Page 21 - Florida Sentinel 2-5-16 (2)

Health
Avoid Food Safety Penalties This Super Bowl Sunday
Toxins In Store Items Can Affect Your Health... Here’s Help
To keep you and your guests food safe this Super Bowl, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspec- tion Service has pulled together the following key food safety plays.
• To escape a delay of game, use effective clock management with your food. Perishable foods should not be kept at room tem- perature for more than two hours. Switch out these items during half time to prevent the same foods from sitting out the whole game.
• Avoid a holding call by keep- ing hot food hot and cold food cold. Food should remain at a safe temperature and out of the “Danger Zone.” The Danger Zone is the temperature range between 40 °F and 140 °F where bacteria multiply rapidly.
• Avoid a false start by using a food thermometer to ensure that meat and poultry are cooked to a safe internal temperature.
o Raw beef, pork, lamb and veal should be cooked to 145°F with a three minute rest time.
o Raw ground beef, pork, lamb, and veal should be cooked to 160 °F.
o All cuts of poultry should reach at least 165 °F.
• Many cooks think they can finish their cooking play in the kitchen by checking the color and texture of meat or poultry.
The only way to safely know if
cooking is over and food is ready to eat is by using a food ther- mometer.
• Prevent an illegal use of the hands by making sure to thor- oughly wash your hands before starting to prepare food, after handling any raw meat or poul- try and trash, and after finishing cooking. Thoroughly wash hands by using hot water and soap for at least 20 seconds. “Splashing and dashing” doesn’t count.
Don’t let foodborne illness in- tercept your plans for the biggest Super Bowl ever celebrated.
Learn more about key food safety practices at foodsafety.gov and on Twitter @USDAFood- Safety. If you have questions, call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-674-6854 or chat live with a food safety spe- cialist at AskKaren.gov, M-F from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time. Information provided by the USDA.
With everyone’s hectic schedules, running in and picking up an item, esecially at a bargain - is something most of us do without much thought process. However, those Dollar store deals might look like a bargain from the outside: everything usually is a dollar or at least close to it. But looking at the harmful product ingredients, can turn out to be not a bargain after all.
Recent testing of dollar store products found that nearly 81% contained one or more hazardous chemicals. The tests, conducted by a third party consumer testing group, found chemicals associ- ated with cancer, obesity, diabetes, asthma, thyroid and kidney diseases, learning problems, lower IQ, birth defects and early puberty.
Here are 5 items you should think about buying from elsewhere.
1. Kitchen Dollar
Store Items - The black
solid color spoons, spatulas
and forks may contain high
levels of bromine, a compo-
nent in flame retardants or
BFRs. Though these are
added to make the products
resistant to fire, they have
been linked to cancer, birth defects and impaired brain development. That ingredient has effectively been phased out in the U.S. but they are still avail- able in these cheap, dollar store utensils.
What To Do: Use stainless steel or real wood utensils.
2. Plastic Silly Straws - Silly straws found in the dollar store have tested high for level of DEHP used in consumer products. Some phthalates interfere with the body’s endocrine system, and studies have linked them to asthma and aller- gies, prostate and testicular cancer and type 2 diabetes.
What To Do: Brands like “Silly Straws” and
non-plastic straws (look for recycled cardboard) are BPA and PVC free.
3. Electronic Accessories - Extension cords, USB charging cords and cell phone charges are something we all need, but maybe not from the Dollar Store. Those from your local dollar store tested high in chlorine, a sign that the items were made with a plastic called polyvinyl chloride or PVC.
PVC is made from vinyl chloride, a cancer-caus- ing chemical that has harmed workers and contam- inated communities close to the factories.
What To Do: Go to your local electronic or bat- tery store instead.
4. Vinyl Floor Coverings - Flexible, adhesive bath mats from dollar stores have tested high in both phthalates and chlorine. Exposures to these phthalates affect multiple parts of our bodies.
What To Do: Avoid any products labeled “vinyl” on the label.
5. Holiday Lights -
Shopping at the dollar store
during the holidays can save
us a lot of money, but at
what cost to our health?
There are high levels of chlo-
rine and bromine, including flame-retardant chem- icals in them have been linked to cancer and thyroid problems.
What To Do: When buying holiday lights, check the tags to make sure they are ROHS compliant.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 9-B