FOR RELEASE THE WEEK OF OCT. 25, 1999:
When I prepare microwave lunches or dinners, I don’t always stir the contents or rotate the container and I end up eating the "cold spots." Is this risky?
Frozen meals are not considered ready-to-eat foods even though some of the ingredients are partially–or fully–cooked by the manufacturer, says Sandra McCurdy, University of Idaho extension food safety coordinator. The freezing process inactivates, but does not kill, bacteria that may be present.
Although the risk of food-borne illness from these foods is very small, McCurdy says it’s best to ensure that all parts of the meal are heated to steaming hot, both for palatability and for safety.
My daughter doesn’t like school lunches. She wants me to fix brownbag lunches for her–but she’s tired of peanut butter and I’m tired of thinking up new twists every morning! Any suggestions for how I can keep her lunches both healthy and interesting?
Start by varying the type of bread, says Martha Raidl, University of Idaho extension nutrition specialist. Keep her guessing as to whether she’ll be getting whole wheat, rye, white, pita, bagel or English muffin.
Besides lean luncheon meats and tuna fish, how about low-fat cheese or string cheese, or leftover chicken or meat loaf? Once the weather gets cold, try hot soup or stew in a Thermos–or cold leftover pizza.
Knock off some of those five-a-day servings of fruits and vegetables with lettuce leaves, celery sticks, jicama, radishes, carrot and cucumber slices, and broccoli or cauliflower florets. End the meal and please your daughter’s sweet tooth with grapes, peaches, bananas, cut-up oranges, melons, pineapple and even kiwi in a plastic container.
It may be particularly hard to come up with fresh ideas while you’re feeling less than fresh before dawn, Raidl says. Try packing your daughter’s lunch at night. Put the cold items in the coldest part of the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, pack them with a refreezable ice pack into an insulated lunch sack or box. Hot soup, however, should be heated and poured right before your child heads off to school.
Finally, instead of soda pops or other sweet drinks, encourage your daughter to buy a carton of milk at school. Occasionally, pack a cookie or other treat to go with it.
Our neighbors don’t bother to control their weeds. Their yard is full of dandelions. Isn’t there some "noxious weed" law that requires them to get rid of them?
Under the Idaho Noxious Weed Law, 35 plants are currently designated as noxious weeds. The law, implemented by counties, requires property owners to control each species on the list. Dandelions, however, are not on it.
According to Taylor Cox of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, a noxious weed must meet four criteria: it must be present in but not native to Idaho, it must be potentially more harmful than beneficial, its potential adverse impacts must exceed the costs of control, and its eradication must be economically and physically feasible. Dandelions don’t meet all four requirements, Cox says.
Purple loosestrife, on the other hand, is on the noxious weed list. "If my neighbor had that one, I’d kindly and gently let him know that," he says.
Shortly after we moved into a new house, we started getting flea bites! The house had been empty for more than two months. Can fleas live that long off their hosts?
An adult flea can live up to a year on a single blood meal, says Bob Stoltz, University of Idaho extension entomologist. Adult fleas emerge from their cocoons with such a generous fat supply that they can actually survive several months without eating at all. "They can just hang out."
Fortunately, fleas aren’t commonplace in Idaho–except on rodents. Cats and dogs both occasionally become infested with cat fleas, and pets that tangle with rodents, squirrels and rock chucks can pick up other kinds of fleas from them. Rodent fleas have spread both typhus and plague to humans.
With fleas few and far between in Idaho, Stoltz doubts most pets really need flea protection. If they do become infested, use flea collars or the new "spot-ons" to kill adult fleas. Vacuum your pets’ sleeping places aggressively to remove the tiny spots of blood, skin scales and flea feces that can keep flea larvae fat and happy.