That's Fit

If you've ever had a case of food poisoning, you'll know why it's so important to keep cooking surfaces clean and to properly wash your food. Every step you can take to minimize the spread of bacteria and viruses is well worth it. All You Magazine has 7 steps for germ-free cooking:

• Use separate cutting boards. Use one cutting board for meats and another for fruit, vegetables, and anything else. Avoid wooden cutting boards as they can trap bacteria. Be sure to clean your cutting boards thoroughly after each use.
• Scrub fruits and veggies. Even if it says pre-washed, take the time to scrub fruits and vegetables off. A good scrub will help remove traces of pesticides (if you don't buy organic) and any other residue on the produce. It's even a good idea to wash fruits that you peel (bananas, oranges, etc.) to avoid transfer of pesticides or bacteria.

We finally cleaned out our garage the other day and dug out from piles of debris a bunch of workout equipment. My husband bought it all not long ago, we used it for a bit, and then it somehow got buried. Boxes sat on the weight bench. Swimming towels hung from the pull-up bar. And the weights, well, they were painted with a layer of dust. No more is this the case, though. Nope, our garage looks more like a gym now than it does a storage unit and all four of us Donaldson folks are pretty inspired by the fitness potential lurking just outside our kitchen door.

Strength training has always been my weakness when it comes to exercise. I love to run, walk, and swim but I typically lack motivation for building muscle. Our new home gym is helping. Today, I ran a 3.5-mile loop around town and topped things off with a mini-garage workout. Did the same yesterday after my swim. Plan to keep on doing it. My husband, somehow lean and fit without much purposeful exercise, was out in the garage last night. I caught him doing loads of pull-ups -- how does he do them so effortlessly? -- and after his full routine, he was drenched in sweat. The most promising effect of our garage renovation, though, is how it's got our kids pumped up about pumping up. Five-year-old Danny tells us he wants to be a wrestler when he grows up. "That's why I'm working out," he says. And Joey, seven years old and a master at a perfect push-up, is working pretty hard too. His dad spots him on pull-ups, and I saw him cranking out some bench press reps last night too.

We're thinking evenings will be our family workout time, when we're all home and can work on a productive -- and healthy -- goal together. If this sounds like fun to you, why not clean out your garage? Oh, and be careful if you're including kids in your fitness follies. Our boys have rules. Number one: They can't touch any equipment without mom or dad present to assist them.

What if there was one small thing you could do each day to make the world a better place? Newsflash ... there is.

In this day and age, most everyone is doing at least a little something to benefit the environment. Whether it is as simple as participating in your town's mandatory recycling program or using environmentally-friendly cleaning products in your home, I bet you are trying to make a difference.

The buzz around green cleaning products is astounding; for years, there have been companies like Seventh Generation spearheading the green cleaning movement, while now we are seeing big chemical companies like Chlorox manufacturing environmentally friendly cleaners.

So this is all good, right? Some would say that this is still big business looking to make a buck, even though the environment and your health thanks you for using products like this. Why? Because there is a simple fabric that cleans and removes bacteria with only water. No chemicals or other solutions are needed. And it is probably right under your bottom.

Because they spend most of their time on the floor, exercise mats are rarely cleaned as often as they should be -- when is the last time you gave yours more than just a good shake on the back step? It's probably due for a scrub!

Lightly soiled
Make a solution of four drops of dish soap to two cups of water and wash dirty areas with a spray bottle, cloth, or sponge. Rinse with plain water and air dry.

Heavily soiled
Submerge the mat in warm water with just a touch of mild detergent (using too much could leave the mat slippery and dangerous in the future). Hand wash, rinse in plain water, and hang to air dry. If squeezing doesn't get enough water out of the mat, try rolling it up with a towel and stepping on it before separating the two and hanging the mat to dry.

Here's some interesting news I learned from The Beauty Brains: Dirty hair might save the environment. Ok, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but dirty hair is at least good for the environment because it absorbs ozone from the air. In fact, dirty hair absorbs seven times as much ozone as clean hair does. And according to scientists, this can help cut the amount of harmful ozone floating around your head. Surprising? I think so.

But, as the brains are quick to point out, this isn't going to save the world or anything. In fact, the ozone in the air can interact with oil in dirty hair to produce other harmful chemicals. Still, washing your hair too often will waste water. Instead? Try to find a balance. Or, just shave your head.

Going green can mean different things to different people. To some, it's driving a smaller, more economical car. For others it could be replacing light bulbs in their home! But what about products which help make your house cleaner and more decorative yet still "eco-friendly" in the process?

One of the neatest décor products has some serious style to it -- a seat belt pillow! As you can see from the picture, it doesn't look bad. Not sure how comfortable it would feel, but it definitely says something about your eco-friendly attitude while offering a bit of decoration in the process. Cork bowls are also made from 100 percent recycled material, so if you've got a need for extra space try looking for those alternatives first.

Cleaning materials which are "green" may be harder to come by. But the article lists a few generic products that can save you from wasting money on specific-need cleaners. How about biodegradable sponge cloths -- besides having a degradable spin on it, they won't waste paper towels as much! Clorox also has a product line out called "Green Works" derived from coconuts and lemon oil. If you don't like the idea of using lots of chemicals, this could be a natural alternative. Check out the full article for more products or see Shop Smart Magazine's guide for more information!

I am officially addicted to brushing my teeth! A few weeks ago I got hold of the new Triumph with SmartGuide toothbrush by Oral-B and have been doing that weird licking the front of my teeth thing since. I've always used plain old no-frills toothbrushes, but just recently got to thinking that it wasn't doing the job. Kind of like cleaning your dinner table with a napkin. It removes the big crumbs on the surface, but doesn't really get all the dinner goo that truly needs to be removed. The Triumph is the equivalent of using a scrubby sponge with soap on that table. It does the job a toothbrush is really supposed to do.

Not only do my teeth feel like I've just visited a dental hygienist every day, but brushing has become a strangely enjoyable challenge. The Triumph comes with a neat SmartGuide wireless monitor (a personal trainer for your teeth). The SmartGuide gives me the goal of brushing for two minutes, and encourages me to spend 30 seconds on each quadrant of my mouth. I'm totally in to this. And when I hit the two minute mark.....the monitor gives me a happy face! Woo-hoo! If I keep going, the monitor will wink at me. Who couldn't use a little wink to start your day, right?

Here's some scary heath news: even if you don't have symptoms, harmful and potentially fatal bacteria can be lurking in your guts. One type of bacteria in particularly seems to thrive -- Clostridium, which can cause a dangerous type of diarrhea. What's even more frightening is that in a study, the bacteria was shown to be lurking all over hospitals and healthcare facilites.

But there's a surefire way to prevent transmission of bacteria -- cleanliness. If healthcare providers wear gloves, wash their hands and adequately sterilize their environments, there would be no problem. But since there's no way to ensure that they're doing their part, do your by washing your hands.

Think you can't walk on a broken foot? How about trying to relieve ingrown toenail pain by cutting into your toenail? Those and other myths are being dispelled in a new report from foot experts.

Are bunions caused by those new shoes (or old ones)? Not according to foot surgeons, who blame those painful foot issues with the genetics that cause faulty foot structures in the first place.

It's interesting to see that 19 out of the 26 bones in your feet are in the toes themselves, and specialized surgeons are sometimes the only ones who can help correct foot deformities (as slight as they may be) and other issues that you may be blaming on other factors.

Regular exposure to bacteria and viruses is known to exercise our immune systems, as those that always protect themselves may not have the internal tools to fight something off when it comes.

When it comes to those nasty allergies, the same remains true. Recent research states that having too clean of an environment can be responsible for increasing allergy amounts in kids.

If, in fact, we are all living in cleaner places than we did in the past, the bodies of children are not receiving the necessary "workout" when it comes to fighting off the issues caused by allergens. Therefore, when those allergens cause problems, they are quite a bit more pronounced than with kids in the recent past, concluded the research.

I think one of the best inventions of all time (except the wheel, maybe) is indoor plumbing. It allowed our standards of cleanliness and hygiene to improve tremendously and had an enormous impact on the health of our society. But how much do you really know about personal hygiene? Did you know that toothbrushing didn't become routine in this country until it was enforced for soldiers in WWII? That NASA recently spent $23.4 million dollars designing a toilet that would work in zero-gravity space? Or that certain monks in India are forbidden to ever wash anything other than their hands and feet?

And that's just the start, read this list of 20 things you didn't know about hygiene and see how much you really didn't know.

Forget air "purifiers," those are sooooo outdated. How about an air disinfector? The English company Inov8 has invented the Air Disinfector, a gadget that essentially creates fresh air indoors. Marketed mainly at hospitals, it's currently available only in Europe but is being tested here in the U.S. with the intent of making it available here soon. About the size of a flower vase, the Air Disinfector works by creating reactive hydogen radicals and pumping them into the air, instantly killing microbes and bacteria in the surrounding air.

Now there's a declaration you won't see in many health outlets. Stop drinking bottled water? To be fair, the tap versus bottled water bit has been argued before. This article, however, is playing devil's advocate in tackling the issue from a different perspective. Here are a few reasons one might consider dropping bottled water.

Penny pinchers might be surprised at how much of a poor deal bottled water really is. Buying it from a vending machine for $1 (a common price in many places) puts its value at 5 cents an ounce. Now start thinking about gasoline prices for a moment. From a consumer perspective, $3 per gallon gas prices comes out to roughly 2 cents an ounce. Are we really paying that much more for a renewable commodity like water?

We're getting pretty conscious of what good disease and infection control means in this country, what with instant hand sanitizers, toilet seat covers, and signs reminding us to wash our hands in public bathrooms. But somehow all that great effort flies right out the window when it comes to petting zoos, where the majority of safety precautions to limit people's exposure to organisms like E. coli, salmonella, cryptosporidium, and campylobacter are frequently not followed. The simplest of interventions, like washing hands when leaving the petting zoo, were not done by people as often as 77% of the time in a recent survey.

Now that you know there's no excuses: wash your hands! And save the snacks and drinks for later.