Don't forget to wash fruits and vegetables

I washed these blueberries before eating them with cereal.

I bought a 2-pound package of blueberries at Costco Wholesale with a label that really caught my eye.

The clear-plastic label, used to seal the clam-shell package, carried the name of the grower, Townsend Farms, told me the berries came from the United States, and finished with a warning:

"Food safety is everyone's responsibility. Wash all fresh fruits and vegetables prior to eating," the label stated.

And it provided the address of a government Web site: 

Food Safety

I looked at the site, which carries a nearly 4-minute video and lists of dos and don'ts for fruits and vegetables, as well as meat, seafood and dairy.

Silent packages

Most produce I buy at Costco, ShopRite and H Mart comes in packages that are silent on the use of herbicides and pesticides or they are sold loose.

At Costco, some of the hothouse-grown produce from Canada appears to be free of herbicides, according to the packaging.

But unless you buy organic produce at Whole Foods Market, you're never sure how fruits and vegetables are grown.

Here is a Web site with a guide to buying produce grown with pesticides:

2012 Shopper's Guide 

Here is one of the FAQs on the site.

"Do all these pesticides mean I shouldn't eat fruits and vegetables?

"No, eat your fruits and vegetables! The health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure."

From the garden

Produce from my garden, where we lose a lot of stuff to squirrels and a rabbit.

We don't treat any of the fruits and vegetables we grow in our garden, but we lose a lot of stuff to squirrels and a rabbit, which we have seen in and around our yard since we moved in 5 years ago.

We planted a peach tree, but haven't enjoyed any of the peaches. The squirrels eat them, even when the fruit is small, hard and green.

Today, I picked several cherry tomatoes and noticed a large, green tomato 10 feet from the patch that was partially eaten and left on the grass. 


Sweet as honey? 

I saw this box of watermelons behind the scenes at H Mart in Little Ferry.

Watermelon fertilized with honey?

I was shopping at H Mart in Little Ferry recently when I asked to use the bathroom, and was directed to the back of the store and through a door to a storage area.

A box of Candy brand watermelons carried these words: "Fertilized with honey."

Does any of the honey get into the melon or is it just a marketing gimmick?

Searching for fiber in my food

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The newspaper has a story on how "roughage" and "more fiber" in our diet can extend our lives, but it's short on information about what foods have them.

The daily recommendation is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men. However, the Associated Press story, which equates "roughage" and "fiber," only mentions one food source: grains.

The National Cancer Institute study is called the largest of its kind. "It finds the overall benefit to be strongest for diets high in fiber from grains." 

Rather than rely on the Associated Press, it's probably best to read a summary of the study on the Web site of the Archives of Internal Medicine at the following link: 

Dietary fiber and mortality 

I took a look at some of the food in my cupboard and refrigerator to see which has dietary fiber.

My breakfast this morning included two foods with dietary fiber: Bob's Red Mill 100% Whole Grain Hot Cereal (10-Grain), which I prepared with dried blueberries and honey; and sun-dried tomatoes, which I paired with buffalo-milk mozzarella cheese.

Lundberg Organic Short-Grain Brown Rice also is 100% whole grain, but other brown rice has fiber, too. You can get more fiber from fully cooked, canned kidney beans or Madras-style lentils.

A half-cup of ShopRite's Organic Dark-Red Kidney Beans contains 6 grams of dietary fiber; 5 ounces of Tasty Bite Madras Lentils contain 5 grams of fiber, and one-quarter cup of organic brown rice has 3 grams of fiber.

Although I am cutting down on bread to lose weight and giving up that fiber, I make up for it by eating pasta and almonds, both of which contain dietary fiber, as do fruits and vegetables.

You can find a fact sheet on dietary fiber, including a listing of foods, at the following link:

Dietary fiber

Strategies for avoiding beef

For the past month, we haven't knowingly eaten beef in a restaurant or at home, as we try to boost our already large intake of fish, pasta, vegetables and fruit.

We haven't been able to give up poultry, though, and rely on antibiotic-free chicken or turkey for home-cooked meals at least once a week. And we have had a couple of meals of naturally raised Australian lamb. But we also have had dinners of falafel and cheese-and-spinach ravioli, and try to eat a salad with every meal. We don't eat dessert, preferring fresh and dried fruit and nuts, though we occasionally eat sweet rice cakes or other cakes stuffed with red bean paste (Korean or Japanese).

Only my wife's and son's complaints prevent me from preparing pasta two times a week. And I usually have to serve it with drug-free chicken meatballs or sausage I get at Costco.

Having said all this, I did notice today that ShopRite will be putting on sale free-range, grass-fed whole beef tenderloin from Australia, for $4.99 a pound with a store card, from Dec. 6-12 at  the Rochelle Park, Paramus and Englewood stores. Average weight is 6 to 8 pounds. We have bought this beef in the past to prepare Korean barbecue, which used to be one of my son's favorite meals.

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