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...