©iStockphoto.com - LilliDay

If  you’ve tried green smoothies, consider taking the green content up a notch with a blended salad. While green smoothies are more fruit than greens, a blended salad is primarily greens, combined with other vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower and enough water to facilitate blending. Depending on the vegetables and the amount of added water, a blended salad may have a consistency anywhere between babyfood and a creamy soup. For the smoothest consistency with the least added water, blend the additional vegetables into a puree before adding the greens to the blender.

Blended salads have many of the same health benefits as green smoothies. In fact, with more greens and less naturally sweet fruit in them, blended salads may be even better for those watching their sugar intake from naturally occurring sources and additives. A small amount of healthy fat aids in the absorption of vitamins and minerals from the greens, so many blended salads include avocado or a small amount of cold-pressed olive or flax oil. Here are a few of our favorite blended salad recipes.

Green Flag Blended Salad

Blended salads aren’t always the most aesthetically pleasing dishes. Blending carrots, beets or tomatoes with leafy greens has about the same chromatic effect as when your child mixes the orange and green paints during arts and crafts time, and is not the best way to start off on blended salads. This recipe uses only green and pale vegetables, to avoid the odd colors that can come with some blended salads, making it a great recipe to use introducing your friends and family to blended salads. It also only uses basic salad vegetables and seasonings, so it doesn’t jolt tastebuds with un-salad-like flavor.

• Green leaf lettuce
• 1 cucumber
• 1 stalk celery, cut in chunks
• 1 teaspoon each extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar

Creamy Guac Blended Salad

Avocado emulsifies blended salads, giving them a creamy consistency. This blended salad is reminiscent of guacamole, without the unhealthy fried corn chips!

• Baby spinach
• Avocado, peeled
• Tomato
• Onion
• Garlic
• Hot pepper

Raw Bloody Mary Blended Salad

• Tomato
• Parsley
• Celery
• Red bell pepper
• Apple cider vinegar

©iStockphoto.com - David H. Lewis

After watching a recent episode of Oprah, I have become increasingly interested in knowing where my food comes from and knowing exactly what is in the products that I eat. Featured on that particular episode was Micheal Pollan, the author of several food-related books. As soon as the hour-long episode ended, I logged on to Amazon and ordered Pollan’s newest book, Food Rules. Since the day my order arrived in the mail, I have become more conscious of my eating and have improved the eating habits of some of my most stubborn family members. This slim, 139-page book has changed my life, and it has the power to improve the diets of any family willing to open the paperback.

Unlike many nutritional articles and books, Pollan’s Food Rules is written for the average person, not a scientist. The language is easy to understand, the reasoning makes sense, and the rules are realistic. The book is divided into three sections, each answering people’s most daunting dietary concerns: what to eat, what types of foods to eat, and how to eat. In each of these sections, Pollan provides practical policies to help people bypass the “edible foodlike substances” and eat real food.

In addition to improving one’s health, the tips are eco-friendly. Pollan takes us back to the basics of eating and relieves the stress of counting calories, fat, and sugar intake. Even children can learn how to eat better from Pollan’s brilliantly crafted book. The clever yet straightforward rules such “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of milk” and “Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce” are effortless enough for people of all ages to comprehend and to implement.

Not only is Food Rules a must-read on every adult’s list, but it is also a reference book to educate our children and to improve the diets of our entire families. Instead of prohibiting our children from eating sugary treats and potato chips, empower the younger generation by educating them on healthy choices and letting them practice their own decision-making. If you want to simplify your dietary stresses, improve your health, reduce your carbon footprint, and empower your children, clear off a space on your bookshelf and purchase Pollan’s Food Rules. In as few as seven words, your life and health could be changed forever.

Tell us, what are your food rules?

Photo Credit: Gary Stolz/ US Fish and Wildlife Service

Although garter snakes as a group are the most common reptile in the U.S., a few of the 13 recognized subspecies of garter snakes are endangered and require conservation plans to manage their populations. The most common pressure threatening garter snake populations is habitat loss. Snakes will live in close proximity to humans, but they need suitable habitat for their semi-aquatic lifestyle, which requires a sunny area for basking and a year-round wet area like a pond, marsh or stream edge. They also need prey, and some subspecies are more picky about dinner than others.

Living in close proximity to humans presents other survival dangers for threatened garter snake subspecies. Roads that warm up before the surrounding ground make good basking areas, until the snake becomes roadkill. Living in suburban yards puts snakes at risk of being run over by lawnmowers. Conversion of snake habitat to agricultural purposes may expose the snakes to agricultural chemicals or alter the surrounding wetlands to reduce prey. Rare garter snakes living in vacant urban lots are susceptible to trapping to be kept as pets, either by the person catching them or for sale on the illicit pet market. Trade in threatened and endangered snakes is for the most part prohibited, but collectors may flout the rules to acquire a rare specimen. While being kept as a pet may actually extend the individual snake’s lifespan, it removes the animal from the breeding population. The one snake may live, but at the expense of producing dozens of offspring. Particularly for these endangered garter snakes, keeping a diverse breeding population in a safe habitat is essential for their subspecies survival.

San Francisco Garter Snake

The San Francisco Garter Snake has been on the Endangered Species List since 1967. The snakes’ propensity to flee into water when disturbed makes an accurate count difficult, but ecologists estimate the population at only 1,000-2,000 snakes in California’s San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, with habitat loss from development the major threat pressuring the population. Expanding agricultural and urban land use eats into the snakes’ native habitat.

San Francisco Garter Snakes prey preferentially on California red-legged frogs, which are themselves a registered threatened species, setting up a real-world example of the conservation quandary, “What do you do when one endangered species eats another?” Conservation plans for the frogs and snakes are largely independent of one another; however, both rely significantly on reducing habitat destruction, so what helps one species may help the other.

Butler’s Garter Snake

Butler’s Garter Snake is on the short side for a garter snake, usually less than two feet long, and ranges from central Ohio through Indiana, Michigan and Ontario, Canada. While their range extends farther than the San Francisco Garter Snake, the actual populations are isolated from each other within the range. Isolated populations lose genetic diversity and gradually become weaker.

Compounding the Butler’s garter snake’s habitat isolation, the individual snakes don’t move very far. Most are found within about 175 feet of water, in wetlands or fields that remain reliably moist. When a wetland gets cut off from adjacent swamps or streams by being drained or filled in for development, the snake population in that particular wetland will likely stay isolated.

The results of a 2009 survey evaluating the vaccine safety concerns of American parents was recently published in the journal Pediatrics (1). Out of the approximately 1500 parents, who took the survey, 23% believe that vaccines cause autism in healthy children. But more than 50% were worried about serious adverse health effects of vaccination. The vast majority said they believe that getting vaccines is a good way to protect children from disease and follow their doctor’s recommendations. Still, more than 30% of those surveyed believe that parents should have the right to refuse vaccines that are required for school for any reason.

Most parents want to trust what their doctors tell them about vaccination. Mothers and fathers depend upon their doctors to give them good advice; but when the health of their child or a child they know deteriorates after vaccination (2), parents logically start to ask questions. And when they are belittled or even threatened for asking those questions, (3, 4) the relationship between doctor and parent is never the same again.

Parents asking questions about vaccine safety is nothing new. Although in the past decade there has been a focus on whether a mercury preservative in vaccines, perhaps in combination with the MMR vaccine, can cause autism in some children, the public conversation about vaccine risks and flaws in vaccine science and policy began in the early 1980’s (5). Back then, it was parents of DPT vaccine injured children calling for a less toxic whooping cough vaccine to replace an old one causing brain inflammation, brain damage and death.

We worked with Congress on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (6), believing that this historic law would provide a safety net for children harmed by vaccines. We believed that the informing, recording and reporting requirements for doctors in that law would reduce the numbers of children, who died or became chronically ill and disabled after vaccination.

Little did we know that - even though $2 billion dollars has been paid to families with vaccine injured children under that law - only one out of three vaccine victims are ever financially compensated (7 8). This, while drug companies making and selling vaccines have been almost completely protected from product liability (9, 10). Other pharmaceutical products, like Vioxx (11), are not protected from liability and they are not mandated for school attendance like vaccines. Perhaps that is why there are far more black box warnings on drugs (12, 13) than on vaccines (14).

A quarter century after the Vaccine Injury Act was passed, nothing has been done yet to conduct the kind of vaccine science that will give us answers about which children are at higher risk than others for dying or being brain injured by vaccination so their lives can be spared (15, 16, 17). Whether industry or government will ever do that good vaccine science (18) is an outstanding question. But that does not mean that we, the people, cannot raise the money to do it. That is why the National Vaccine Information Center, www.nvic.org is creating an independent vaccine safety research program to study long term health outcomes of those who do and do not get vaccinated (19).

Public trust is fragile. When what the people are being told about vaccine safety does not match what they are experiencing in their own lives, doubt grows and trust fades.

The American public still has fresh memories of the aggressive lobbying campaign for mandatory HPV vaccination of all sixth grade girls (20). And the 2009 H1N1 swine flu emergency declaration 21 that turned out to be the mildest influenza season in decades (22), followed by the new federal recommendation that every American from birth has to get a flu shot every year (23), is also fresh in our memory.

More and more Americans are becoming painfully aware that their medical bills, taxes and health insurance premiums are going up because, today, 1 in 6 highly vaccinated child in America is learning disabled; 1 in 9 has asthma; 1 in 100 develops autism; 1 in 450 becomes diabetic and 7 in 1,000 babies born alive are dying before their first birthday (24, 25). With 69 doses of 16 vaccines being given to children from birth through age 18 (26) and hundreds of new vaccines being developed (27) to prevent infectious disease while trillions of dollars are being spent to treat chronic disease, 28 is it any wonder more parents are asking more questions about vaccine safety?

And is it any wonder that more Americans want the legal right to make vaccine choices as drug companies and public health officials encourage legislators to pass laws that electronically track medical records and attach penalties for those who fail to get every government recommended vaccine (29)?

There is no more important task before those responsible for ensuring the public health than addressing parental concerns about vaccination with better science and not with better press releases and more mandates.

Please support the work of the National Vaccine Information Center (30) and other parent-led organizations (30, 31, 32, 33), who have been educating the public for many years about vaccination and health and defending your right to make informed, voluntary vaccine choices for yourself and your children.

Sources

1. Freed GL, Clark SJ et al. Parental Vaccine Safety Concerns in 2009. Pediatrics: April 4, 2010 (Vol 125, No. 4).

2. International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. National Vaccine Information Center.

3. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall. National Vaccine Information Center.

4. Associated Press. Most parents back vaccines, though many believe autism link. Washington Post. March 1, 2010.

5. Coulter HL, Fisher BL. DPT: A Shot in the Dark. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985.

6. National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL 99-660).

7. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Health Resources & Services Administration. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Statistics Report.

8. Fisher BL. Vaccine Injury Compensation: A Failed Experiment in Tort Reform? Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines. November 18, 2008.

9. Department of Health & Human Services. Coverage Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act for H1N1 Vaccination.

10. Mair JS, Mair M. Vaccine Liability in the Era of Bioterrorism. Medscape Today. October 28, 2003.

11. Food and Drug Administration. Vioxx (rofecoxib) Questions & Answers. September 30, 2004.

12. Black Box Warnings.

13. Food and Drug Administration. Medwatch. 2010 Safety Alerts for Human Medical Products.

14. Centers for Disease Control. Recalled Vaccines.

15. Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Research Needs – Perspective from Parents. Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum. April 1, 1996.

16. Fisher BL. Vaccine Research Needs. Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee. January 11, 2001.

17. Fisher BL. Vaccine Safety Research Priorities: Engaging the Public. National Vaccine Advisory Committee. April 11, 2008.

18. National Vaccine Advisory Committee. Recommendations on the Centers for Disease Control Immunization Safety Office Draft 5-Year Scientific Agenda. June 2, 2009.

19. National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Launches Research Fund to Study Health & Vaccination. October 12, 2009.

20. Gardner A. Drugmaker Assists in Pushing for Mandate for HPV Vaccination. Washington Post. February 11, 2007.

21. National Vaccine Information Center. H1N1 Swine Flu: What About You & Your Family?

22. McKay B. The Flu Season That Fizzled. Wall Street Journal. March 2, 2010.

23. Stobbe M. Panel Recommends Flu Shots for Nearly Every American. Associated Press. February 21, 2010.

24. Fisher BL. References for Vaccine Safety Research Priorities: Engaging the Public. National Vaccine Advisory Committee. April 11, 2008.

25. DeNoon DJ. Infant Mortality: US ranks 29th. WebMd. October 15, 2008.

26. Centers for Disease Control. 2010 Child & Adolescent Immunization Schedules.

27. US National Institutes of Health. Directory of Clinical Trials (Vaccines).

28. The Milken Institute. An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease. October 2007.

29. Fisher, BL. Electronic Medical Records Tracking Systems & Privacy. Letter to Assistant Secretary for Planning & Evaluation, Department of Health & Human Services. February 15, 2000.

30. NVIC.org. Donation Page.

30. Vaccine Risk Awareness Network (Canada) founded by Edda West.

31. Australian Vaccine Network and Living Wisdom Magazine founded by Meryl Dorey.

32. Vaccination News founded by Sandy Gottstein.

33. The One Click Group (UK) founded by Jane Bryant.

ⓒ iStockPhoto - TriggerPhoto

A sunflower room provides a living outdoor playroom for kids in the summer which can be expanded and moved each summer. Plant the sunflower room as soon as the danger of frost has passed in your area (consult your local cooperative extension for safe planting dates) and the kids can enjoy their own private outdoor enclave all summer. As a bonus, the best variety of sunflowers to use for a sunflower room, Mammoth Russian, also produce some of the most delicious sunflower seeds for snacking.

You can plant a sunflower room straight in the lawn without suffocating the grass or using weed killer. You can either carefully cut the grass around and between the sunflowers with a string trimmer or weedwhacker, or just let it grow longer for the summer on that patch. If you do decide to kill off the grass inside the sunflower room, we suggest distilled white vinegar, which kills the vegetation but is safe for use around children’s and pets’ play areas.

Planning A Sunflower Room

Sunflowers require full sun, so situate the sunflower room in an area that receives sun for a minimum of 6 hours a day. Eight or more hours is better. Any sunny spot on the south or west of the house will do. Make sure it’s a spot in the yard where you don’t mind having long grass or a potential bare spot from foot traffic. If the kids wear the grass down, you can reseed the patch in fall or spring.

To lay out the sunflower room, mark off a circle 4-5 feet in diameter using a rope or garden hose to lay out the location of the room’s “walls.” Stick stakes - bamboo or recycled tree or shrub trimmings work equally well - at regular intervals around the perimeter of the circle, about a foot apart, making sure to leave a doorway. The stakes serve double duty, marking the plants so you don’t accidentally mow them while they’re small, and supporting the plants as they grow. A 4-foot diameter circle will need about 12 sunflowers spaced at 1-foot intervals to complete the circle. In this stage of the project, you can sneak in a little math or geometry lesson for kids who are ready for that.

Planting the Sunflower Room

Sunflowers grow fairly quickly and can be direct-sown as seeds or started indoors. The main benefit to starting sunflowers indoors is that you can keep the seeds away from birds and rodents, who tend to see un-germinated sunflower seeds as food. Starting the sunflowers indoors uses the same process as our windowsill herb garden.

If you’re planting seeds directly, simply poke a small hole, about one inch deep, in the soil, straight through the grass, and drop a seed in the hole. Pinch the divot closed. Since some seeds may fail to germinate, plant a cluster of 3 seeds an inch or two apart around each of the stakes. When the seeds have developed 2-3 sets of true leaves, thin the young plants to the strongest seedling at each position.

If you have started your sunflowers indoors, use a trowel to dig out a plug of sod approximately the size of the starter container, a couple of inches away from the stake. Remove the sunflower and soil ball from the starter container and drop the transplant into the hole. Fill in any gaps around the transplant with soil, and toss the bit of sod into the compost heap.

Caring for Your Sunflower Room

Whether you’re using seeds or transplants, water the newly-planted sunflower room well after planting. Once the plants are established, the regular watering of the grass should give the sunflowers all the water they need. If you don’t regularly irrigate your lawn, water the sunflowers supplementally so they get at least an inch of water a week total, between rainfall and irrigation.

As the sunflowers grow taller, they often need supported. Tie the stems of the sunflowers to the stakes every 8-10 inches, making sure to tie the twine loosely so you don’t constrict the plant. Remember, you’re just trying to keep the stem from falling over, not trying to take it hostage or keep it from moving around at all.

One note of caution: bees are attracted to sunflowers in bloom, and sunflowers do put out pollen. If your child is sensitive to bee venom or seasonal allergies, you may want to pass on this project.

©iStockphoto.com - Patryk Galka

We all want to make a difference, and to encourage our children to help others who are less fortunate. These days, though, it’s hard to feel like we can. Often we’re overwhelmed by the magnitude of destruction caused by earthquakes, or we worry that charity is only a short-term help. And as far as kids go, many places won’t let them volunteer because of insurance reasons. A concept called microlending, however, lets you make a direct difference in someone’s life, for a small amount of money - small enough that your kids can even do it themselves with saved-up allowance money.

Microlending is the private lending of small loans to poor people with valid business ideas. Often these people do not have the personal worth to be served by a bank or apply for credit. Bypassing the banking system and lending them money directly allows poor people with entrepreneurial drive or unused skills to make a step out of poverty. The loans can be for as low as $20, and can go towards things ranging from the buying of livestock to purchasing raw materials for crafts and manufacturing.

Sites such as Kiva use the internet to help lenders match their money with individuals needing loans. They also help people put their money together to make group loans to individuals. Aside from helping connect generous lenders with motivated, hard-working people around the world, microlending organizations help create a world-wide community. According to Kiva.org, “By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing support and encouragement of one another.”

Many of the beneficiaries of the loans are women in poor countries, who for the most part pay back their loans and invest most of their profits into their children’s education. Here are a few examples from Ghana, from the Kiva site: Gladys trades in plantain and is using her loan to buy in bulk; Elizabeth is divorced with six children (all in school), and is using her loan to buy jewels in bulk to trade in neighboring communities; Mary designs and sews dresses when she is not training her apprentices and is using her loan to buy fabrics and other accessories in bulk.

For parents, microlending is a great way to teach their kids the value of money as well as a little bit of geography. For the price of an iTunes album, a child can help someone homeless open up a restaurant, buy livestock to feed themselves and their community. A picture book called “One Hen - How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference” by Katie Smith Milway describes how a boy named Kojo turns the loan for one hen into a thriving business. It’s a colorful book that will appeal to younger children while teaching older ones about economics and the power of investing in others.

©iStockphoto.com - SharonDay

I discovered kale chips while looking for something to satisfy a crispy snack craving during a period of low-carb eating. I’ve eaten low carb off and on since 2003, and unless you buy into deep-fried pig skin as a healthy snack option, low carb just isn’t a very crispy diet. Celery and other raw vegetables can satisfy a need to crunch, but as I quickly learned on my first low-carb experience, crunchy isn’t the same as crispy. After a few weeks, I missed that crumble-in-your-mouth feeling of chips and crackers. Crispy kale fills that dietary void.

Variations on crispy kale abound, often with names that attest to the somewhat addictive nature of kale baked until crispy. This disappears quickly around my house, often straight off the baking sheet. After one experimental batch made for a brown-bag lunch, I found that crispy kale doesn’t stay crisp overnight, but you can re-crisp it. Another five minutes in the oven after it gets limp, and crispy kale is good as new.

Crispy Kale Chips

1 bunch kale (curly or flat)
2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt, to taste, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 F and position an oven rack in the middle.

Wash the kale and dry thoroughly. Tear the kale off the midribs and into bite-sized pieces. The more evenly sized the pieces, the more evenly the kale cooks. Uneven pieces result in some burnt chips and some underdone chips in the same batch.

Place the kale in a large bowl and drizzle the olive oil over the leaves. Toss to coat. To ensure a thorough coating of all the leaf surface, particularly with curly kale varieties, get your hands in there and rub the leaves to get oil over all the leaf surface, and moisturize your hands at the same time. For an extra tasty kale chip, use a flavored oil. Kale with garlic chili oil is a favorite with my family.

Spread the kale pieces on a baking sheet. Try not to heap more than a couple of leaves deep to ensure even crisping.

Bake on the center oven rack for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. The kale is done when it’s crumbly and bright green with hints of brown around the edges. Particularly on metal baking sheets, the parts of the leaves in direct contact with the baking sheet cook much faster than the parts in the air, so stir and flip the leaves frequently to ensure even cooking. Crispy kale goes from “done” to “burnt” quickly, so keep a vigilant watch as it’s cooking.

When the kale is done, sprinkle salt or other powdered seasoning to taste, if desired.

ⓒ Janet Harriett

This hearty vegan soup comes together in less than 20 minutes, and prewashed bagged kale makes this super-quick dinner even quicker. Add a loaf of crusty whole grain bread, and you’ve got a light, filling meal fast. As a soy-free alternative to the tofu, use 2 cups precooked (one can, rinsed and drained) garbanzo beans.

Unlike many soups, this one does not hold up well to long simmering times or reheating as leftovers the next day. The flavor will be fine, but the kale turns that unappetizing shade of greenish-brown characteristic of overcooked leafy greens.

Kale Stew

1 pound kale
2 cups vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans (14-16 ounces each) diced tomatoes in juice, undrained
1 block firm tofu, cut in cubes

Remove the tough center rib from the kale and chop into bite-sized pieces.

Place the vegetable broth, kale and garlic in a large saucepan. The kale cooks down quickly, so you can pack it in as tightly as you need to for it to fit, as long as you can still get the lid to stay on. Turn to high heat just until the broth boils and starts sending steam up through the kale leaves, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook the kale 10 minutes, until it is wilted and tender, but still bright green.

Add the canned tomatoes with liquid to the kale and stir to combine. Stir in the tofu, heat through and serve.  Makes about 4 main-dish servings.

©iStockphoto.com - gbrundin

A new analysis by the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University pegs the cost of foodborne illnesses at $152 billion (with a B) a year. To put that in perspective, the study calculates that the financial impact of bad food in a year is more than the combined proposed 2010 budgets for the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services ($78.7 billion), Agriculture ($26 billion) and Homeland Security ($42.7 billion). The estimate includes direct expenses of medical care and payments from health insurers as well as the indirect costs ranging from missed work to premature death.

While we may not have much control over what germs and viruses are on our food when we get it, some simple food safety tips can keep your family from being a foodborne illness statistic.

Source Foods from Trusted Growers

Whenever possible, get your food from growers you trust. Smaller-scale agriculture is less likely to combine meat or produce from multiple animals or farms, giving you fewer potential sources of foodborne contamination.

If You Eat Meat, Cook it Thoroughly

Heat destroys many foodborne pathogens. Cooking meat, poultry and eggs until they’re well done - cooked hard for eggs - can prevent foodborne illness even if the food was initially contaminated.

Wash Your Produce

About a quarter of the foodborne illness outbreaks were traced back to produce, which often doesn’t get cooked before consuming. The spinach, tomato and bagged salad scares are beginning to be a feature of summer as expected as swim lessons. Other studies have shown that even prewashed bagged vegetables were susceptible to contamination with organisms that cause foodborne illness. The best bet is to wash all of your produce thoroughly. Use multiple changes of water with leafy greens, and scrub vegetables as hard as their peels can take. Even if you don’t eat the rinds or peels, wash the produce, since the act of peeling and slicing may transfer pathogens to the edible part of the fruit. Cantaloupe can harbor pathogens in the rind webbing nooks, which spread to the flesh as a knife plunges through. If an orange has something on the peel, the germ can be all over your hands by the time you start breaking the sections apart.

Use Safe, Tested Canning Methods for Home Preserving

The 1/4 of cases of foodborne illness attributed to produce included both fresh and canned produce. Improper home canning procedures, including using open kettle methods, water-bath canning low-acid vegetables and failing to proess jars long enough at high enough temperatures to kill pathogens, opens your family up to foodborne illness. Every year, a report or two of botulism from improperly home-canned green beans surfaces, and botulism is one of the most expensive foodborne illnesses, working out almost a quarter million dollars per case in hospital and medical costs, and the projected costs of premature deaths from botulism, according to the Georgetown report.

Home canning your farmers market or homegrown produce is a great way to save money and provide your family with nutritious, additive-free fruits and vegetables year-round, but be sure to use safe canning methods. County extension offices offer publications with the latest tested recipes, and Ball Blue Book has recipes tested safe, too. Even if generations never got sick off the uncooked open-kettle jam or water-bath canned carrots, they’re not worth the risk when safe, tested methods are available. Even if you use safe canning methods, inspect jars for signs of spoilage before using.

Avoid Cross-Contamination

Foodborne illness may strike when a pathogen that is killed in cooking is reintroduced after cooking or spread to an uncooked portion of the meal. Separate raw foods from cooked, using separate plates for transferring raw meat to a pan or grill. Immediately place utensils and cutting boards used for raw meats in the sink or dishwasher, and get another clean plate for serving. Never cut raw veggies on a cutting board used for meats without sanitizing the board first. Wipe up spills of raw meat juices immediately.

Wash Your Hands Frequently During Food Prep

As you cook, get in the habit of washing your hands after you touch uncooked meat or poultry.

Store Leftovers Properly

Foodborne pathogens multiply prolifically in the 40-140 degree temperature range, right between the temperature of your fridge and oven. To keep foodborne bacteria counts low, refrigerate food promptly, using shallow containers so foods cool quickly to the center. Once food is cool, you can transfer to more space-saving containers. Never leave leftovers out on the table or stove after the meal. Don’t thaw foods on the countertop, either.