DailyDirt: Raw Eggs Are Healthy..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Maybe you like Caesar salads or the supposed health benefits of drinking raw eggs (a la Rocky Balboa), and you already know about the risks of Salmonella. Well, there's some good news for you: you might be able to get some pasteurized eggs that are virtually indistinguishable from conventional raw eggs. While previous pasteurization methods made eggs a bit thicker in texture, food scientists have been working on fixing that. Here are just a few links on eating raw eggs, if that's your thing.

• About one out of every 20,000 chicken eggs commercially produced in the US is at risk for spreading Salmonella. Fortunately, a new radio-frequency (RF) heating technique could be used to pasteurize eggs more quickly without affecting the taste or texture. [url]
• Not surprisingly, the CDC recommends that eggs be kept refrigerated and cooked fully before eating. Erring on the side of caution, no one should eat raw or undercooked eggs -- unless the eggs have been gone through a pasteurization process. [url]
• If you love raw eggs, you can test your luck and immune system -- and hope that egg industry standards for cleaning eggs have sufficiently improved to reduce the risks of contracting Salmonella. Plenty of people consume raw eggs and are fine, but thousands of Americans are sickened from egg-borne Salmonella each year. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cdc, eggs, food, health, pasteurization, raw, salmonella

DailyDirt: Not-So-Fun Food Findings...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are so many food choices -- but that doesn't make it any easier to eat healthy foods. Being hard-wired to enjoy sugar, salt and fat doesn't exactly help either. Diet resolutions for 2012 are just around the corner, but for now, we'll just point out a few quick links on eating food that might not be that good for you.

• Comparing prison food to school cafetaria food doesn't make for a very appetizing infographic. It might be interesting to see a comparison that includes astronaut food... or military rations [url]
• Most people think that uncooked cookie dough shouldn't be eaten because of the raw eggs, but it's actually the raw flour in store-bought dough that's the likely culprit for making people sick. Seems like cookie dough manufacturers should start pasteurizing their flour since a significant number of people are intentionally eating unbaked batter. [url]
• Correlation is not the same as causation, but there seems to be a correlation between young men who eat a lot of junk food and having lower-quality sperm. In other news, unhealthy food makes you unhealthy. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: cookie dough, diet, eggs, flour, food, junk food, raw, unhealthy