Don't be a turkey -- cook that bird right
Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is next. That means less talk about candy and more about the featured meat of the month: Turkey.As you prepare for your Thanksgiving feast, don't neglect to cook your bird to the proper temperature. You'll need to invest in a food thermometer -- it's the only way to tell if your turkey has reached a temperature high enough to destroy illness-causing bacteria. And you'll need to cook that bird until it has an internal temperature of 165°F for safety, and 180°F for the best quality thigh meat. You'll want to check your temps at two spots -- the thickest part of the breast and the innermost part of the thigh. Check your stuffing too, and aim to cook it separately until it reaches 165°F internally.
For more on food safety, visit www.foodsafety.gov.
I try not to stress about whichever health panic is sweeping the world until it seems like there's a real reason to worry about it. SARS was a huge deal for a while but you don't hear much about it anymore, and while I'm sure contracting West Nile virus is no walk in the park, as far as I know there really hasn't been a huge number of people to come down with the illness so far.
The HN51 "bird flu" virus continues to make sporadic headlines across the globe, and in the latest installment, China said yesterday that its
I haven't read much about the upcoming 2008 Olympics, and although it's good that they're preparing for the worst, I was surprised that some of the first of news I came across was about how Beijing is setting aside thousands of hospitals beds in case of an infectious disease outbreak. Not about swimmers or track runners, but the fear of a pandemic.
Why on earth would Japanese officials want to burn over 10,000 chickens anyway? Well, the authorities started the process after the chickens were found to have the bird flu or were culled at the farm they started dying in. A broad subtype of the bird flu known as H5 is the culprit, and while not necessarily fatal to us, it is very pathogenic to the unfortunate poultry.








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