According to the Associated Press, (and reported in the Huffington Post) the state of Minnesota is reporting seven cases of Salmonella linked to an egg recall. Salmonella can be serious stuff, especially in infants. It can lead to diarrhea, dehrydration and possibly hospitilization; in infants, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, the infection can spread to the blood stream and, if untreated with antibiotics, eventually cause death.

Salmonella in eggs has always been a risk, but in the past, we’ve been instructed to look for cracked eggs. The newer strain of Salmonella affects the whole egg in the shell; it comes from an infected hen and there’s no way to spot it from the outside. You can (and should) check your fridge for recalled eggs, but a visit to the CDC site concerning Salmonella may finally convince you (ok, me) to stop letting the kids eat the raw cookie dough. Continue reading »

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I’m as annoyed by those “Have a baby now now now now” stories that periodically crop up in the news as anyone. After all, plenty of us were still in school, launching careers, or completely undecided on the baby question when we were in our twenties. But this story from the Washington Post was a little unsettling, even for me. According to a study from the University of St. Andrews and Edinburgh University published last month, a woman has lost 88 percent of the eggs she was born with by age 30, and 97 percent are gone by age 40. Continue reading »

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Like everyone else with a greenish and foodie-ish bent, I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food recently. Loved them both, but it was Omnivore’s Dilemma that was pretty much a life-changer for me. We’ve decided to try, whenever possible, to make sure our meat and eggs come from farms that raise and kill their animals humanely, which means having meatless days a few times a week so we can afford it.

However, I find it really hard to sort out all the claims on food labels. It’s not always feasible for me to buy meat at the farmer’s market (and it’s not always available there, either) where I can ask the farmers themselves questions, and many of them have pictures of the farm itself at their stalls. When I am forced into the grocery store to buy meat, I’d love to know where I can buy humanely-raised products and which of the dizzyingly huge variety of labels out there actually means something.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals has a new site, Continue reading »

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If I could pass on one piece of advice to any parent who’s frustrated by their child’s dinnertime antics, it would be this: breakfast for dinner. The eight kids in my household love it, whether I serve pancakes or oatmeal or these breakfast sandwiches. Continue reading »

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