Taking the Gross out of Grocery Carts

Whether you call it a shopping cart, a trolley (Britain, Australia, and New Zealand English), a carriage or shopping carriage (in the New England region of the U.S.), a bascart (in some regions of the U.S.), a basket (in other regions of the U.S.) or a buggy (in the American South and parts of Western Canada), it is a cart supplied by a shop, especially a supermarket, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the check-out counter during shopping, and often to the customer's car after paying as well.

Although recent historical investigations have provided evidence of multiple innovations and controversies between early contributors to the invention of the shopping cart, it is usually considered that the "first" shopping cart was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City.

Now, seventy-one years later, someone has figured out how to clean them.. Imagine that. This week, a look at taking the gross out of grocery carts.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true." - Carl Sagan (US astronomer & popularizer of astronomy 1934 - 1996)

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Grocery Carts

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World Toilet Day

November 19th is World Toilet Day. Sounds like a joke, but it's deadly serious. The number of people worldwide without access to a toilet -- no public restroom, no outhouse, no latrine, no smallest room -- is a whopping 2.6 billion.

That's four out of ten people who have to use fields, river-banks, beaches, rubbish dumps or city streets. Another billion or so do have access to a toilet, usually some kind of a wooden platform with a hole in it laid across a deep pit, but it's often shared - and filthy.

This week, a look at an organization that doing something about this.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." - Anonymous (sometimes called "Hanlon's Razor")

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World Toilet Day

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Salmonella

Salmonella is one of the most common intestinal infections in the United States. Salmonellosis, the disease caused by Salmonella, is the second most common foodborne illness after Campylobacter infection.

Salmonella infection occurs when the bacteria are ingested, typically from food derived from infected food-animals, but it can also occur by ingesting the feces of an infected animal or person. Food sources include raw or undercooked eggs/egg products, raw milk or raw milk products, contaminated water, meat and meat products, and poultry.

It is estimated that 1.4 million cases of salmonellosis occur each year in the U.S.; 95% of those cases are foodborne-related. About 31% of all food-related deaths are caused by Salmonella infections each year.

This week, we look at salmoenlla.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time." - Charlie Brown in "Peanuts", as written by Charles M. Schulz (US cartoonist, 1922 - 2000)

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iFSN-infosheet-5-15-08 - Upload a doc

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Microwave Refresher

You're running late for work. On your way, you stop at the quickie-mart, grab a frozen breakfast burrito and pop it in the microwave on the counter. Later that day, you have to work through lunch. By 3:00 p.m., you're starving, so you grab a snack-pack of microwaveable popcorn from the vending machine and pop that in the break-room microwave. That night, after a really long day, you're simply too tired to grill out, so you dish up last night's lasagna and heat it up in the microwave.

The microwave oven has to rate as one of the great inventions of the 20th century. Millions of homes in America have one. They cook food in an amazingly short amount of time and are extremely efficient in their use of electricity. Used correctly, life is good.

As with anything, misuse can lead to disaster. This week, we look at how to make sure you know your microwave and avoid the food safety issues others fall prey to.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." - Richard Feynman (US educator & physicist, 1918 - 1988)

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