Yesterday the USDA announced new poultry safety rules intended to slightly reduce the number of poisonings annually from salmonella and campylobacter. An agency official says that the new rules should prevent about 65,000 cases of food sickness a year, which is only a fraction of the over a million cases annually. However, most of the other food products that contribute to that number fall under FDA regulation, so the USDA can’t say anything. “This is something we can do, so we’re doing it,” the spokesman told the Los Angeles Times. [More]
health
Start A Tiny Awesome Garden
By 5.10.10
Just because you live in a small space doesn’t mean you can’t wiggle your greenthumb. WikiHow has some great suggestion on how people living in less spacious quarters, like students and urbanites, can still let their garden grow. To create the illusion of depth and space, put more eye-grabbing plants closer to where they’ll be veiwed, and put more muted plants farther away. Go vertical! Use an open structure with lots of shelves to stack lots of plants on top of each other. Start a Window Farm! Gardens are pretty, give you oxygen, and sometimes even low-cost fresh food. Do you garden in a shoebox? Leave your tips for maximizing your space in the comments. [WikiHow] [More]
"Slim Chips" Flavored Paper Chips In Stores This Summer?
By 5.5.10
Diet heaven meets ironic design joke: very soon you may be able to experience the delight that is eating those pieces of zero-calorie, hardened, flavored, edible wafer paper we told you about a few weeks ago. [More]
Feeling Like A Loser? Go Outside For 5 Minutes
By 5.4.10
Researchers from the Univerisity of Essex have found that as little as 5 minutes outside can improve your self esteem and mood, say Reuters. [More]
Health Supplement Guru Nearly Dies After Ingesting Own Product
By 5.4.10
Gary Null sells something called Ultimate Power Meal, which he says you’re supposed to eat twice a day every day. He did that for a month and nearly died, so now he’s suing the company that manufactured the product. [More]
Woman Allegedly Fired For Carrying Breast Cancer Gene
By 5.4.10
A Connecticut woman is suing her ex-employer for firing her because she was genetically at a higher risk for developing breast cancer, according to her lawsuit. [More]
Johnson & Johnson Not Taking Refunds On Recalled Tylenol Very Seriously
By 5.3.10
When J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare Unit announced a recall of children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl over the weekend, it also provided a toll free number you could call for more info. Ron Lieber at the New York Times called it on Saturday to find out how the refund process would work. What he got was a three minute recording telling him to throw the products in the trash, but nothing else. [More]
KFC "Pink Buckets" Not Best Way To Fight Breast Cancer
By 4.25.10
KFC is urging customers to buy “pink buckets” to help fight breast cancer. However, you could buy a dozen KFC buckets and it wouldn’t put an extra dime towards breast cancer research, reports The Washington Post. The fine print on KFC’s “buckets for the cure” website speaks for itself: [More]
"Dirty Dozen" Cheat Sheet Reminds You Which Foods To Always Buy Organic
By 4.22.10
To help you remember the “Dirty Dozen” foods to always buy organic, Heidi Kenney has designed this fun free cheat sheet to keep in your moneypurse (organic farming doesn’t use synthetic pesticides). Flip it over and you’ve got the “Clean 15,” which had the lowest pesticide count.. One time I was eating lots of fruits and vegetables and I ate a not-organic pear and my lip swelled up like a monkey’s for a few days… maybe I should start using this list! [More]
Migraine? Try A Big Old Dose Of Aspirin
By 4.22.10
Our healthy friends at Consumer Reports Health have an interesting article today about a new study that shows that a single high dose of aspirin (up to 1000 mg) can work as well as a lower-dose prescription drug. [More]
Yummy! Flavored Paper Chips.
By 4.22.10
It has come to this. Unable to control its urge to shove small objects of similar flavor into its maw, humanity has invented Slim Chips flavored paper snacks. They are hardened pieces of edible paper with organic coloring that come in peppermint, blueberry, and sweet potato tastes. They contain 0 calories. “Don’t get fat, just eat nothing!” says the designer, Hafsteinn Juliusson, of this concept piece which will never be sold in stores. [More]
How To Use Makeup Testers Without Giving Yourself A Disease
By 4.20.10
Elizabeth Brooks, a professor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, has some advice for people trying out makeup when they’re out shopping. As most people know, makeup can harbor bacteria and viruses, and shared testers are the worst offenders: Brooks tested hundreds of makeup counter samples for a study and found 100% of it was contaminated with things like staph, strep, and E. coli. [More]
War Declared On Salt!
By 4.20.10
Are you tired of the high fructose corn syrup battles? Today the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, released a report that said Americans on average eat enough salt every second to kill a humpback whale kraken. I have not actually read the report, but it probably said something like that. It also said that public education campaigns have failed to reduce sodium intake, and voluntary self-regulation by the food industry hasn’t been effective. [More]
Science: Is The KFC Double Down The Worstest Food Ever?
By 4.20.10
Speaking of the health value of KFC Double Downs (KDD), some smart fellow has created two charts which compare the nutritional content of the KDD to roughly two dozen other fast food items. Assigning the KFC Original Recipe Double Down (KODD) a base score of “1.0,” the charts show how many KODDs are contained within other sandwiches as a portion of the USDA daily allowance, based on how much fat, sodium, and cholesterol are inside them. The chart may not sway your opinion of the zesty saltlick “sandwich” that is taking America by storm, but its colors may remind you of fries, pickles, and ketchup. Mmmmm, is it second lunch time yet? [More]
New Study Shows Link Between Teen Drinking And Breast Disease
By 4.18.10
Many teenagers aren’t deterred from drinking alcohol just because it happens to be illegal, but maybe the chance of developing non-cancerous breast disease will make teen girls think twice before picking up that six-pack of hard lemonade: A new study suggests that frequent alcohol consumption could increase the chances that a teen will get benign breast disease in their 20s. [More]
McDonald's 10 Piece Nugget Box Shows 11 Nuggets
By 4.14.10
The picture on McDonald’s 10-piece chicken nugget box shows 11 nuggets. Obviously this is a careful piece of psychological chicanery so that consumers feel a subconscious longing for that “missing nugget,” sowing the seeds of future return trips to the Golden Arches. UPDATE: The mystery has been solved… one of the nuggets is cut in half, obviously to reveal its tender separated and recoagulated chicken meat goodness. [via Reddit] (Thanks to Bargaineering!) [More]
Would Electronic Medical Records Make You Hide Things From Your Doctor?
By 4.13.10
The California HealthCare Foundation recently released the results of a survey on electronic medical records and consumer behavior. The survey found that 15% of people would hide things from their doctor if the medical record system shared anonymous data with other organizations. Another 33% weren’t sure, but would consider hiding something. [More]
Drug Company Gets Approval To Sell Crestor To Healthy People
By 3.31.10
Don’t have high cholesterol? Think you don’t need Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering statin? You may be in for a rude awakening. Astra Zeneca, the maker of Crestor, has received approval to market the drug to healthy people as a preventative measure. And before you ask, yes Crestor does have side-effects. [More]
