Reusable bags - is my food safe?

Inspired by another blog on reusable bags, I decided I want to have my own. Blog entry on reusable bags, that is. But I want to explore the safety side of it.

I use reusable bags. I keep them in the trunk of my car so that they are handy when I go (unexpectedly) grocery shopping. And when I come home, I put my groceries away and put the bags by the door so that I don't forget to put them back into my trunk in the morning. My system works really well.

I realize, though, that I don't have a separate bag for meat, and I haven't washed my bags in a while... or did I ever? But I put my meat in those see through bags (yes, those plastic ones) available in the produce section, before I put it into my reusable bag. I need to separate my meat from my bread.

But what about my veggies? I try to cut down on using those see through plastic bags for my tomatoes and my zucchini, because they land in my garbage can as soon as I get home and unpack my groceries. So if I don't have to, I don't use them. My veggies land in my reusable shopping bag unpacked, bare, naked. I wonder how much bacteria lives in my bags because of that.

Environment and Plastic Industry Council comes to the rescue. In 2009 they sponsored a study that was set to measure and identify what lives and grows on an average reusable bag. Gross, I know. They also prepared a report. National Post had an article on the report deeming the bags unsafe.

So here is what they did. They tested 25 bags for E.coli, Salmonella, mold and yeast. And although they didn't find E. coli or Salmonella, they found yeast and mold, and some other bacteria than the two mentioned above.

So, 7 bags had an elevated count of bacteria (above the safe level of bacteria in drinking water), 5 had yeast growing on them, and 5 had some fluffy microscopic growth of mold. Three of the bags tested had considerably high levels of intestinal or faecal bacteria (more than considered safe). All three have been used for long periods of time without being washed, one bag for over a year, and one for over two years. The study report is trying to scare me that if I put a head of lettuce into such a bag, the bacteria from the bag can transfer onto the droplets of water sitting on my lettuce. These droplets of water, then, would have such high levels of bacteria, that it would be considered unsafe to drink.

One thing strikes me though. At the top of the report appears the goal of the research:
"to determine if reusable grocery bags provide a potential breeding ground for bacteria, mold and yeast. If so, a second task would be to analyze whether these bags pose a potential public health risk."

I'm asking: really? Is that the primary concern for Environment and Plastic Industry Council? Or is it the survival of plastic industry?

Well...

Three lessons learned:
1. Wash my fruits and vegetables, very carefully.
2. Get fabric reusable bags and wash them in the washer in hot water.
3. Don't believe what you read in newspapers, look up the source, read for yourself, don't let journalists interpret the results for you.

I'm gonna stick with my reusable bags.

Sources:

The Report:
http://www.plastics.ca/_files/file.php?fileid=itemXwjsKddvYz&filename=file_A_Microbiological_Study_of_Reusable_Grocery_Bags_May20_09.pdf

National Post Article:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theappetizer/archive/2009/05/20/back-to-plastic-reusable-grocery-bags-may-pose-public-health-risk.aspx

Soup for Thought

Photograph by Ken Kochey

I have started making a list of things I want to do when I retire.
OK. Well... not really on paper. In my head, rather. But really, every now and then I find out about wonderful ideas that people come up with, projects of self-less help, community initiatives etc. There are so many great things that one can do, events to get involved with, that I think that one needs to be really lazy to find themselves being bored.

Soup Sisters is one of those things I would love to get involved with. Launched in Calgary, Soup Sisters spread itself to Toronto. The basic goal is to get together and cook a bowl of soup for those who are in need. After all, soups is a comfort food. No?

It works like this. You get a group of 'sisters' who want to have a good time, cook together and chat. You need at least 12 of them. You set a date and pay $45 for each person. You come and start cooking with ingredients provided for you. There is always a chef and kitchen staff who make sure that everything is up to par and that you don't cut your fingers off. (Having said that, you don't need to be a chef yourself, in fact you may not know what a knife is, they will help you out.) As the soup is cooking, you get a bowl of another soup, that was prepared for you in advance, and a glass of wine to enjoy. Pretty dandy, eh? The soup that your group made will be taken to Interval House, a women' shelter, where the soup will be frozen in single portions for later use as the need arises. So everything is great! You get to spend some time with your friends, cook together ( I mean think about it... who has a kitchen big enough to fit 12 women cooking all at once?), eat together and drink wine, and at the end, your soup will lift not only your soul, but also the souls of those in need.

If you are a guy, don't fret. Broth Brother is coming soon to Toronto. For more information visit http://www.soupsisters.org/web/index.php

Cooking for others is a lot of fun for me. Especially when they least expect it. When I was little my mom would often disappear in the kitchen when we were watching TV as a family, and after a while she would come back with crepes or fritters or pancakes. Or she would bring a bowl of apples, sit in front of TV and she would peel them, cut them into pieces and pass them around. These were good times.

So, speaking of cooking and giving, I stumbled upon an issue of Good News Toronto (http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/index.html). Have you ever heard about this newspaper? I haven't. It is exactly something I was going to start one day. But people are brilliant and steal my ideas before I even think of them. This paper features only good news, you would have never guessed, would you? In the latest issue, I found a list of things you can do to make one's day. I modified them a little:
* Put a note in your loved one's lunchbox to say how special he/she is
* Bake muffins for your work colleagues or school friends
* Praise your mother’s/husband’s/wife’s/child’s cooking
* Eat supper with your family every day
* Help carry shopping for someone who is also carrying a baby
* Take your neighbour grocery shopping weekly
* Say “Thank you for making supper” every day
* Bake cookies for a teacher/neighbour just because
* Leave a generous tip for your food server
* Leave a note of appreciation for your food server
* Bake goodies and take them to your local fire station/police station/ambulance
station

I think that these things create communities, and the feeling of being included, noticed and valued. Do at least one of those good deeds and it will make your day, too.

One Year Old Happy Meal

Before and After (Source:http://www.babybites.info/2010/03/03/1-year-happy-meal/)

So much has been said and written about McDonald's food and its effect on health that, I think, we became immune to it. Not to the food, to the bad news, I mean. McDonald's seems to be immune to it, too, as I haven't heard that the Company is doing badly in this current (still) recession.

I never thought I would blog about McDonald's, but what I heard on the radio today shocked me a little. I know that McDonald's is bad for me. Their hamburger bun looks like a sponge and their fries are suspiciously too long. But that's not all.

This is what I heard about on the radio today... Noona Joann bought a Happy Meal and deliberately didn't eat it. She kept it for observation and blogging purposes. For one full year. To her surprise though, there wasn't much to observe. Life didn't want to grow on it. The food didn't go bad. It didn't smell. It just shrunk a little. The food didn't attract ants or flies, either. I don't know about you but I think that's strange.

I actually went on McDonald's website and looked up the ingredients. The fries are made of potatoes. That's good news. And they are cooked in vegetable oil. So much for the good stuff. They also contain natural flavour (which comes from a vegetable source), dextrose (glucose), a chemical that maintains colour, another one that preserves the fries, and another one that prevents fries from foaming when cooked, and another one, added to oil to prevent it from changing. Yes. To prevent the oil from changing it's colour, taste, smell, or texture. FYI, it is called tert-Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). In case you want to look it up. I did. http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v35je03.htm

The beef patty in the hamburger is 100% pure beef. Plus grill seasoning (salt, spice, sunflower oil). That's it. No other ingredients in the patty.

The bun is made of enriched wheat flour, water, sugar, yeast, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, corn flour, soy flour, sesame seed, malt and salt. That's when it comes to real food. In addition to that, the bun contains sixteen chemicals that serve as stabilizers, emulsifiers, and preservatives. I'm not going to bore you with all the sixteen names. They are very long and complicated. But one got my attention. This one is short. Ethanol. Otherwise known as ethyl alcohol. The same one that makes you feel relaxed after a glass of wine... I'm curious what it's doing there and in what proportions. The label says that it varies.
You can see for yourself
http://www.mcdonalds.ca/pdfs/IngredientFactsEN.pdf

No wonder it won't rot! The sixteen chemicals will do it!

Noona Joann is dedicated to helping children eat healthy. She said in the interview on the radio (CBC News) that she carries her Happy Meal with her when she does presentations to show the parents what they feed their children with when they take their kids to McDonald's. The parents are shocked. It turns out that visuals work best.

McDonald's scares me. I don't understand their ethics. And the 'unscared' people scare me even more. In the era of convenience and volume over value, McDonald's thrives. I'm thinking that maybe in my future practice as a dietitian (possibly maybe) I will replace the plastic food demos with real hamburgers from McDonald's.

And one last thought. We need to learn how too cook. And cook really well. We need to learn how to cook yummy and colourful food. And then we need to teach those who can't cook. So that the kids will like to eat at home. That's the basis for healthy communities.

Window Farms

I think I have a critical nature and I like to question, poke, dig, unsettle. Too often my questioning leads me to negative results. Our world is corrupt. Cities are dirty. Farmlands are polluted. People are isolated. Animals are proclaimed extinct each day. Trees don't grow fast enough. Our children gain weight in alarming pace and we don't know whether we should feed them somethings else (like vegetables hidden in zucchini cake), or make them eat (choose) something else, or just leave them alone in fear we will cause eating disorders in ten or twenty years when these kids grow up. We gave up on the government. We don't even vote anymore. We hate our health care system and we have legitimate reasons for doing so. I can go on like this for a while, but I won't.

Why? Because once in a while I come accros something different. And then I am impressed. I am impressed when I see that people are doing something outside the box. I repeat: there are people who are doing (not only thinking about) something outside the box. Window Farms is an example. People grow gardens not only on a window sill, not only on the balcony, or rooftop. They grow vertical gardens in their windows. Think of a net of Christmas lights people hang in their windows. Now imagine having pots with edible plants in that net. You get the picture.

It started in New York with Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray and some plastic bottles and a group of friends who each added something to the contraption to make it more efficient. These people decided not to wait for new urban planning that would plan for larger backyards, community gardens etc. but they decided to do something with the resources and the little space that they had. These gardens are supposedly easy to make by non-experts. The plants grow in non-soil medium and are fed liquid nutrients. But most of all these people created a system for people to adapt and use and there is a support system, a network where people can connect and discuss and inform one another. The idea spread not only throughout New York, but outside the States, too. People in Europe are planting their vertical gardens in apartments, offices and other spaces in the heart of the city. I would call this a global community initiative. Urban vertical farming. Isn't that cool?

Take a look. Only 3.43 minutes.



When I see something like this I stop complaining. I am truly impressed. I am impressed by people's imagination, brilliant ideas, motivation and perseverance. And when I'm impressed my spirits lift.

I went shopping the other day and I passed by a rack with seeds and when I realized what I passed I reversed. I didn't know I could spend 30 minutes by a seed rack. There were too many to choose from.

I am not going to build a window farm this spring, but I will have a garden. On my windowsill (because I have one) and my balcony. Kasia's Little Garden will feature this coming season: Little Marvel Peas, Sparkler White Tip Radish and Buttercrunch Lettuce. Don't you just love these names?

Nurse Practitioner

Being in my fourth year and almost 'ready' to enter the health care system as a health care professional, I feel like I don't know much about other members of the health care team. This is especially true for nurse practitioner. You hear about nurse practitioners working in hospitals or as part of the new family health teams. What exactly do they do? How do they differ from registered nurses? I hope you're curious, too.

Here is some quick info. After some more or less in-depth research I found that nurse practitioners are registered nurses, but with advanced education and training. The position was created to increase access to primary health care for all Canadians, as nurse practitioners, in many cases, provide the same care as doctors, but for much less of the taxpayer's dollars. Registered nurses working in remote areas were often working independently and saw the need to expand their knowledge to be able to address the needs of communities they were working in. Today nurse practitioners can work autonomously or in collaboration with medical doctors and other health care professionals. In Canada, to become a nurse practitioner, the registered nurse needs to obtain a certificate or Master's Degree in Nursing. The additional education and training allows nurse practitioners to diagnose and treat minor illness and injury, prescribe medication, order X-rays and lab tests.

Recently, the U.S. introduced some changes in this field - the new practice doctorate degree, the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). As of 2015, DNP will be the necessary level of education for the designation of nurse practitioner. I need to note here that DNP is not a PhD. DNP is a practice doctorate and was created in the U.S. to provide a vehicle for nurses to prepare for practice not for research. This change has sparked a debate on the Canadian soil. Shall we do the same? The debate goes on. For more on this visit http://npcanada.ca/portal. And for more information of nurse practitioners go to http://www.npao.org/phcnp.aspx.

But what struck me personally was the act of creating a practice doctorate. Could dietetics have a practice doctorate, too? One that would provide for practice excellence instead of research excellence for those who want to stay within the community and without the obligation to produce scientific knowledge?

Such doctorate could have a potential of extending the authority of practicing dietitians within the clinical and community settings. I wonder, though, if there is room for it. As in nursing, opponents say that DNP will not result in better outcomes of care as it is already excellent.

I was told that there is always room for improvement...

Emergency

Picture this. You’ve been caring for your sick mother for the last 3 weeks. Last week you had to miss some classes or take few days off work, because her condition worsened. You keep telling her she needs to go to the hospital, she says “After my death.” She’s old school. She doesn’t really believe in doctors. In your culture it is very disrespectful not to listen to your mother or to do anything against her will. So you wait as she wilts in her own bed. You cook for her, you massage her feet, you assist her to the bathroom. You know she would be better off in the hospital, but you can’t make her go. You feel helpless. It’s not the first time this happened. It’s a chronic disease that reoccurs once in a while. Your mother has had five specialists so far and none of them approached your mother like a human being. They treated her like a case study. In isolation. As if your mother had no life outside of the doctor’s office. They disregarded her concerns about her diet, saying that it has nothing to do with the disease; they disregarded her concerns about side effects of medications she was prescribed, too. So your mother decided to stick to the old good herbal medicine and acupuncture. You can’t see much difference in your mother physical health, but she seems to feel better, at least psychologically and emotionally.

Few more days pass by and your mom is in such pain that she can’t take it anymore and she gives in. You take her to the emergency room. Your mother has high fever, enormous pain, she’s dehydrated, exhausted from sleepless nights of the last three weeks and you know she can’t think straight. When the nurse comes to talk to your mom, you automatically answer for her, because you’ve been there, you know what was happening to your mother, you know the exact symptoms, and you know that your mom can’t speak at this moment, because she’s in so much pain. The nurse asks your mom where it hurts, you mom points to her head. You add that she also has abdominal pain, because that’s where she most often hurts. The nurse doesn’t even look at you. She asks your mom if she had fever at home, you mom says she can’t remember, you say that she had fever for the last three days, on and off. The nurse looks at you and asks you who you are, you say you’re the daughter. The nurse nods and she asks your mother why she didn’t go to her doctor, your mother answers that she doesn’t have a doctor. You can see that your mother finds it hard to answer the question. You clarify that she does have a doctor but she is not happy with the care she’s receiving and she doesn’t want to go there anymore. The nurse looks at you and says “I’m sorry miss, but I would like to talk to your mother.”
How would you feel?

Lately, I have been thinking about patient-centred care, as it is being employed in family health teams. Patient-centred care is about involving the patient in decision making regarding the course of treatment, it involves two way communication, and its goal is improved quality of care and increased patient satisfaction. This already sounds great, but I would like to see this expanded to family-centred care. I have lived through, observed and heard similar stories as the one above where family member’s expertise was completely ignored by a health care professional, despite the fact that this expertise was of great value and could provide insight into the patient’s condition that could not be revealed by blood tests, X-rays or other medical tests.

I know I’m reinventing the wheel. Much has been said about this. I just wanted to draw your attention to it, perhaps again. Besides, lifestyle changes are more successful when family members are involved in the change. Let’s include the family, because the patient has a life outside of any office.

We have food labels, now what?

cartoon by Cathy Wilcox

(Don’t get scared by the length of this blog entry, just keep in mind that it took me more time to write it than it’s going to take you to read it. By the way, the best part is at the end. Just don’t scroll down, or you’ll miss the point.)

The majority of people who need nutrition/health advice are of low socioeconomic status, because the ones who are of high socioeconomic status already have a personal nutritionist and a personal trainer and a broad circle of affluent friends who are, for example, doctors. Besides, they read books on ‘extending their warranty’ (I saw this expression on an ad on the subway, promoting a book written by Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz), they have regular check ups, they attend yoga or tai chi classes to deal with stress and they understand and read nutrition facts tables when they go shopping to Loblaws or Sobeys. Their fridge is filled up with pre-cut fruits and vegetables and few times a week, if they don't have time to cook, they have lunch and dinner in gourmet restaurants that serve healthy local food accompanied buy local red wine that is good for their arteries. They are healthy. That's their status quo.

I'm not there yet. I'm hoping that one they I will be. But for now I buy spinach in bunches, instead of pre-washed and in a box. I buy a whole pineapple, instead of pineapple cubes. And I buy a whole bag of carrots, instead of the baby carrots. Why? Because they are cheaper. Oh, and I shop at No Frills and its yellow colours irritate me every time I go shopping. (I go to Sobeys for my freshly ground French Roast coffee and for stinky cheese, they have a pretty good selection, unlike No Frills).

What else... I don't watch TV. I don't read newspapers. I don't surf the internet beyond checking my e-mail, facebook, and occasionally some websites sent my way by my friends and family in the forms of links. My boyfriend cuts out interesting articles from Toronto Star and National Post for me, because he knows that otherwise I won't read them. He keeps me updated over dinner. I’m grateful to have him. The reason why I don't read or watch the news is simple - the news is always bad. I like to think that I live in a happy world. Either way it is not real, so what's the difference? I don't like to distort my perception about reality by watching what someone thought is interesting. While in reality it just sells the products advertised every 4 minutes or so. Yes, I miss a lot, you might argue, but I think I’m happier, and my boyfriend fills in my blanks.

Why does this matter? Because I'm not the only one who lives like this. So what? If I live in my own world and there are more like me out there and Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency come out with nutrition labels, like they did in 2003, how will they teach me about using them properly? They produced online resources, brochures, fliers etc. but what if none of these reach me? What if I am not interested or determined to find out on my own? What if there are hundreds, thousands of people like me?

I am asking this question from a point of view of a nutrition information communicator. How do we reach the masses with information that is so important for their own well-being?

Last week I learned in class that nutrition labels were targeted at the population at large. I actually needed to be told this to realise that the population at large doesn’t use food labels. I have assisted a dietitian a few times on shopping tours where she explained food labels to groups of people trying to lose weight. Being immersed in nutrition education for the last four years I was shocked to see that people were looking for cholesterol on nutrition facts table of orange juice. I realised how much people don’t know and I need to add that I don’t think it's entirely their fault.

I’m sure you’re dying to spend your Saturday night on finding out how to read food labels. People don’t have the time. Just like me. Ignore that I am nutrition student for a while. I am a student. I volunteer. I work. I cook for myself and my boyfriend, I have too much to read for school and too many essays to write, and I leave physical activity for the warmer months and I promise myself I will look into nutrition labels in the summer when the semester is done, because I don’t have time for this now and because I know that I should understand what they tell me. So summer comes and I am so sick and tired of internet and looking up materials for my essays and projects, I am so tired of textbooks that I would do anything but learn one more thing - about nutrition labels. I say tomorrow. And the summer passes and the new semester starts. And I doubt I will have more time when I graduate, get a job and start a family.

The people who badly need to know how to use food label are of lower socioeconomic status. This is because they are the ones who are often overweight or obese, stressed, maybe even depressed, and already sick with cardiovascular disease or diabetes and they don't have many friends who can help, because their friends are also poor, overweight or obese, sick, stressed and maybe even depressed. They often can’t care any less about food labels.

So how do we reach them? Word-of-mouth? It works best. Research supports this claim. We could make PowerPoint slides on food labels and send them to our friends and family just like we do with other PowerPoint slides on life wisdom and friendship.

Or…

Have you heard about SixthSense technology? I was introduced to it by no one else than my boyfriend. Pranav Mistry, the guy behind it is a genius. He took his computer apart and literally put it on to make it useful outside in the real world to a point where he makes a phone call dialling the phone number on the palm of his hand, or takes pictures with his fingers or goes to a store ‘wearing the computer’ and can see an online rating of a book he’s holding in his hands. He says he wants to make this technology available to masses, because it is very simple and cheap to make and use.

See for yourself, the video is 13 minutes long, but you really want to see this. (Remember that I don’t like to see unnecessary things, either). This one is worth it.



So I started thinking that perhaps just like he could see a book rating on a book he was holding right there standing in the store, one could also hear a description of a food product, whether it is healthy, high/low in fat, sodium or sugar. This could be revolutionary.

But until then, remember that when you’re looking at a nutrition facts table you start looking at the portion size, because the food industry has managed to hide calories using smallest portion sizes possible…

Who are 'They'?

We say: 'They need to do something about obesity. They need to do something with pollution. They need to do something with poverty. They... They... They... We say these things while we're munching on an oversized bag of chips, while we're driving SUV's and while we're guiltlessly passing by a homeless person pretending we don't own a wallet.

You might wonder where this is coming from. I went to visit my family on the weekend and when I walked in they were watching 'This Is It'. I still haven’t made up my mind what to think about Michael Jackson, but hearing a familiar song made me think it might be worth watching it. I was making myself comfortable on the sofa when Michael Jackson said something like... ‘We keep saying that they need to fix the Earth. Who are 'They'? It's 'Us', we need to fix the Earth.’ He didn't say those exact words but that's what he meant. And the Earth Song followed.

I'm not going to talk about Jackson here, but what he said got me thinking.

Why do we use the word 'They'? To draw a line which tells us where our responsibility ends? So that we can feel small enough to say I'm just one person, I can't do anything about it? So that we can blame our inactivity on the fact that there is an elevator in the building? So that we can blame it on the system? I don't exercise because I don't want to. I really don't. And I'm looking for every excuse not to. But I take the stairs, I walk, I run for the bus, I ride my bike for pleasure and I stretch at home when I feel like it.

Are we responsible for our own health? Often we’re not. The woman who took McDonald's to court for being fat comes to my mind.

I think that since ‘They’ are failing to keep us healthy we need to take over…

Being relatively new to Canada I’m still figuring out the Canadian health care system. Various illnesses of friends, family and my own familiarized me with walk-in clinics and hospitals. But I know I’m not the only one who sometimes doesn’t know where to go. According to 2006 census, one in five Canadians was born outside of Canada. In other words, one in five Canadians is an immigrant. There is a high chance they don’t know how the system works. They don’t know where to go for help. They don’t know what their options are. They - meaning immigrants. In 2003 Statistics Canada measured literacy levels among immigrants and found that an immigrant, on average, scores one level lower than a Canadian born in Canada. In my opinion not much has changed since 2003. So we, immigrants, tend not to speak English very well, if at all. Worse, we often don’t read or write in English. Houston... we have a problem.

Last year I discovered community health centres. And with them I discovered a whole new world, that I didn’t know existed. For example, free workshops on healthy eating, healthy cooking, physical activity, healthy pregnancy, breast feeding, self-esteem, and what not, all available to you in your local community health centre. Often, they take place in the evenings and are led by dietitians, nurses, social workers and other health care professionals. Often, there is a free childcare available to you, and occasionally they will even feed you. Also for free. They will give brochures in your language and sometimes they will even talk to you in your mother tongue. All you need to do is register and show up. What excuse do you have now?

And I'm not blaming the victim. I’m all about balance. All I'm saying is that there is something we can do. And I will end this with my latest favourite quote:

“I am only one, but still I am one.

I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;

and because I cannot do everything,

I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Hellen Keller