Listeria on Caramel Apples - 28 cases, 5 deaths over 10 states

Not exactly what you want to be thinking about when enjoying a caramel apple, but a recent outbreak of Listeria has created illness in 28 individuals over 10 states, and has resulted in 5 deaths.  You can check-up on the statistics at the CDC.gov website as things continue to develop.

The caramel apples were commercially produced, so investigators are thinking that the apples were washed appropriately, and the caramel is normally not a carrier for bacteria, so perhaps the manufacturing locations where the apples were produced had some level of contamination.\

What is listeria?
Listeria is the bacteria (lots of subspecies for this one so we'll just stick with the genus name) that causes the rare bacterial disease, Listeriosis.  You get listeriosis by eating food that was contaminated with the listeria bacteria... which I feel kind of dumb spelling that out, but hopefully it clears up any possible confusion for some non-science people out there.  Listeria is the most dangerous for pregnant women, children and the elderly as these groups are the most likely to have a weakened immune system.  It can be killed by cooking, so when you see an illness caused by it, typically it is attributed to a food item that doesn't undergo cooking, or has been cooked and prior to packaging may have come in contact with a surface that was not properly cleaned & sanitized.  The most common culprits are things like hot dogs, deli meats, milk, soft cheeses, and any raw meat, poultry, fish, vegetables and fruit.  Listeria loves to hang out at temperatures like those found in a refrigerator, but then also likes your body temperature.

The trickiest thing with Listeria is how long it can take to show signs that you ate something that was contaminated by it.  According to FoodSafety.gov, the incubation period is 3-70 days!  Incubation means how long after ingesting it the bacteria needs to hang out in your system before you start to get sick.  Can you imagine trying to remember exactly what you ate 3 days ago, let alone 70 days ago?  So you can see why it's quite possible that more people became ill than are presently reported by the CDC.

What can you do to avoid this sort of thing?  Not a lot.  I mean you could just make your own candy apples, I guess.  I think what's more important is for you to assess your own health.  If you are very healthy, then even if you were to come in contact with something like Listeria or another food pathogen you are still going to become ill, but it's less serious than if you have a weakened immune system.  If you are often ill, or pregnant, you need to take precautions to avoid food sources (as mentioned above) that are the most common carriers of this type of bacteria because the mortality rate (odds of death from coming in contact with it) is incredibly high at 20%, as compared to Salmonella around 1%.  And if you have eaten something you suspect wasn't good, or your start developing symptoms or fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and especially symptoms of meningitis (which Listeria can present with), contact your family doctor immediately.

Curb Cravings with Easy Distractions

Hmmm, did you know that Obesity Week was Nov 2-7?  Neither did I. 

Some interesting tid bits from a few of the articles I read.  Each of the articles was discussing research studies that were presented at Obesity Week.

1.  Tapping your forehead for 30-seconds can help you avoid food cravings.  Actually they looked at tapping your forehead, tapping your ear, tapping your foot, and picturing a blank white wall.  Tapping your forehead just seemed to be the most effective out of all of these, perhaps because you could see your finger doing this action as well as feeling it.  So the researchers found that when their overweight or obese subjects were asked to think about one of their biggest food cravings, they were able to diminish these thoughts with the tapping action.  It seemed to interrupt the thought process.  Worth a shot if you're having a terrible time kicking the chocolate habit.

2.  Another strategy for avoiding cravings involved cognitive strategies.  The participants could picture "allow" (where they recognize it's okay to have the food, though they don't have to act on it immediately), "distract" (where they think about something other than the craved food), "later" (where they imagine what will happen down the road if they choose to eat this food), and "now" (where they visualize the reward of eating that food right now).  The researchers then used an MRI to see what brain patterns were initiated when these thoughts were used.  They found the most effect strategy was to use the "later" strategy as it stimulated the inhibitory portion of the brain the most.

3.  American's are now seeing a shift of how we view the epidemic of obesity.  Previously we had been more likely to push the blame onto the individual and now we are thinking that it is more of a community problem.  Not sure how I feel about this one.  While a lack of nutrition education and the fundamentals behind weight loss/gain/maintenance may be a community issue, it seems odd to suggest that the individual was an innocent victim/bystander.  With this sort of stance, how are we to improve the issue and educate the public?  Do we really want to take no responsibility for our own health and act as though it is the fault of our community?

4.  Finally, a study in Scotland showed that university students who had calorie labeling clearly displayed in their dining commons were more likely to make healthier (lower calorie) choices and less likely to gain weight.  College students are notorious for gaining that famous "Freshman 15".  What they found was that without encouraging the students to make particular food choices, the students commonly would make selections based upon the calorie labels and as a result showed less incidence of unintended weight gain.  We seem to be getting closer to this situation in the outside world, with at least some fast food restaurants clearly displaying the calorie content of their items.  If only all other restaurants got on board...  although, they'd probably find themselves out of business when customers realized that their "healthy" salad choice racked up around 1100 calories!

www.medscape.com