Please wash your hands

When I was 15 I got my first real job. I’d had babysitting jobs before that. And animal sitting jobs. Just never a job that someone wrote my name on a check. That job was at McDonald’s. It was a good first job. The people were nice and I enjoyed myself.

That’s where my food service career began. I spent the next twenty five years cooking in one restaurant or another. Most of the time I enjoyed it. There were occassions that I just thought I’d rather shovel manure than cook in another restaurant, but I always ended up back in the business. It’s what I do.

At the end of my career (I haven’t worked in almost a year now) I pretty much knew everything I needed to know about food handling and food safety. I spent the last almost decade working for the United States Beef Corporation also known as Arby’s. I was there for nine years.

Because I was in management, I was sent to ‘school’ often. I’d drive to Tulsa and attend classes given by a very entertaining man named Andrew. He was awesome. He made learning fun.

Once every two years I attended ServSafe classes. ServSafe classes are sponsored by the National Restaurant Association and teach the fundamentals of food safety. It’s an eight hour class with a no-time-limit test afterwards. If you passed the test you were certified and that was a plus to the health department. All the managers that worked for our company were required to take and pass the ServSafe class. If you didn’t pass it you had to come back. I never had that problem. As a matter of fact I was always the first person done and never scored lower than a 96. The last time I took it I scored a 99 and was done in a stunning 14 minutes. Andrew said it was a record.

The reason I’m telling you these things is because there is a food borne illness outbreak happening right now. I wasn’t aware of it until, like normal, I was reading the mornings headlines. I was scanning the page and the word salmonella jumped out at me. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta are investigating a salmonella outbreak that has caused illness in almost 400 people in 42 states.

Salmonella is a nasty food borne illness. It causes abdominal cramps, headaches, nausea, fever, diarrhea and sometimes vomiting. It can cause severe dehydration in infants and the elderly. The incubation period is 6 - 48 hours after you’ve been exposed. That means it can be two days after you eat the contaminated food before you show signs of illness.

The source of this disease can be from several places, including domestic and wild animals and humans. In people it’s source is the intestinal tract. That means someone didn’t wash their hands after using the restroom. Yuck. Please wash your hands…

Most people automatically think of chicken when they think of salmonella, and while it’s true chicken is a common source, there are other foods that are culprits. They include fish, shrimp, tofu, melons, tomatoes, raw sprouts and egg products like custard and pastry creams.

Those foods are by no means the only foods to be careful with. Salmonella can be present in many meats and different forms of produce. The best policy is to always follow safe food handling practices. The CDC does not know how this particular outbreak is spreading yet. Please don't forget about the tomatoes or the peanut butter. The peanut butter salmonella outbreak was in 2007 and was in a major name brand, Peter Pan, as well as the Walmart equal to that name brand.

Avoiding cross contamination, keeping foods at their proper temperatures and practicing good personal hygiene are the best ways to prevent a food borne illness in your house.

Don’t use the same knife on meat that you used on produce. Make sure you keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold and that you cook meats to at least 165 degrees for a minimum of fifteen seconds (this means when you insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the meat, the temperature stays steady on 165 degrees for 15 seconds). Don’t allow foods to remain at room temperature for more than two hours. If it does, throw it away. The loss of the food is much better than the illness you’ll have to suffer through if you decide to take that risk.

And wash your hands often! Hand washing is the single most important factor in safe food handling. Most people either don’t wash their hands at all or they don’t wash them properly. Just a quick splash under the water will NOT remove the offending bacteria. You don’t have to use antibacterial soap. To me that’s just a waste of money. Regular soap can do exactly the same thing as antibacterial soap if you wash properly.

Make sure you use hot water and that you scrub all the surface of your hands including under your fingernails. Fingernails are a great holder of bacteria. Another thing most people don’t think about is their jewelry. Rings with a lot of tiny places can hold and transfer bacteria too.

And last but not least, make sure you wash for the proper amount of time. A good trick to help you accomplish this is to sing happy birthday while you’re washing. Sing it all the way through and you’ll have spent a good two minutes washing. Perfect!

I hope these things I’ve learned help people to stay healthy in their cooking habits. They are easy and I promise after doing them for awhile you don’t even think about it anymore.

Click here to read the story about the CDC and the latest salmonella outbreak

It could have been SO much worse

When my daughter was in her infant and toddler years, her father and I lived basically in the middle of nowhere. We were surrounded by woods and a wonky, practically straight down hill that had a twisting road cut through the middle of it. There was a lot of wildlife. You could watch whole groups of animals cross that road if you were quiet and sat in just the right spot. There were bears, wolves, even a panther that stayed on top of that hill and screamed like a murder victim in the middle of the night. I thought they were beautiful creatures but I’m no fool, they were dangerous too.

So we kept guns. I loathe guns. I grew up with military parents and was made to learn how to shoot. Our father would take us out to our Uncle Alfred’s ranch and set up targets and we’d all take a turn. If we didn’t do well, we’d take three or four turns. Perfection was a big thing in my family growing up. But I learned and I can handle a gun if it’s required of me.

There were many weeks that I sat alone in that log cabin with a young baby as my only company. I had to protect her as much as I had to protect myself. So the guns were there. Luckily I never had to shoot anything although one time I did fire it into the air because a brown bear was on the hill directly next to the house. I could see it out the kitchen window! And I really didn’t want it to get comfortable there.

I don’t consider myself anti-gun even though I hate them. I believe there are times that a gun is the only answer. And I don’t consider myself pro-gun either. I’d rather not have one in my house and do not have one now that I live somewhere that all the animals are either in peoples houses or behind cages in the zoo.

I saw in the news where a four year old in Ohio shot his 18 year old babysitter because he stepped on his foot. The fact that he shot someone out of anger at four years old is a whole different story but for him to be able to get to a gun and actually shoot someone is shocking. Why wasn’t it locked up? We always kept the guns in a gun cabinet behind bulletproof glass (yes, I know) and two locks with the keys being kept in different very out of reach places. I just can’t imagine leaving open access to a weapon that causes death to any child of any age but especially with a four year old in the house.

They said in the story that no charges were being filed against the four year old. Well duh is all I can think of to say. At least in the video they suggested that the parents may be charged with something. Negligence maybe? I would think so. I know I’m not perfect, far from it actually. But I also know not to leave a gun sitting around LOADED just waiting for the accident that’s sure to follow. I’m glad the babysitter is ok and I hope these parents have learned a valuable lesson.

Things that make me wonder...

I’m a self-admitted news freak. And specifically an odd news freak. The weirder it is, the more I want to know. Because of that, as many of you already know, I’m constantly scanning the latest headlines. Often I come across things that interest me. Just as often I come across things that I just don’t understand. I try to understand. It just doesn’t happen.

I wonder how people can go into areas of the world that aren’t developed and look into the faces of starving children but not feed them. You know the people taking pictures, writing stories or traveling the world are eating. You know they are eating that day. Why don’t they give their food to those children instead of just pitying them?

I don’t understand how people who have more than they’ll ever need can walk right past someone who could desperately use their help. Even if it’s just a $2.00 hot meal or a $5.00 pair of shoes.

And what about clichés? People all over the world repeat them. But do they mean them? They say laughter is the best medicine, why don’t doctors write jokes for their patients instead of medicines that most people can‘t afford to pay for? How about ‘Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about’? um, aren’t I already crying? Or ‘The writing’s on the wall’… Where is this wall and why are we writing on it?

These are the kind of things that run through my mind all the time. It’s the way my mind works. If you want the perfect example of MY BRAIN it’s this: as I wrote the last two sentences I saw a little furry man running around inside by head, over the bumps and crevices of my actual brain, fiddling with the clockworks that turn and grind and make me think.

Now you’re thinking “this woman is crazy”. I know you are. It’s ok. I am a little crazy. I think the crazy part of me is what keeps me sane. And I enjoy it. It’s fun.

I’d like to leave you with one to think about: If a fool and his money are soon parted but money is the root of all evil, isn’t that a good thing he lost it? I wonder...