FOR RELEASE THE WEEK OF DEC. 16, 2001:
How can I control my food intake over Christmas and New Year’s? I thought I could do it over Thanksgiving, but instead I ate everything on the table. What works?
What works is not letting yourself get too hungry, says Martha Raidl, University of Idaho Extension nutrition specialist. “Before a big holiday meal, make sure that you eat some light meals during the day,” she says.
Second, prioritize your favorite foods and let yourself have small amounts of the ones you like best. “Really enjoy the flavor, texture and aroma of these foods,” Raidl says. “Once you stop enjoying them, it’s time to stop eating them.”
Third, don’t rush through a meal or banquet table. It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain it is full. So savor your favorite foods and eat them slowly.
“If you do these three things, you’ll be less likely to overindulge during the holidays,” Raidl says.
Every year, about 20 of us get together for cards at New Year’s. We start at about 7 p.m. and play until after midnight. We each bring a dish of snacks to share. Besides pretzels, chips or candies, which foods can be safely set out that long? If we bring veggies, can you recommend a safe dip?
Don’t let uninvited guests—the bacteria that cause food-borne illness—become part of your party, says University of Idaho Extension food safety specialist Sandy McCurdy. To stay safely within the two-hour limit for leaving perishable foods at room temperature:
All of McCurdy’s favorite dips are perishable. So are all cut fruits and vegetables, meat sandwiches and turnovers, and chilis and quiches. Except for a short two-hour serving “window,” perishable foods must be kept either below 40 degrees or above 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
My 4-year-old hits and bites other kids. My sister says I should hit and bite her back so she knows how it feels.
Stay calm, Mom, says Diane Demarest, University of Idaho coordinator of the Parents as Teachers demonstration project. Aggressive behaviors are very common in young children and are usually outgrown fairly quickly, she says. Most 3- to 5-year-olds resort to aggression because they haven’t learned to express their feelings in words.
Demarest suggests that you help your child express her feelings in more appropriate ways. For example, tell her:
Whenever your child hits or bites: 1) stop the behavior, 2) express sympathy to the child’s victim, 3) separate your child from the group, 4) acknowledge your child’s feelings, 5) state the rules again firmly, 6) offer a pillow or punching bag to hit, 7) problem-solve with your child and 8) suggest alternative behavior.
I know that the ladybug is a good bug, but we’ve had an explosion of them. My husband says we have hundreds or thousands of them in the attic, and they are getting into our house like crazy. He has already caulked around the light fixtures. What type of insecticide—chemical or natural—do you recommend we use? Stan and Loretta Waters, Columbia Station, Ohio
Bob Stoltz, University of Idaho Extension entomologist, doesn’t normally recommend insecticides for ladybugs—even for the Asian multicolored ladybug, which tends to congregate in attics over the winter. “Ladybugs really are good bugs and we really don’t like to kill them,” he says.
If you’ve already sealed around your light fixtures and other potential entrances from the attic, try driving the ladybugs out of your attic with mothballs. “Make sure there are some conspicuous-yet-small openings in your attic so they can vacate the premises,” Stoltz says.
If the mothballs don’t do the trick, he recommends just letting the ladybugs be until spring. “At that time, they’ll be just as anxious to fly back outside to the trees and landscape as you are to have them gone.”
Not satisfied with that answer? OK, says Stoltz, then hang a pest strip in the attic or use an over-the-counter pyrethrin fog. Be sure to vacuum the dead ladybugs so they don’t attract pests like carpet beetles, which may stop in downstairs after their dead-ladybug feast.
Next fall, weatherize your house thoroughly. Make sure there are no holes in the screens covering your foundation or roof vents, that you have a good seal where your siding meets the foundation, that your basement windows and any pipes coming into the house are tightly sealed and caulked, and that the weather-stripping at the base of your doors is intact.
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