obese but still far from the size she wanted. Worried about her health, she called a San Diego weight-loss surgery clinic last spring and asked for help.

She was told no.

At 185 pounds and with a body mass index of 28, the mother of four was not heavy enough to meet medical guidelines or insurance company qualifications for weight-loss surgery. Those require a BMI of at least 40, or 35 for people with a related medical problem such as diabetes or sleep apnea.

“People would say, ‘You look fine.’ But I couldn’t get into normal-size clothing. That’s not fine,” said Mahaffey, of California.

Ultimately, she got the surgery through a clinical trial of one of several new weight-loss procedures. Now 10 pounds from her goal weight of 135, Mahaffey said she looks better, feels better and is confident she’ll no longer have to fight her weight.

Her experience may soon be shared by thousands of Americans.

Traditionally limited to dangerously heavy individuals, weight-loss surgery is undergoing technical advances and becoming an option for moderately obese patients. Physicians who perform the procedures say it’s a form of early intervention that can help prevent medical problems, such as diabetes, associated with carrying significant excess weight.

But other health professionals are concerned, citing the potential for complications and high costs.

“If you’re looking at the numbers of people who are obese – that’s a third of the population,” said Dr. Robert Kushner, a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “It’s unimaginable even thinking about providing invasive procedures to a group this large.

” Obesity is a public health crisis that is not going to be solved by surgical interventions.”

Nutritionists also are not enthusiastic. They reject the notion that surgery should take the place of dieting and exercise.

The problem is that nothing has worked so far in slowing the nation’s alarming rise in obesity. A New England Journal of Medicine study published last month concluded that obesity rates soon will negate life-span gains achieved through declining smoking rates.

The American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery argues that surgery should be a bigger part of the solution.

Technological innovations may help make that possible by turning some surgeries into a one-hour, incisionless procedure – making them more attractive to moderately overweight adults like Mahaffey, overweight and obese teenagers, and normal-weight people with difficult-to-control diabetes. Several new procedures are in human clinical trials.

Already, bariatric surgery rates have doubled in six years, to 220,000 procedures in 2008, according to the bariatric surgery society.

Depending on the type of surgery used, patients can lose 50 percent or more of their excess body weight and maintain that loss for as long as 10 years after surgery. Other research has found that bariatric surgery cures Type 2 diabetes in a majority of patients studied, as well as improving symptoms related to sleep apnea and heart disease, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure.

In comparison, recent studies on long-term use of weight-loss medications show a typical weight loss of 5 to 22 pounds over one year.

But even the simplest surgical procedures are not without risks. The most common weight-loss surgeries — gastric bypass and gastric banding – restrict stomach size so patients feel full faster. Afterward, 19 percent of patients experience dumping syndrome, which is involuntary vomiting or defecation, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Complication rates involving ulcers, wound problems, hemorrhage, deep-vein thrombosis, heart attacks and strokes range from 2.4 percent to 0.1 percent.

“None of these procedures is benign,” said Dr. Blandine Laferrere, a diabetes expert at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

“Investigators are working on ways to make these operations more effective, safer, less invasive and lower-cost,” said Dr. Philip Schauer, director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

Furthest along in clinical trials is an incisionless technique called TOGA, or transoral gastroplasty. A surgeon inserts a flexible tube through the mouth into the stomach and then uses staples to create a pouch that limits the amount of food that can be consumed.

Some surgeons are adopting a wait-and-see attitude on such procedures until longer-term data are available. “These approaches are still experimental, and we don’t know yet how successful they will be,” said Dr. Jonathan Myers, director of bariatric surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Mahaffey underwent a procedure called POSE, or primary obesity surgery, endolumenal, designed for people who need to lose only a moderate amount of weight.

In another incisionless technique still in the early stages of development, a device is placed in the upper part of the small intestine to create a barrier between food and the wall of the intestines, mimicking the effect of gastric bypass surgery. The device is expected to cost about half as much as gastric banding and one-quarter as much as gastric bypass.

Lowering the cost of surgery will be key to offering an effective weight-loss option to thousands, or millions, more people, Schauer said. The costs of traditional weight-loss surgery vary widely, with average costs ranging from $13,000 to more than $50,000, depending on the type of procedure and the area where it’s performed.

Whether insurance companies will welcome the idea of more people receiving bariatric surgery remains to be seen. Weight-loss surgery is now covered by insurance only for those patients who have premium benefits and a BMI of 40 or higher, or a BMI of 35 or higher with obesity-related medical problems. Standard health plans typically don’t include coverage of bariatric surgery.

However, insurance companies tend to follow the lead of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and last February the federal agency announced that it would approve payment of surgery for people with Type 2 diabetes and a BMI of at least 35.

In November, a consortium of influential medical groups published a consensus statement recognizing the “legitimacy” of bariatric surgery as a treatment for some patients with Type 2 diabetes and noted that surgery may be suited for people with Type 2 diabetes who are not yet morbidly obese – those with a BMI of 30 to 35.

“I see many patients with BMIs in the low 30s who aren’t going to make it much longer,” said Kushner, of Northwestern. “If we could get that person to take off 30 or 40 pounds long-term, that would make a tremendous difference.”

“There is probably a subset of patient with BMIs under 35 – those with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, severe sleep apnea – who would benefit substantially from some sort of (surgical) intervention,” said Dr. Eric Hungness, a bariatric surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The Chicago medical center is offering surgeries to patients who fit that description on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Nearby, at a surgery center at 900 N. Michigan Ave., Myers estimates he has performed more than two dozen lap-band stomach surgeries on patients with BMIs of 30 to 35 in the last several years. More have conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol and all pay for the operations themselves.

“This isn’t a quick fix or an easy fix,” he warned, noting that people have to permanently change their eating, drinking and exercise habits for the procedures to achieve expected weight-loss gains.

Dr. John Baker, president of the bariatric surgery society, said that for people with a BMI of 25 to 30, which is considered overweight but not obese, diet and exercise changes should still be the treatment of choice.

“Even people who have surgery still have to focus on those things,” he said. “You have to change your lifestyle and habits for any weight-loss program.”  Shari Roan and Judith Graham, KDVR

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Reduce Health Care Costs

March 30, 2010 By

Most people live, work, and play without a thought to the possibility of a life-threatening medical event. Remember that medical emergencies occur when we least expect them. Just imagine, you are shopping alone in a place distant from your home area and you collapse with a stroke, rendering you disoriented and unable to speak. And being far from home, bystanders call paramedics who take you to an unfamiliar hospital.  As your treatment begins, paramedics and hospital personnel ask questions, trying to gather more information about your Personal Health Record, but are hindered by a lack of background information.

Nevertheless, until your personal medical information becomes electronically available to health care providers nationwide, you are putting yourself and your family at risk if you cannot provide emergency care staff with an accurate medical history in a short period of time. The time you put towards producing PHR can save your life and members of your family. It will also reduce health care costs by eliminating unnecessary tests and procedures, and get you back on the road to recovery.

In a nutshell, it is a known fact that most of us before carry nothing in our wallet aside from a driver’s license that would offer more than our name and address. But with the evolution of technology a digital health record is what to carry that would help paramedics and emergency personnel understand your unique medical background and help further your emergency care. Certainly, by having it with you is how would hospital personnel learn quickly that you have a loving family who know everything about you and who need to be with you in this circumstance?

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Crunch Your Chances Of Cancer With An Apple A Day

March 29, 2010 By

Eating apples regularly may reduce the risk of developing colorectal cancer, according to new research in Poland and reported in the European Journal Of Cancer Prevention.

The tests compared 592 patients suffering from the disease with 765 patients without at the same hospital.

Research concluded that those with cancer had eaten 9.5 servings a week, compared to those without the disease, who had 11 servings a week.

A reduced risk was observed with those who ate one apple a day, with the odds at 0.65, while eating more than one apple a day reduced the risk by about half.

Eating other fruit or vegetables did not have the same effects on the risk of colorectal cancer.

The protective properties of apples may be as a result of their high content of flavonoids.

These act as antioxidants found concentrated in the skin of apples, preventing molecules or free radicals from inflicting damage on tissue and which can inhibit cancer onset and cell proliferation.

Antioxidants were five times more prevalent in the apple skin than the actual flesh – so wash, but do not peel before you eat.

However, the World Cancer Research Fund says its research has shown that the risk of all cancers can be reduced by between 30 to 40 per cent by making simple lifestyle changes, such as eating more fruit and vegetables, taking regular exercise and watching our weight.  The Himalayan

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Spring Clean Your Diet And Lose Weight

March 28, 2010 By

WHEN Jayne Band pops along to Weight Watchers in Copmanthorpe for her weekly weigh-in, she is in good company – her mum and sister attend, too.

The three woman have been regulars at the Thursday night class for a few months and have lost eight stone between them.

Youngest daughter Kathryn, 35, was the first to sign up, but when she started shedding pounds mum Margaret followed. Spurned by their success, Jayne joined in, only six weeks after giving birth to Leah, her second child.

“I needed to lose weight before I got pregnant with Leah,” says Jayne, who was a size 18 before joining the programme. Just seven months after giving birth, Jayne is the proud owner of a size ten-to-12 figure, having shed just over three stones.

“I haven’t been that size since my early 20s,” said Jayne.

The new mum, 38, who also has a seven-year-old son, Nathan, said she was determined to lose weight before April when she will be returning to work full time as an area manager at Thomas the Bakers, when it could be hard to resist temptation.

“At work, I would eat everything, from pastries and cakes to sandwiches,” says Jayne. “I will just have to be very disciplined.”

The advantage with Weight Watchers, she says, is that if you do have a treat you can make up for it by having a low-calorie lunch or supper. Foods are assigned points; the more calorific the item, the more points it is worth – which helps dieters make the right decisions.

“If I have a Danish, I know that I can eat a ‘no-point’ soup for lunch or a salad with grilled chicken for dinner,” says Jayne.

The family is following Weight Watcher’s Discover Plan, designed round foods that are more filling and less fattening. For example, two slices of buttered toast are worth three “points”, the same as a mushroom omelette and a small bowl of berries.

Jayne’s sister, Kathryn Barrett, first went to Weight Watchers last July and within four months had lost one and a half stone and reached her target weight of nine stone 13lbs.

Kathryn, mum to Cameron, eight, and Dominic, five, works part time as a childminder and at Quackers nursery in Copmanthorpe. She had tried Weight Watchers when Cameron was a baby but found it hard. This time, she was determined to succeed. What helps, says Kathryn, is to be organised.

“I plan a whole week’s worth of menus in advance,” she says.

Both daughters are thrilled that mum Margaret has followed them in their slimming mission. Margaret Dawson, 63, weighted 14 and a half stone when she attended her first meeting at Copmanthorpe Methodist Church – since when she has lost almost three and a half stone.

Margaret says she tried various fad diets over the years before turning to Weight Watchers. “I feel I have changed my old habits. I eat more veg and salad than I have ever eaten in my life. I never used to like salad – I used to think it was like rabbit food.”

At around 11 stone, Margaret says she feels like a new woman – and is ready for the challenge of looking after Leah two days a week when Jayne returns to work.

“I feel 100 per cent better,” says Margaret. “I’ve more energy and I feel happier when I look in the mirror. I’ve got rid of all my large-sized clothes, so I can’t put weight on.” Since joining Weight Watchers, Margaret has slimmed down from a size 22 to 16 and has taken up swimming.

Kathryn says: “Mum looks fantastic, she’s done really well.”

• Find out more about Weight Watchers at weightwatchers.co.uk

It costs £9 to register and £5.50 a week, but new members can take advantage of an offer of free registration and first meeting free (saving £14.50) until April 3, 2010.

It was when her size 16 clothes began straining at the seams that Pennie Lordan decided it was time to lose weight. “I didn’t want to be a size 18,” says the busy business woman and mum of three.

Pennie, 39, runs bespoke furniture business Furniture For Life in York with her husband, Kevin. They have three children, Livvie, 13, Francesca, 11 and Theo, nine.

At almost six feet, Pennie is tall but, even so, at 16 stone she was overweight.

“I’d put weight on gradually over the years,” says Pennie, who adds that yo-yo dieting made matters worse. “I was at a bit of a loss. I was so overweight and my self-esteem was so low. Everything else in my life was so great, my weight was the one thing holding me back.”

After seeing how a colleague had lost weight and maintained their new figure using SureSlim, Pennie decided to give it a go.

SureSlim is a medically supported eating programme that claims to help people lose 10lbs a month. Clients undergo a blood test which helps a doctor and nutritionist draw up an eating programme using normal everyday foods – no pills, milkshakes or meal replacements. Prices start at £295, although Pennie paid £400. Besides the bespoke diet and eating plan, the price includes weekly one-to-one counselling sessions.

It worked for Pennie. She began losing around three pounds a week and within six months had slimmed down to 11 stones 11 lbs – and a trim size ten to 12.

Not surprisingly, she looks and feels like a new woman.

“I have lots more energy,” says Pennie. “And I don’t bump into things anymore. I’m now a size ten to 12 and people keep saying how tall I look. My children are all pleased too – they told me: ‘I was embarrassed by you’.”

And Kevin? “He says he feels like he’s having an affair with a new woman,” says Pennie with a laugh.

Under SureSlim, Pennie learned to identify the foods which helped get her metabolism working properly. It involved cutting down on startchy carbs, but also eating three clear meals a day and cutting down on snacking.

“I actually ate more for breakfast,” says Pennie. “Before, I would have toast or cereal, but then I started having eggs with mushroom and asparagus and fruit. I never felt hungry.”

Instead of a sandwich at lunch, Pennie packed a tuna salad, while dinner would be chicken or fish. She also cut down on portion sizes.

“It’s a lifestyle change,” says Pennie. And although the initial outlay seems a lot, Pennie believes it is worth it. “There are no hidden extras. Also, by paying the money, you are making a real commitment to change.”  By Maxine Gordon, York Press

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Breast Cancer Chemotherapy Safe For Pregnant Women And Their Babies

March 27, 2010 By

Women who discover they have breast cancer while they are pregnant can be treated with chemotherapy without endangering the health of their unborn baby, according to research to be presented at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Friday).

Dr Sibylle Loibl, Assistant Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and a member of the German Breast Group, will tell the conference that pregnant breast cancer patients can be treated as close as possible to standard recommendations because chemotherapy delivered while babies were in the womb did not appear to cause the babies significant problems at or after birth.

“Until now, the evidence upon which we based our decisions about how to treat pregnant women with breast cancer has been largely limited to case studies and retrospective investigations. For this reason doctors have tended to be cautious in their approach to treatment because of fears about the effect it might have on the fetus, even though it meant that women did not necessarily receive the best treatment for their cancer,” said Dr Loibl. “Therefore, the German Breast Group set up a registry to collect data both retrospectively and prospectively from patients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy. It is the only international registry to focus on the outcomes of both the mother and the baby.”

The researchers entered details of 235 patients prospectively (119) and retrospectively (116) to the registry between April 2003 and October 2009. The ages of the women ranged between 23 and 46 with an average (median) age of 33. Breast cancer was diagnosed, on average, at 23 weeks into the pregnancy. Not all the data are complete yet, but out of 151 women, 91 received an average of two cycles of chemotherapy while they were pregnant.

The average gestational age of the babies at the time of delivery was 36 weeks, ranging between 28 and 42 weeks. Babies that were exposed to chemotherapy during pregnancy were born slightly lighter than babies who were not: an average of 2636mg, compared to 2791mg.

Of the 91 babies exposed to chemotherapy, three were born bald (alopecia), one was small for gestational age, one had trisomia 18 (a chromosomal disorder) and died one week after birth, one had necrotic enterocolitis (a severe bacterial infection of the intestine) and died three weeks after birth, one developed sepsis (blood infection), one developed neutropenia (low white blood cell count) and two had anemia. Of the 60 babies who were not exposed to chemotherapy, one had temporary apnea (breathing interruption), one had an increase in C reactive protein (a protein that appears in response to inflammation or infection) and one had gastroenteritis.

Dr Loibl said: “Most of the problems described in the babies exposed to chemotherapy were not related to the treatment but were most probably due to other circumstances (for instance, necrotic enterocolitis due to preterm delivery or trisomia 18). Normally, in nature, there is a risk of malformations of between one and two percent, and other problems such as infection can happen. The fetal outcomes of these babies that received chemotherapy were not significantly different from those who did not.

“Therefore, this study suggests that pregnant breast cancer patients can be treated as close as possible to standard recommendations and receive chemotherapy, if it is indicated, while they are pregnant. Ideally, this should take place in the care of specialized, multidisciplinary teams. We would like to generate more robust data to confirm this and so the registry is continuing and we are updating and completing the data.”

In addition to the data on outcomes for mothers and babies, Dr Loibl and her colleagues are also collecting tumor specimens and placenta material from the women who are being followed prospectively, and these are sent to the German Breast Group’s biomaterial bank. The researchers hope that this will give them important information in the future about the effects of pregnancy and chemotherapy on outcomes for mothers and babies. redOrbit

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