Gardening to Save Money on the Food Bill?

Gardening to Save Money on the Food Bill? 

While it does not look like spring will arrive anytime soon in Northeast Wisconsin. With today’s tight economy, everyone is looking for ways to cut expenses. Growing a garden has the potential to reduce the amount of money spent on groceries. But this “potential” depends on the cost involved in types and amounts grown, inputs needed (water, fertilizer, fencing), yield, and if produce is actually used.

There are many varieties of fruits and vegetables that can be grown in Northeast Wisconsin. Check with your county extension office for this information. If you are gardening for the first time, it is important to take a soil sample. Information is available from your local county extension office or if you live in or near Brown County you can check the front page of the Brown County UW-Extension website for additional information www.browncountyextension.org

Reduce your inputs by collecting water for dry periods when watering will be necessary. Adding compost or well-rotted manure is key. Practice the principles of Integrated Pest Management. Reuse stakes, pots, etc.

When selecting varieties, chose vegetables with a long shelf life or can easily be canned or frozen as a way to stretch your food dollar. Potatoes, onions, and winter squash can be stored for several months at the appropriate temperature and humidity level. Donating excess produce to a local food pantry is a great way to ensure it does not go to waste.

If you have not gardened before, think small. Plants require regular watering, maintenance and harvesting. Growing too many plants in a too large of space can be overwhelming. Another option is growing a square foot garden. Information is available from the Brown County UW-Extension Office.

Easter Egg Safety

Easter Egg Safety

If you plan to eat the Easter eggs you decorate be sure to use only food grade dye. Some people make two sets of eggs – one for decorating and then hiding and another set for eating. Others use plastic eggs for hiding.

For an Easter egg hunt, void cracking the egg shells. If the shells crack, bacteria could contaminate the egg in inside. Hide eggs in places that are protected from dirt, pets, and other bacteria sources. Keep hard-cooked eggs chilled in the refrigerator until just before the hunt.

The total time for hiding and hunting eggs should be no more than two hours. Be sure to refrigerate the “found” eggs right away until you eat them. Eggs found hours later or the next day should be thrown out.

Eggs play an important role on the Seder plate during Passover celebrations. If that egg sits out at room temperature for more than two hours then it should not be eaten. Since the hard-cooked eggs that are usually served to each person as part of the special dinner are meant to be eaten, keep those eggs in the refrigerator until ready to be served.

When shell eggs are hard-cooked, the protective coating is washed away, leaving open pores in the shell where harmful bacteria can enter. Be sure to refrigerate eggs within two hours of cooking and use them within a week. Check your refrigerator temperature with an appliance thermometer and adjust the refrigerator temperature to 40 degrees or below.

Source: USDA Food Safety and Inspection Website

Eating Well When Eating Alone

Eating Well When Eating Alone

Wisconsin had nearly 645,000 single-person households as of the 2010 Census. That’s a significant number of people who may regularly cook and eat meals on their own.

If you’re cooking for yourself, you may not want to spend much time preparing a meal. But by following a few basic tips, you don’t need to sacrifice good nutrition for speed and convenience when you’re making a meal for yourself.
1. Think ahead and buy foods that are easily adapted to a variety of meals. For example, with some planning you can buy a hot, pre-baked chicken for tonight's dinner and end up with several other meals as well. When you bring the chicken home from the grocery, set aside the amount that you plan to eat right away. Cut the rest into thin slices and chunks and refrigerate within one hour. The saved chicken slices can be used for a sandwich tomorrow and the chunks can be used to make a chicken salad the next day.
2. If you’re accustomed to preparing family-sized recipes, select a few of your favorites that are delicious as leftovers. Divide the extra food into portion-size containers and freeze for quick and healthy homemade “TV dinners” at a later time. This works especially well with hearty recipes like soups, stews and pasta dishes. As a rule of thumb, dishes like lasagna and beef/vegetable stew that are readily available in your grocer’s freezer have basic recipes that freeze well when you make them at home.
3. Use restaurants wisely. Ordering pizza or stopping for fast food is okay now and then, but eating out can be more expensive and less nutritious than preparing meals at home. Studies show that people drink more soda and eat fewer vegetables and whole grains when eating out. These nutrition pitfalls can be avoided with careful selection, especially for beverages and side dishes.
4. At the grocery store, buy fruits and vegetables that store well. Carrots, beets, cabbage, squash, sweet potatoes, apples, oranges, and kiwi fruits are examples of fresh foods that usually last several days or even weeks in your refrigerator. Selecting canned or frozen forms may be more practical for softer fruits like peaches and berries and for vegetables that spoil quickly like corn and peas--especially when these products are not in season. Frozen vegetables in bags are especially useful. You can take out just enough for today’s meal and keep the rest frozen for later.
5. Stock up on foods that are easily prepared in small portions. Depending on your taste preferences, you may choose to stock up on small cans of tuna, pasta sauce, beans and vegetables along with small bags or boxes of rice, tortillas, peanut butter, breakfast cereal, and noodles or spaghetti. The same principle applies to basic items in your refrigerator like milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs, salad dressing, and butter or margarine. Frozen bagels and English muffins are handy substitutes for fresh bread. With these items on hand, along with salt, pepper and some vegetable oil, you will have the basic ingredients for a number of quick and easy meals whenever the need arises.
6. Avoid the temptation to skip meals and eat more snacks. Starting with breakfast and throughout the day, you’re more likely to have a balance of healthy food by eating regular meals and healthy snacks, rather than grazing on less-healthful foods throughout the day.

Contact Susan Nitzke, UW-Extension specialist and Professor Emerita in nutritional sciences at the UW-Madison

Cultivating Family Science Savvy: Not Foiled by Aluminum

Cultivating Family Science Savvy: Not Foiled by Aluminum

This month is an ingenuity challenge with a connection that comes as a surprise to many folks: that is, metals matter in nutrition. Begin with some sheets of aluminum foil. The rolls I have at home are 12 inches wide, so making 12 inch squares is a good start.

Then ask yourself and/or family members: Can you make three toys: one that flies, one that floats, and one that can be tossed?

The Flyer: Most people make paper airplanes out of, well, paper. Making the same type of airplane out of aluminum offers a couple of twists. First, it shines! Second, with aluminum it's easy to put twists and curves in the wings; with paper, you're limited to folds. So with aluminum planes, you can test out ideas about wing shapes in a way you can't with paper planes.

The Floater: While folding the foil was key to the Flyer, here a big idea is "forming." The great thing about foil is that it can take on the shape or "form" of an object that you wrap the foil around. To make a simple boat that will float (say, in a dishpan half-full with water) a kid can start by making a bull boat by wrapping the foil sheet around his fist (or, if you need a bigger boat, around a parent's fist). A can can serve as a finer form for an even bigger bull boat. To make a canoe, a can won't do, but a rolling pin works pretty well as a kitchen-based form. You'll want to fold the ends in like a burrito to help make the bow and the stern watertight..

Whatever hulls family members come up with, it's fun to test to see how much the boats will float. Pennies are particularly useful weights because they allow you to count and to compare how much weight different boats can float.

The Tosser: Making a ball out of aluminum foil is pretty easy. But the range of sizes and weights you can make in a short time is pretty remarkable. And here's what is surprising: family members can start seeing that a sheet of foil falls through the air much slower than a ball made from a sheet of the same size and therefore is the same weight. So now you have a game where you start asking the Galileo question: does a ball made of two sheets of foil fall faster than one made from one sheet? Because you can make the two balls the same size, but one weighs twice as much as the other, you can test if doubling the weight of a ball doubles the speed at which the ball will fall. Encouraging family members to test intuition is a great trait to cultivate.

So why is aluminum foil commonly found in kitchens? It's not just about flights of fancy: foil helps preserve the flavors, colors and nutrients of food by keeping out light and air. Aluminum foil pouches are also great for grilling vegetables outside in the summer.

And while aluminum isn't a big nutrient for humans, you can use it as a reminder to your kids that other metals are, including iron, zinc, phosphorous and calcium, which are all listed right there on the Nutrition Facts on the side of the cereal box. These are "minerals" to a nutritionist, but they're metals to a chemist.

by Thomas M. Zinnen, UW-Extension Biotechnology Policy and Outreach Specialist

Vitamin B-12

Vitamin B-12

Vitamin B-12 deficiency can cause tiredness, weakness, constipation, loss of appetite, weight loss, and a specific kind of blood-cell disorder called “megaloblastic anemia.” Severe lack of vitamin B-12 (cobalamin) can also cause nerve problems (e.g., numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, problems with balance, depression, confusion, dementia, poor memory). The presence of a B-12 deficiency can be identified by a blood test. Two population groups that are especially vulnerable to deficiency of vitamin B-12 are older adults and vegetarians. Vitamin B-12 deficiency is also a potential concern for people who have had gastrointestinal surgery, people taking certain medications, and people with digestive disorders such as celiac disease and Crohn’s disease.

A rarer but severe cause of vitamin B-12 deficiency is pernicious anemia which occurs among people who cannot absorb vitamin B-12 because their bodies do not make a substance called intrinsic factor which is needed to absorb vitamin B-12. Unfortunately, vitamin B-12 is also a popular topic for deceptive treatments and questionable products (sublingual sprays, injections, nose drops) to counteract tiredness/fatigue without proper evidence of deficiency.

Older adults -- Many older adults do not have enough hydrochloric acid in their stomach to absorb the complex vitamin B-12 molecules that are naturally present in animal foods such as meats and dairy products. Fortified foods and dietary supplements contain a form of vitamin B-12 that is more easily absorbed. That is why the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that people 50 and older “consume foods fortified with vitamin B12, such as fortified cereals, or dietary supplements.”

Vegetarians – The risk of vitamin B-12 deficiency among vegetarians, especially strict vegetarians or vegans who eat no animal foods, has been a source of controversy and confusion. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly American Dietetic Association) position statement on vegetarian diets recommends that vegans consume fortified foods or supplements because “no unfortified plant food contains any significant amount of active vitamin B-12.” A new review article summarizes published studies on this subject and reports that vegetarians of all ages are at increased risk of B-12 depletion or deficiency and recommends that vegetarians “take preventive measures to ensure adequate intake of this vitamin.”

Sources:
Pawlak R, Parrott SJ, Raj S, Cullum-Dugan D, Lucus D. How prevalent is vitamin B12 deficiency among vegetarians? Nutrition Reviews. 71(2):110–117.
American Dietetic Association. Vegetarian Diets. J Amer Diet Assoc. 109(7):1266-1282.
Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010. Chapter 4 Foods and Nutrients to Increase. http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/DietaryGuidelines/2010/PolicyDoc/Chapter4.pdf
(pages 34 and 42).
By Susan Nitzke, UW-Extension Nutrition Specialist and UW-Madison Professor Emeritus

Update on Energy Drinks

Update on Energy Drinks

With urging from some U.S. Senators, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering possible actions to regulate energy drinks. Following is a summary of resources and information to update the article on energy drinks that appeared in our Nutrition for Family Living e-newsletter in October, 2008 (http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wnep/specialist/nfl/mmpdfs/0810.pdf).

• Bub and Shelnutt from the University of Florida Extension have written an informative fact sheet on “Facts about energy drinks” FCS80017. The fact sheet is available online at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FY/FY132400.pdf
• The American Medical Association has a “Patient Page” handout on energy drinks that contains expert advice and a detailed table of the caffeine content of various brands. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487122
• The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a clinical report on sports and energy drinks for children and adolescents in 2011. The report has information on the various ingredients and proper usage of these products. The abstract includes the following guidance for pediatricians: “…stimulant substances contained in energy drinks have no place in the diet of children and adolescents. Furthermore, frequent or excessive intake of caloric sports drinks can substantially increase the risk for overweight or obesity in children and adolescents.” Source: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/05/25/peds.2011-0965.full.pdf+html
• KL Blankson and others published a review and recommendations on “Energy drinks: What teenagers (and their doctors) should know” in February of this year. (Pediatr Rev 2013;34:55-62). According to this latest report, energy drinks have been aggressively marketed to adolescents who need better education on this topic. The report states that caffeine use is associated with health effects such as palpitations, anxiety, insomnia, digestive problems, elevated blood pressure, and dehydration. Popular brands have the equivalent of 2-3 cups of coffee but few of the products disclose caffeine content on the labels. Energy drinks are often marketed as supplements, which reduces the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate their content and use.
• A scholarly review of research on the potential toxicity of energy/sports drinks was published in April, 2012 by Wolk and colleagues from the University of Massachusetts. Abstract link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22426157
• The American Beverage Association now recommends that energy drink companies state on the label exactly how much caffeine is contained in each drink, and that the beverage is not recommended for children, pregnant or nursing women and people who are sensitive to caffeine (source: http://www.ameribev.org/files/339_Energy%20Drink%20Guidelines%20(final).pdf)

By Susan Nitzke, UW-Extension Nutrition Specialist and UW-Madison Professor Emeritus

Hydration

Hydration 

Often we think about hydration in the summer months, but hydration is important in the winter as well. Water is essential for our body to function. Being well-hydrated lubricates joints, helps move nutrients through the body and maintains body temperature.

To stay hydrated keep these tips in mind.

• Carry a water bottle with you.

• Look for zero-calorie beverages to consume.

• During the winter consume cocoa or hot tea.

• Add fruits like lemons and lime to water for natural flavor.

• Buy the powdered zero calorie mixes that are added to water for flavor.

• Soups, milk and some fruits also contribute to fluid intake.