Archive for June, 2010

Keeping Food Safe This Summer

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

It’s summertime and the temperature is rising: Is your food safe to eat? We’re not going to insult your intelligence by reminding you not to leave your mayonnaise-based potato salad out in the sun, but… OK, maybe we are. Incidences of food-borne illness rise during the summer because more people are eating outdoors without the temperature control and sanitation conditions that we have in the kitchen. And getting sick from food-borne illness is not something we wish on anyone. So before you start setting up that picnic, here are a few friendly reminders for staying safe this summer:

Wash hands: This is a good rule no matter what time of year, but it’s especially important in the summer. Wash your hands properly before you start preparing food or eating it. If you’re outdoors at a park or in the woods, use hand sanitizer or even baby wipes – just make it a rule that everyone needs clean hands before the cooking and eating begins.

Wash fruits and veggies: We’ve gotten on this soapbox before, and we’re still convinced it’s a good rule, even for organics. You don’t know who has touched it, sneezed on it, stepped on it before your put your mouth on it. Plus, if you’ve ever bought a head of organic leafy greens from the farmers’ market, you know that there are probably some friendly little critters hiding between the leaves. So give your produce the benefit of the doubt and wash it out.

Pack it safe: If you’re heading away from home with a picnic on the go, make sure that you keep everything at the proper temperature. Pack your ham and turkey sandwiches and mayonnaise-based salads on ice so that they stay cold and fresh. If you’re bringing a warm dish, pack it in an insulated carrier so that it stays warm until you get there (and then toss the leftovers that sit around at the outdoor temperature.) If you won’t have access to ice and coolers, pack fruit and veggies, crackers, dry cereal, hard cheeses, dried meats, and/or peanut butter.

Keep raw stuff separate: When you pack your cooler, if you’re bringing raw meat or chicken to cook, make sure that it is sealed and separate from the other foods you will eat. And if you use a plate for the raw meat, don’t re-use it for the cooked meat unless it’s been thoroughly cleaned with soap and hot water.

Cook it all the way: Cook your chicken until the juices run clear, and don’t leave your burgers raw in the center. Really. Yes, we agree that it tastes better when it’s pink, and it’s sad that meat isn’t what it used to be, but there’s no sense putting yourself or your kids at risk.

Keep it cold: If you’re outdoors, keep the cold food in a cooler, preferably in the shade. Also, put the drinks in a separate cooler from the food, especially if the drink cooler will be opened more often. If the food will be sitting out on a table, the rules are even stricter: According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, food left out of refrigeration for more than two hours may not be safe to eat. If the temperature is over 90 degrees, food may not be safe to eat for more than one hour.

When in doubt, throw it out: Sorry to say this, especially given how much we hate the idea of wasting food, but the alternative (getting sick) is so much worse. Keep food cold whenever you can; and when you can’t, you have to just let it go.

Posted Under: Hygiene, Nutrition | Tags: , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on June 29th, 2010

Fun Food Saturday: Food on a Stick

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Why put your food in little piles on your plate when you can line it all up on a stick? There’s something about having your food in linear form that seems to appeal to our inner sense of order. Plus, it’s more fun to eat that way.

When we started contemplating food on a stick, our first question was what kind of stick would be appropriate (and safe). Just about every recipe we came across used bamboo or wooden skewers (which you need to soak in water for 30 minutes if you’re going to put on the grill). We’ve heard about fun foods served on sticks of sugar cane, but that might be a little impractical for most neighborhood shoppers. One alternative is to make slightly shorter treats using jumbo toothpicks (extra points if you use the ones with the fancy decoration on the end). But no matter what kind of skewering instrument you use, you’ll need to be extra-careful when giving them to small children – and make sure they don’t try to use them as weapons once they’ve eaten the food.

For our first food-on-a-stick experiment, we decided to start with breakfast. Our Twitter buddy Shannon Carino came up with these yummy Breakfast Kebabs made with French toast and fruit. For best results, make sure that the French toast is cooked well (i.e. not gooey in the middle) so that it doesn’t fall apart on the stick. Similarly, use chunks of fruit or berries that are firm so that they slide on (and off) easily.

At lunchtime, we decided to go for sandwich kebabs, like the ones here at Mixing Bowl Kids (which is now Family Bites). These kebabs have chunks of cheese, bread, and folded slices of salami. Of course you can change around any of the ingredients if you’d prefer something different (turkey or chicken instead of salami; change out the cheese; add tomatoes – you get the picture). We kind of like the idea of sneaking something unexpected on the skewer (a chunk of cucumber? some bell pepper strips?) that your kid might just eat by accident (whoops!).

When snacktime rolls around, we have just the thing you’ll want to have on hand. For these Mini Frozen Grape Kebabs from Big Red Kitchen, all you have to do is skewer some grapes on a toothpick (they use red grapes but we’re sure green grapes would be fine too) and stick them in your freezer. Then, after everyone comes inside from the summer heat looking for a cool snack…Voila! You’ve got these frozen little jewels that they can just pop in their mouths.

For dinner and dessert, you can just fire up the grill and serve the “original” foods on a stick – hot dogs and marshmallows. Throw in a skewer or two of grilled vegetables and grilled fruits (pineapples, peaches) and you’ve got yourself a whole day’s worth of food on a stick.

Fun Food Saturday: Because food should be fun.

Posted Under: Just For Fun, Nutrition | Tags: , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on June 26th, 2010

In Defense of Ice Cream

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

OK, so yesterday we were a little bit down on some of the sweet treats of summer. But we’re not total killjoys. Today we’re going to sing the praises of that good old-fashioned summer treat, ice cream.

We started thinking about ice cream the other day when we heard a pediatric dentist come and speak to a group of kids. She declared that ice cream was “thumbs down” and yogurt was “thumbs up.” We were left with a vision of kids downing Gogurt after Gogurt (10 grams of sugar in every 2.25-ounce tube) rather than having a “treat” of a simple scoop of vanilla ice cream (14 grams of sugar in a 4-ounce or half-cup serving). After hearing this, we’re starting to get the feeling that many parents are likely to say, “No, you can’t have ice cream, but you can have yogurt, fruit leather, teddy grahams, raisins, Honey Nut Cheerios or [insert your favorite sugary treat here] instead.”

Where’s the perspective? When you line up some of those others, is a scoop of ice cream really so bad? One thing we worry about is “treat creep,” in which the real treats are demonized, but the substitute treats seem to get worse and worse. For example, why would fruit leather (a sugary, chewy, tooth-destroying snack) be a more “appropriate” treat for a kid than a scoop of ice cream?

Let’s be clear about one thing: When we talk about ice cream, we’re not talking about, say, Cold Stone Creamery Peanut Butter ice cream (33 grams sugar, 28 grams fat per 170-gram serving according to Nutrition Data) topped with brownie bits and M&Ms. We’re not advocating that you start serving desserts instead of regular meals. But if your kids are looking for a sweet treat, a scoop of ice cream isn’t all that bad. You’ll get a little bit of protein and a bit of calcium with each serving, and if you choose lower-fat or low-sugar varieties, the nutritional picture will look even better.

Plus it is summertime, after all. Doesn’t a scoop of ice cream sound really, really good right now? Go on, have some. We say it’s OK.

Posted Under: Nutrition, Parenting | Tags: , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on June 23rd, 2010
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