Nutrition & Family Program Update: Robin's February/ March Update

March 18, 2009

Robin's February/ March Update

DIRECT TEACHING

02.07.09…Cooking for One or Two… Parkinson's Support Group… St. John's Lutheran Church, Bloomington.

COORDINATION ---Food Safety

1) Still working to have a class on History of Food Preservation for McLean County Museum of History in the fall of 2009

Sampling of consumer questions in food safety….

1) Q: I left eggs out for 8 hours in a cook place are they ok? A: we can't tell you they are safe if you left them out for 2 or more hours at room temperature (anything below 40 degrees is not acceptable. )

2) Q: I am looking for a new electric element stove. Which ones have a coil element built to hold a canner? A: No matter what electric element stove you get you need a special canning element to use on it or you will kill your stove. It sets up higher off the top of the stove and the brackets are stronger to hold up to the weight of a canner.

3) Q: Where can I get sealing rings for pressure canners? A: Kirks Appliance… I have the contact info.

4) Q: Do you have the sanitizing solution guidelines for kitchen cleaning? A: 1 T bleach per gallon of water. You can also go on www.clorox.come

5) Q: What are the guidelines for storing pizza dough in your refrigerator? Also the freezer? We've kept it almost 2 weeks before. We are still alive but would still like to know the guidelines. My son gets 6 pizza balls out of one recipe. It is the best crispy dough and he makes his own sauce. We are saving SO much money! A: guidelines would be only 3-5 days in the refrigerator and use within a month in the freezer for best quality.

6) Q: I have a bunch of Crocus and was wondering if I pulled the stamen out, dried it & made a saffron spice out of it, would it be safe to use? A: I went to SearchExtension.org and found information from North Carolina Extension. .. Saffron is the most precious and expensive spice in the world. It comes from the dried stigmas of the saffron flower, Crocus sativus Linneaus. Each flower contains only three stigmas. These filaments must be picked from each flower by hand, and more than 75,000 of these flowers are needed to produce just 1 pound of Saffron.

1) Pantagraph Nutrition Column… Chuck Blystone notified us that 400 words max. for columns from now on. That's about 24 lines in Word or 1 page 1 ½ spaced I figured out.

2) Coordination dietitians to present for Westminster Village's All Resident Assembly.

3) I'm working with Lisa Thompson at Child Care Resource & Referral Network (CCRRN) planning a training for families. CCRRN has a special grant to offer Parent Education Trainings to child care centers for their families to attend. They are interested in a Nutrition & Fitness workshop.

4) Rock Island Arsenal Child Development Center has an In-Service Day coming up for their staff on May 22. They were looking for someone to do a training with staff who work with a wide age range of children 6 weeks to 18 years. One Training in the lines of Cooking with Children in the Classroom and teaching nutrition. Recipes that would require teacher supervision and recipes children can mix and make on their own in the cooking area. Their second training would be on Food Handling and sanitation for the kitchen staff and for the teachers in the classroom serving family style dining. I copied a reply back giving them the Rock Island Unit information with Cheryl Reidenourer's name and county director Michael Woods.

5) Children's Discovery Museum visit in preparation for upcoming programs.

Sampling of consumer questions…..

6) Q: The cantalopes I buy always seem underipe. Is there a technique I can use, after bringing the cantalopes home, that will maximize their flavor and sweetness? A: Smell the stem end and if it smells like a sweet cantaloupe you have a good one. I sent him my article on choosing cantaloupes.

7) Q: The doctor says I have crossed over the threshold into the age of diabetes. Are there any cookbooks you could recommend? A: I told him that the American Diabetes Assoc. has cookbooks that would be excellent & offered to put him on our list for Diabetes Lifelines.

COORDINATION--- Healthy Family Relationships

1) 02.27.09… Family Life Extension educator, Cammy Seguin, presented the Local Leaders training on "Violence Across the Lifespan". Margery Ruch from the CIDA-Central Illinois Dietetic Assoc. volunteered to come in to speak for a few minutes about National Nutrition Month RACE/ WALK DAY that CIDA is sponsoring. Part of the proceeds go to support Nutrition programs in McLean County!

COORDINATION--- Care giving Relationships

1) Invited Caregiver Advisor from PATH to co- teach a program on Caregiving for Parkinson's Support Group June 16. We will be coordinating more such programs in the future.

News Releases

1) National Nutrition Month…2009

2) Easter…Eggs

3) Diabetes and Food… Vitamin D

4) High Fructose Corn Syrup

5) Figuring out the Holiday Ham

6) Nutrition Inservices

7) Recent & Upcoming Programs

8) Young at Heart Committee requesting Hobby Displays

9) Newsletter Subscription Form

10) Getting through Tough Financial Times added to Home & Families page as primary link.

11) Posted news release on Don Layman's nutrition telenet for April 16