Health and Medical Information

Archive for October, 2008

Cleanliness in the kitchen is one of the most important things that you can train yourself to practice if you want to keep not only a healthy home, but also a slightly more padded wallet. The medical issues that can come about because of moldy or spoiled food in your refrigerator are not pleasant in any way and if they are severe or common enough, it can start to drain your bank account. Salmonella poisoning is not fun to deal with and it can possibly lead to death if you are not careful, but one of the most commonly occurring things that you do not want in your refrigerator is mold.

Mold starts to grow inside jelly jars or tubs of sour cream after they have been in your refrigerator for a while and if you are in the habit of buying a larger jar of something that you need, try buying a smaller one if it exists. Also clean out your refrigerator of outdated and spoiled items often.

One of the most important things that you can do to keep a clean kitchen is to keep a clean and well organized refrigerator. Keep Ziploc bags to store things like meat that do not have re-sealable containers, such as packs of bologna that you have to cut open with a knife. The longer a food remains uncovered, the sooner it will dry out and no one will want to eat it except the mold and bacteria that exist in your refrigerator. The unwanted top piece is left in the refrigerator in the hopes that someone else will eat it, but this rarely happens.

Produce like vegetables and fruits that are put into plastic sacks when you are gathering them in the produce aisle at the grocery store should be removed from these sacks when you put them in your refrigerator. Always refrigerate vegetables if possible; leaving them out at room temperature will encourage mold to grow on them. If you have grains such as flour or cornmeal (and you should), putting them in the refrigerator or freezer can also help keep mice, bugs, and mold away from them. However, remembering to allow the necessary portions of these to warm to room temperature before cooking with them is essential to good food.

Clean your refrigerator and wash it on both the inside and outside as often as you need to. Doing this will help keep your refrigerator as bacteria and mold free as possible and your food will taste better and be healthier for you because of it.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood and water damage cleanup and
water damage restoration> companies across the united states.

Mold has been around for millions of years and while certain varieties of it can be quite harmful to our health, there are other varieties that have been used by human beings for years in order to improve our quality of life in one way or another. It has been used in foods, medicines, and to help decompose organic matter.

Many different kinds of foods have been made with mold over the years, one of the most famous of which is cheese. Blue cheese was invented quite by accident a long time ago when mold had started to grow in a block of cheese that had been left to age. It is salty, crumbly and is a somewhat acquired taste, if the blue mold veins of the cheese do not stop you from tasting it in the first place. Roquefort and gorgonzola are also made with molds. The culturing of just the right kind of mold to make these blue cheeses has become a science over the years and these moldy cheeses are often referred to as the kings of cheese.

Aspergillius oryzae or koji-kin, as it is known in Japan, has been used for centuries to create the Japanese alcoholic drink of sake. Without the magical koji, they say, there is no sake. Sake is not the only type of drink that uses the koji mold as an ingredient. It is sprinkled on top of steamed rice and provide the enzymes that are needed for making the sugar the yeast needs to grow. The mold has an immensely important role in the creation of sake and any brewer proud of his drink is sensitive about its handling. Depending upon the flavor wanted in the sake, the koji creation process can be affected by different temperatures, the kind of rice used, the mineral content of the water, and other factors seriously affect the final product.

Penicillin was created by Alexander Fleming back in the early 1900s by accident and it has been used by countries worldwide since then in order to help the human body fight all kinds of infections. While some people have been known to be allergic to penicillin, allergic reactions are not so common as to stop doctors from prescribing it.

Aside from the uses that human beings have made of mold, its natural role is to decompose dead organic matter in its natural environment. This is one reason that it often finds its way into our homes, because our homes tend to be made of wood and sheetrock that has paper on it. This is what mold feeds on and until we start making our homes out of synthetic materials, we will probably have a hard time keeping mold out of them.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood and water damage cleanup and
water damage restoration> companies across the united states.

I am always annoying my family by insisting they don’t drink from cans or bottles. Unless I “nag” them when we are out they will happily just purchase one from a shop somewhere and raise it to their mouths.

Maybe they feel drinking from a straw or glass isn’t macho or cool. At home they have no such qualms and always use glasses, usually so many I complain about the washing up.

There is a very good reason for my insistence however and relates to an incident which happened several years ago when I lived in Brunei.

One Friday afternoon a fit young family man who played football for a local team bought a can of drink from a restaurant situated close to the river. He drank directly from the can and died soon after. It was said he died of Weil’s (pronounced Viles) disease. It caused quit a stir at the time and I’ve never forgotten it.

I was reminded of the incident today when I opened my e-mail and read this:-

“A woman went boating one Sunday taking with her some cans of coke which she put into the refrigerator of the boat.

On Monday she was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit.

She died on Wednesday.

The autopsy concluded she died of leptospirosis. This was traced to the can of coke she drank from as she hadn’t used a glass.

Tests showed the can was infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis.”

Rat urine contains toxic and deadly substances. They are all around us and it is estimated no-one lives within a few feet of one these days, especially with the amount of food waste and rubbish left lying around.

They live anywhere where there is food and are not fussy about what they class as food. Rats often live in sewers and drains.

Rats can swim and with unusual weather conditions and unprecedented rain fall in many areas, flooding has left several areas not as clean as they should be.

If you must drink from cans or bottles I strongly recommended you thoroughly wash them first or at least the upper parts.

Cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to shops without being cleaned. Even if they have that plastic wrapping over the trays of cans when they reach the stores you need to consider that someone will stack them on the display shelves.

Do you know what is on their hands? Have they washed them?

A study at NYCU showed that the tops of soda cans are more contaminated than Public toilets i.e., full of germs and bacteria.

My husband often complains of the amount of men who walk straight out of the public toilets without first washing their hands. I’m sure it’s the same for many women and that thought usually crosses my mind if I shake hands with anyone.

I have no such worries with my autistic son who is an “expert” hand washer. He has been known to almost hold up planes and stage performances because of it.

However, with so many infections seemingly resistant to treatment these days we need to take as much care of our health as possible.

Antibiotics and antibacterial products are no longer the answer.

What many people do not realise is that these kill ALL bacteria and many are really very useful and necessary.

Instead of using “anti” products you need to use “pro” products and they certainly are available.

I use all natural, general purpose, probiotic cleaning products and certified organic, probiotic health products.

Now instead of having my house full of toxic chemical laced cleaners, I have a powerful army of beneficial bacteria who regenerate, repopulate and dominate over the harmful, disease causing pathogenic bacteria, which are causing such concern both in homes and in our hospitals.

Please take care of your health, and if you must drink from bottles and cans PLEASE wash them with water BEFORE putting them to your mouth.

Leptospirosis or Weil’s disease can be fatal.

For details of the World’s First certified organic probiotic products free of toxins and harmful synthetic chemicals see www.probioticsforhealth.com Jean Shaw is the author of I’m Not Naughty - I’m Autistic and Autism, Amalgam and Me www.jeanshaw.com