People could be making unhealthy mistakes when they cook, according to the results of an online survey done by the County Department of Environmental Health.

“Our department keeps the public healthy by monitoring local restaurants and food retailers, and we wanted to know if people are using safe practices in their own kitchens. We discovered a few common mistakes that people should keep in mind, especially as they get ready to cook during the holidays,” said Gary Erbeck, Director of the Department of Environmental Health.

One mistake: tasting cookie or cake batter. Almost 25 percent of those surveyed admitted to this bad habit. Eating raw, partially cooked or unpasteurized products can make you sick, and it’s especially risky for kids, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Other unhealthy habits: More than 60 percent of people didn’t promptly store leftovers in the refrigerator, and about 35 percent didn’t verify the internal temperature of meat with a thermometer.

Health officials say simple tips will keep you and your guests healthy.

• Thaw your turkey properly: Thaw a frozen turkey in the refrigerator, placing it in a tray in its original wrapper. Allow approximately 24 hours per four to five pounds of turkey. You can also thaw a turkey by submerging it in cold water and changing the water every 30 minutes. Allow about 30 minutes of defrosting time per pound of turkey.
• If you’re buying a fresh turkey, purchase it one to two days before cooking.
• Thoroughly clean and disinfect cooking surfaces, countertops and utensils.
• Cook turkey at a minimum oven temperature of 325 degrees, and use a meat thermometer to make sure it has an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees.

For more food safety information:

Department of Environmental Health Food Publications

FoodSafety.gov

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Written by CA Political News on July 29, 2009, 08:22 PM
Better learn to eat your vegetables.

When historians look back to identify the pivotal moments in the nation’s struggle against obesity, they might point to the current period as the moment when those who influenced opinion and made public policy decided it was time to take the gloves off.

 As evidence of this new “get-tough” strategy on obesity, they may well cite a study released today by the Urban Institute titled “Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies From the Tobacco Wars.”

In the debate over healthcare reform, the added cost of caring for patients with obesity-related diseases has become a common refrain: most recent is the cost-of-obesity study, also released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It finds that as obesity rates increased from 18.3% of Americans in 1998 to 25% in 2006, the cost of providing treatment for those patients’ weight-driven problems increased healthcare spending by $40 billion a year.

If you happen to be the 1-in-3 Americans who is neither obese nor overweight (and, thus, considered at risk of becoming obese), you might well conclude that the habits of the remaining two-thirds of Americans are costing you, big time. U.S. life expectancies are expected to slide backward, after years of marching upward. (But that’s their statistical problem: Yours is how to make them stop costing you all that extra money because they are presumably making poor choices in their food consumption.)

“Facing the serious consequences of an uncontrolled obesity epidemic, America’s state and federal policy makers may need to consider interventions every bit as forceful as those that succeeded in cutting adult tobacco use by more than 50%,” the Urban Institute report says. It took awhile — almost 50 years from the first surgeon general’s report on tobacco in 1964 — to drive smoking down. But in many ways, the drumbeat of scientific evidence and the growing cultural stigma against obesity already are well underway — as any parent who has tried to bring birthday cupcakes into her child’s classroom certainly knows.

Key among the “interventions” the report weighs is that of imposing an excise or sales tax on fattening foods. That, says the report, could be expected to lower consumption of those foods. But it would also generate revenues that could be used to extend health insurance coverage to the uninsured and under-insured, and perhaps to fund campaigns intended to make healthy foods more widely available to, say, low-income Americans and to encourage exercise and healthy eating habits.

If anti-tobacco campaigns are to be the model, those sales taxes could be hefty: The World Health Organization has recommended that tobacco taxes should represent between two-thirds and three-quarters of the cost of, say, a package of cigarettes; a 2004 report prepared for the Department of Agriculture suggested that, for “sinful-food” taxes to change the way people eat, they may need to equal at least 10% to 30% of the cost of the food.

And although 40 U.S. states now impose modest extra sales taxes on soft drinks and a few snack items, the Urban Institute report suggests that a truly forceful “intervention” — one that would drive down the consumption of fattening foods and, presumably, prevent or reverse obesity — would have to target pretty much all the fattening and nutritionally empty stuff we eat: “With a more narrowly targeted tax, consumers could simply substitute one fattening food or beverage for another,” the reports says.

Of course, the United States also would have to adopt extensive menu- and food-labeling changes that would make “good foods” easily distinguishable from the bad ones subject to added taxes. Not to worry though: Several European countries, most notably Great Britain, have led the way in this area.

And here’s the payoff: Conservatively estimated, a 10% tax levied on foods that would be defined as “less healthy” by a national standard adopted recently in Great Britain could yield $240 billion in its first five years and $522 billion over 10 years of implementation — if it were to begin in October 2010. If lawmakers instituted a program of tax subsidies to encourage the purchase of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, the added revenue would still be $356 billion over 10 years.

That would pay for a lot of healthcare reform, which some have estimated will cost as much as $1 trillion to implement over the next ten years.

There can be little doubt that lobbyists for the food, restaurant and grocery industries would come out swinging on any of these proposals. But the report cites evidence of a turning political tide for proposals that would hold the obese and other consumers of nutritionally suspect food accountable for their choices. A recent national poll found that 53% of Americans said they favored an increased tax on sodas and sugary soft drinks to help pay for healthcare reform. And even among those who opposed such an idea, 63% switched and said they’d favor such a tax if it “would raise money for health-care reform while also tackling the problems that stem from being overweight.”

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Before you light up the barbecue or lay out your picnic basket, take a few moments to refresh yourself on food safety.

Supervisor Greg Cox served up a reminder to follow simple guidelines as he took a turn behind a grill at the County Administration Center Wednesday. Jack Miller, Acting Director of the Department of Environmental Health echoed his remarks.

“We work with local restaurants to make sure they are following proper techniques, and the public can take the same precautions,” Miller said.

Foodborne illness affects 76 million people in the U.S. each year, although most cases are mild. To prevent illness:

Clean:

• Wash your hands before and after handling food, and before you eat
• Clean surfaces and utensils with warm, soapy water after preparing each food item

Separate:

• Keep raw meat, poultry and seafood separate from other foods
• Use separate plates, utensils and cutting boards for raw and cooked foods

Chill:

• Store perishable foods in a cooler or refrigerator
• Refrigerate leftovers within two hours

Cook:

• Cook meat, poultry and seafood to correct temperature using a meat thermometer

For more information, visit the Department of Environmental Health’s Food Publications page.

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OCEANSIDE —- Uninsured and underinsured patients will be the winners next week when North County Health Services opens a new Oceanside health center in a two-story building at 605 Crouch St.

The public can tour the 12,000-square-foot facility —- in Building C at the Crouch Street site —- during an open house and dedication ceremony from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday.

The clinic will begin treating patients at 8 a.m. Monday. The facility will offer pediatric, obstetric, adult medicine, mental health, pharmacy and health education services by appointment or on a walk-in basis.
 

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Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:57 PM PDT ∞

SAN MARCOS —- A state proposal to reduce or eliminate health care programs for the poor could leave tens of thousands of people in North County with limited or no access to care, local community clinic leaders said Thursday.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed reducing state spending by billions of dollars to close an estimated $24 billion budget gap. The governor is proposing to cut more than $1 billion from Medi-Cal, $368 million from Healthy Families, and $24 million from HIV education and prevention programs, among others.

Community clinic officials say those cuts would be devastating to their operations.

“We stand united in pleading to the governor and the legislators to consider the consequences of these cuts,” said Irma Cota, chief executive officer of the North County Health Services clinic in San Marcos.

Schwarzenegger has said that state government could come to a “standstill” unless lawmakers act quickly to reach a budget compromise. A spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday there are simply no good options when it comes to reducing spending.

“The governor realizes that there are consequences, but in order to solve our $24 billion deficit, there are only so many places to look,” said spokeswoman Lisa Page.

The Healthy Families program, which the governor is proposing to eliminate, serves more than 75,000 children in San Diego County. It is California’s version of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The federal government matches the state’s funding for Healthy Families dollar for dollar. If the state eliminates the program, it also will lose the federal funding.

Cota spoke at a news conference at the clinic about the potential consequences of the governor’s proposed cuts. She was joined by leaders of the Vista Community Clinic in Vista and Neighborhood Healthcare in Escondido.

Combined, the clinics provide health services to more than 200,000 patients in North County each year. The clinics stand to lose between $2 million and $2.5 million each if the governor’s proposals are enacted by the Legislature, they said.

The community clinics are the region’s health care safety net because there are no county hospitals or clinics, officials said.

In recent years, the clinics have started seeing not only low-income families, but more and more working families who have lost their insurance at work, they say.

Cota said many of the clinic’s new patients last year were people who either lost their job or lost their health insurance at work. The number of patients at the clinic increased about 2,000 to more than 60,000 last year, she said.

Representatives for the two other clinics said they have seen similar increases in recent years.

At North County Health Services, Ingrid Loreto of Oceanside said her family enrolled in the Healthy Families program when her husband lost his sales job four years ago. Her family owns a restaurant in Oceanside but doesn’t earn enough to be able to afford private health insurance, she said.

“Healthy Families has really saved our family,” Loreto said. “This happens to everybody. It’s not just people who don’t want to work or who are poor.”

Barbara Mannino, chief executive officer of the Vista Community Clinic, said that cutting funding for community clinics eventually could cost more in services, because sick people who can’t access community clinics could show up in emergency rooms or hospitals, where care is more expensive.

“Preventive care is a short-term cost with a long-term return on investment,” Mannino said.

Tracy Ream, chief executive director of Neighborhood Healthcare, said people without health insurance wait until they are very ill to get care.

“Without Healthy Families coverage, people will forgo medical care and parents will delay seeking treatment for their children,” she said. “We will see an increase in the severity of diseases due to later diagnosis.”

If the cuts are implemented, North County Health Services stands to lose about $2 million, including money from Healthy Families, Medi-Cal, Expanded Access to Primary Care and a program that pays for adult dental care, Cota said.

The $2 million represents about 5 percent of the clinic’s $38 million annual budget.

Cota said losing those revenues would affect about 15,000 of the clinic’s 60,000 patients. Because most of their patients are uninsured, the clinics operate on very tight budgets.

“We don’t have any places that we can cut,” Cota said.

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511.

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