September is National Honey Month. The source of honey is bees. Bees pollinate more than 100 agricultural crops in the United States. Without bees to pollinate many of our favorite fruits and vegetables, the United States could lose $15 billion worth of crops – not to mention what it would do to your diet. Researchers call the mass disappearance of bees Colony Collapse Disorder, and  they estimate that nearly one-third of  all honeybee colonies in the country have vanished. 
 
If we don’t act now to save the honey bee, it might be too late. And no honey bees will mean no more of your favorite fruits and vegetables. Can you imagine life without almonds, apples, apricots, avocadoes, blueberries,  cherries, cranberries, grapes, olives, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, onions,  pumpkins, melons, peanuts, soybeans, sunflowers? And the list goes on to include honey which is part of many foods we enjoy.

Check out the four recipes that use honey or the many recipes using products listed above in the book Flavorful
Fortified Food – Recipes to Enrich Life.

September is National Food Safety Education Month. This is the  perfect time for us to take a break from talking about the nutritional value of foods and how the recipes in our book, Flavorful Fortified Food – Recipes to Enrich Life, meet a variety of the needs.

Making nutritious food isn’t any good if the individual eating it ends up with a food-borne illness because the food became contaminated. According to Centers for Disease Control, one in six individuals will have a food-borne illness at some time and 15% of all incidences occur at home. Keeping food safe is as easy as Clean, Separate, Cook, Chill.


 Clean – The goal is to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. Wash your hands thoroughly and often for 20 seconds. Cutting boards cause 14% of the food-borne illnesses and about 92% of those illnesses is related to inadequate cleaning of the cutting board. Don’t forget to wash those reusable grocery bags. They not only carry food, but a wide variety of bacteria.

Separate – Keep raw food separate from cooked food. Mixing them is a recipe for disaster and increases the risk for food-borne illness.

Cook – Are foods cooked to the correct internal temperature? If you are not sure that those temperatures should be, go to http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html

Chill – Does your refrigerator have a thermometer near the door? Is your refrigerator temperature 40⁰F or less? Do you cool foods on the counter before placing in the refrigerator? If you answered “no” to the first two questions or “yes” to the last question, food is at risk for increased bacteria growth.

Want to learn more go to www.figntbac.org or www.fsis.usda.gov