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Egg recall enormous — sensible consumers are best solution

I’m sure you’ve read or heard something in the news about the humongous egg recall that took place last week. The latest numbers I’ve heard are that about 500 million eggs were recalled for fear they might be tainted with salmonella. (I don’t know that I’ve ever had salmonella, but I’ve heard it is incredibly awful.) That’s an incredible number of eggs. Us egg lovers are saddened by such a waste.

As always, I believe, the best solution to this and other potential food borne illness crises is to be sensible consumers. But first, take a minute to put that 500 million egg recall into some perspective.

Is it REALLY such a huge number of eggs to be recalled, given the enormous number of eggs Americans alone eat in a given year? Care to take a guess how many eggs we gobble down in a year?

Nope. You’re not even close, would be my guess about your guess.

According to information from the Commodities Research Bureau (CRB), Americans alone consumed 6.530 BILLION eggs in 2007, the latest year for which I could find a count. The CRB suggested that was a 10-year high and reflected increased egg consumption as more people were turning toward low-carb diets.

Now that’s a lot of eggs, boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, or however you like them. (My personal favorite is fried over-easy, but I’ve learned to appreciate my wife’s favorite cooking method, scrambled.) So at least that might help us put all this egg business in a little better perspective before we conclude that the sky may be falling.

The fact of the matter is, our food system is NOT and never has been completely safe. When we “buy organic” or just shop at a nearby mom-and-pop supplier rather than buying food that’s been shipped across the country or around the world — there’s still no guarantee that mom and pop or the local suppliers are offering better protected, safer food products. Little does not always mean better than big.

We can, however, expect regulatory agencies over our food and drug supplies to do their jobs. No one knows, yet, how the egg crisis developed. There’s no clear indication that regulators dropped any balls (or cracked any eggs?) on this one. Nevertheless, given the enormity of our nation’s food supply chain and the limited number of federal, state, and local regulators — we don’t always get the quality of service we expect.

Maybe the answer lies in more and better food regulations, at least partially. But above all, the answer lies with us, good old American consumers. We need to learn how to handle and how to prepare food in the safest possible ways — or be prepared to take the consequences of our negligence.

You really like those sunny-side-up eggs, do you? Then be warned that uncooked or undercooked eggs ALWAYS carry a risk of salmonella or other bacterial/viral infections. That’s because bacteria are every where, and many of them tend to thrive in the human digestive track. Not all of those happy little bacterial residents of our digestive tracks are nice guys, either.

You really like breaking a raw egg into the blender with other goodies for that special “power shake” concoction you’ve created? Well, for those same reasons, you’re doing so at your own risk.

Sure, trust the food producers, suppliers, regulators, your local grocery, and all the rest — but prepare all your food carefully and wisely. The life you save COULD be your own!

Fitness may be overrated as predictor of long life

I know this may sound like something I’m writing to excuse my own laziness and poor health habits, but I’m serious (at least sort of serious) about this: Fitness may be somewhat overrated as a predictor of whether you’ll live a long life.

Scientists published a recent study that says they are beginning to identify specific genes and combinations of genes in our fundamental makeup that lead to generally longer lives. Now, they aren’t saying that fitness and healthy eating, sleeping, and eating habits aren’t important. But they are suggesting that all the healthy living we do may ultimately not give us longer lives if our genetic makeup isn’t set up for it.

Does this mean we should live with wild abandon, eating and partying our way through life, knowing the length of our days on this globe are already determined by our genes and we can’t do anything about it? Should we tell all those expectant moms out there that the best prenatal vitamins in the world won’t influence the health of their new baby — but that the important thing has already been decided when mom and dad mixed their gene pools together?

That’s all pretty absurd, of course. No matter whether you have the “long life” genes or gene combinations — you still are going to live, barring an accident, long enough to want the best quality of life you can have in the years you have. So obviously, since we cannot control our genetic makeup and we aren’t really certain about what “long life genes” are or exactly how they work, we have an obligation to ourselves (and our families) to live as healthy as we possibly can.

Guess that means I’ll stick to the daily exercise and healthy diet routine — for a few more years at least. I hope.

If lovely calves aren’t your best feature, how are your abs?

I recently posted a confession that my calves may not be the fittest or best-looking part of my anatomy. Then I ran onto an article at the Huffington Post blog about a freshman Republican Congressman from Illinois, Aaron Schock, who’s stirring up controversy and causing hearts (of men and women) to flutter over his attractive abs.

Yes, that’s right. With our country facing a world of economic, social, and political crises, Rep. Schock’s getting more attention for his abs than his politics.

You can read more about all that at the Huffington Post website, and, to be fair, the fuss over Schock’s abs wasn’t his doing, although like all good politicians he admits he’ll take all the legitimate votes he can get for whatever reason.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything in the stories about the good congressman concerning any ab workouts or other fitness tips. (My abs are the sort that are better called “flabs.”)

Fitness includes good looking legs, I guess

I’m not so naive to think that I’ll win any Handsome Hunk of the Year Honors, at my age, no matter how much I improve my currently poor level of physical fitness. (I’ve hinted to my wife that she should think of me as a real “hunk” in the making. She seems to think the word “chunk” is more appropriate.)

But today, I read a news story on an Internet site that a major manufacturer of fitness equipment has launched a campaign that’s a “Search for the Best Calves” — and they don’t mean baby cattle. They’re inviting people to send them pictures of their lower leg muscles, i.e., their calves. The whole idea, I guess (my calves are so riddled with near-varicose veins I hate to look at them myself), is to crown some fitness fanatic as having the best calves in the world??

If you’re seriously interested in the “contest,” and have an urge to show off your calves, look for the contest on Google or some other search engine. I failed to find a link for it to include here. But I have been getting out for regular brisk walks more this week. Important to work on those old calves, I guess.

Moo.

New ‘diet plan’ works for me, my wife — diabetes diagnosis

I may have mentioned somewhere here a few months ago that my wife was hospitalized briefly for a heart flutter. (She’s doing very well now, thank you.) While she was hospitalized, she got another big surprise: She was diagnosed with diabetes. The diagnosis is that her blood glucose levels make her diabetic, but the good news is, she should be able to control it with a proper diet, regular exercise — and no need for medication.

That may have been the best medical diagnosis for her and me BOTH that we’ve gotten in decades. Because it served as a great wake-up call for us both. We’re both overweight and out of shape, mostly from sloppy eating, i.e., food portions too big and food quality too little.

Nowadays, in the two-plus months since her hospitalization, our meals are much better in quality and in portion size. We’re taming our “inner gluttons” and, wow, we’re actually enjoying meals more — as well as losing serious body fat! (I’ve lost about 15-18 pounds; she’s lost 5-6 pounds.)

So, throw away all those diet pills, special supplements, instead of fat blockers or hgh supplements, etc., to feel healthier, happier, and younger, I highly recommend a moderate calorie, low fat, LOW CARB (special emphasis there), moderate protein, high fiber diet combined with a brisk walk or two every day.

A diet plan, lifestyle change like that has worked wonders for us.

Brits ban controversial vaccine-autism doctor

The story is sort of “old news” by now, but I was just reading about the British medical establishment’s banning of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield is the doctor who released as study a few years ago insisting there was a link between some childhood vaccines and autism.

Wakefield, however, wasn’t banned because of the facts of the study, as I read it. He was banned because of the way he conducted the studies and the way he treated the children he studied. I don’t understand all the details but, bottom line is that the study has been declared radically flawed AND he’s in trouble for the way he treated study participants.

I don’t wish the good doctor ill. I really know little or nothing about him or the study. I think it’s sad that many, many parents refused (and still refuse) to have their children vaccinated, based on false findings and fear. That’s how diseases deemed eradicated may be poised to make tragic comebacks.

Perhaps the good doctor, if he really wants to continue research, ought to focus on a cure for the common cold, or how to treat acne — certainly not something with the potential to hurt so many families and children.

Just my opinion.

So far insurance reform hasn’t brought about Armageddon …

So far, the federal insurance reform that seemed so overwhelmingly dangerous (according to Republicans) and so overwhelmingly wonderful (according to Democrats) hasn’t yet destroyed the world as we know it — and America in particular. Armageddon hasn’t come upon us just yet …

… but I suspect many of my conservative friends still expect it’s only a matter of time until frogs, flies, brimstone, and little fish come raining down upon us.

In reality, insurance and insurance marketing of all sorts has changed very little since the landmark legislation was signed into law. Indeed, my wife spent six days in a local hospital a couple of weeks ago after a heart “flutter” problem. Her coverage, copay, and all the other costs remained just as they would have been before the legislation. And the care she received ranged from mediocre to excellent, depending on the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff involved in her daily treatment.

I know someone in a forum I frequent daily who is a native Canadian now married to an America and living in Germany. This woman has lived every day of her life under one form of universal health care or another. At the height of all the hysteria about health care reform, she confessed that she had puzzled and puzzled over the situation and could not for her life’s sake begin to understand what in the world so many Americans were angry, fearful, and upset about. She was absolutely mystified about all the fuss.

Sort of like me. Mystified about all the fuss. So far, we seem to be no nearer Armageddon than before the law was passed. But, then, who knows … ?

What would you think is the number one ‘fitness city’ in America?

What would you think is the number one “fitness city” in America? Don’t cheat and Google it yet. Just think about the general health and fitness of the country, then make your best guess. Bet you won’t get it first try — unless you’ve been reading about such things while you’ve been walking your treadmill, cycling, using the old elliptical or whatever you do for personal fitness.

Perhaps Seattle? I used to live there and it’s a wonderful place, with lots of active, outdoor people. Nope, not Seattle.

How about Portland? Oregon, and particularly the Portland metro area, is a progressive, very beautiful state. And they, too, are very outdoors oriented. Nope, not Portland.

Give up? Okay, perhaps you’ll be as surprised as I was at the two top American fitness cities. According to the American College of Sports Medicine’s American Fitness Index, the five most fit cities in America are:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Boston, MA
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Seattle, WA
5. Portland, OR

I was amazed to see that D.C. and Boston, always portrayed as less-than-bright-and-beautiful areas to live and work, were at the top of the list. According to the news story I read about this, the rankings were based on “a composite of preventive health behaviors, levels of chronic disease conditions, health care access, as well as community resources and policies that support physical activity.”

Who would have figured on D.C. and Boston at numbers 1 and 2? Not me!

Sometimes the news that shocks us most isn’t in the papers

Sometimes, when it comes to news and “reading the papers” as the corny slogan for this website goes, the worst news you get isn’t in the papers — it comes from real life and it generally brings some shock.

We got some “shocking” or at least unexpected news this last week. My wife (we’ll be celebrating our 43rd anniversary later this month) developed a heart condition AND was diagnosed with diabetes at the same time.

The heart problem was the scary one, though all is well now. But the diabetes is the real long-term challenge.

She developed what the docs call an “atrial flutter.” That means the upper chamber (on the left side in her case) of her heart can’t keep in step with the drummers handling the beat of the rest of her heart. Her left atrium flutters along at a ridiculously high rate, and that rate spikes up and down even under such simple exercise as standing upright or getting up and down in a chair. After six days in the hospital, the docs found some pretty high-powered prescriptions that got the rhythm and rate of her heart under control. (Cost on the most important prescription runs around $200 a month.)

As for the diabetes, she is only barely diabetic and the good news is she should be able to control it with lifelong attention to her diet — particularly controlling the amount, nature, and eating time of carbohydrates.

We’ve been told that the heart problem and the diabetes are pretty common today in America, so that’s not really a shock or surprise. But when you sit across the breakfast table from the one you’ve loved all of your adult life and see here suddenly turn pale and look like that old proverbial “death warmed over” — hey, that alone is a heck of a shock.

Now that things have settled down, however, we’re working (she and I) on the diet part. Really, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be that hard. And it should cause us both to lose a lot of weight we should have gotten off sooner anyway. With a diet plan like this, we won’t soon need to look for any exotic diet pills, weight loss drinks, fat burners, whatever. Just nutritious eating in controlled portions.

Heck, I’ve already lost a couple of pounds in the last four days. Oh, goody.

As I age, I follow Alzheimer’s research very carefully

As I grow older, I confess I pay much more attention to findings in Alzheimer’s research than I did when I was younger. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why: Alzheimer’s cases are steadily growing as the U.S. population grows older — and I’m among that so-called “aging Baby Boomers generation” so often connected with that part of the population.

Add to this that I’ve seen both my mother-in-law and before her my father-in-law suffer debilitating dementia in their last year of life, and you see why Alzheimer’s research keeps my attention.

Just today, I ran onto a new study reinforcing the significance of diet in relation to Alzheimer’s. This particular study suggested that those who eat diets high in salads, tomatoes, nuts, and poultry had a 38 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s than those who’s diets were high in fat and red meat and lower in salads, fresh vegetables, and lean meats.

Other research has long suggested the major health benefits in all areas of life, including a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s, of weight control and regular exercise (mental and physical). That doesn’t seem like a real stretch, or much of a surprise, does it?

Generally speaking, whether us overweight people (yes, I include myself) take off the pounds through sensible diet and exercise or through one of those weight loss products on the market, we’re going to be healthier if we’re thinner.

As for Alzheimer’s — maybe some day there’ll be an injection or a pill to eliminate that scourge. Until then, sensible eating and sensible living sure can’t hurt, can it?