proteins – Food Hygiene Essentials

How To Stay Out Of Shellfish Hell

For those who participate in sports there are a lot of issue that continually crop up. From the side it seems as though such people are super fit and rarely if ever experience the pains and aches that the rest of us feel. As a person who has played rugby, run marathons, karate, been a trooper and a diver, I can tell you absolutely that nothing could be further from the truth.

Sports people train so that their sugar levels remain level and balanced and that fats burn easily. However, these things are not without consequence. Sportsmen face phenomena such as, over training, peaking to early, lactic acid accumulation, the ability of the body to repair injury, oxidative damage, burn out, cramping, muscle shake, electrolyte balance and more.

All of these phenomena are to do with the function of cells within the body. Cells need to be fed, cleaned and maintained. All of these functions are done with the help of the food we eat. Bu enlarge there are several categories of food which we will initially ter as macro nutrients and micronutrients. By Macronutrients I am referring to sugars, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and proteins. These are the major components of the food we eat but in addition there are,minerals, vitamins, coenzymes, provitamins, enzymes, plant steroids, flavonoids, antioxidants and phytonutrients as well as many other elements.

Juice plus contains elements of the second category in concentration of 26 different vegetables, fruits and berries. In fact, a far richer selection that a person would eat in his everyday diet. This means that the body of the sportsman is receiving the tools that will help transfer nutrients into the cell to perform vital functions and also to take unneeded spent nutrients out of the cell, and, indeed, the body.

Thus, sportsmen can expect improvement in performance, such as improved recovery time, less overtraining and burnout, better ability to rest, less lactic acid build up, quicker injury repair, less oxidative damage, better fat burning, better sugar levels etc.

Much research has been done on all of these topics. Juice plus has been found to possess properties above and beyond what was expected by independent research laboratories with the USA, Europe, the UK and elsewhere. Presently, the German and Austrian olympic teams have chosen Juice plus capsules as their only nutritional supplement.

Juice plus in the dietary regimen of all sportsmen and women is a most positive step in the direction of ultimate performance.

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Mad cow disease is a classic example of how failure to adhere to the first of the eight principles of food hygiene can cause both dire risk to those who come into contact with meat infected with mad cow disease and cause terrible suffering for cattle. The need to make sure that animals are reared properly includes how and with what they are fed. The exact meaning of this statement will become clear as you read this article. The diligence needed at each and every stage of food production and food preparation is absolutely vital in order to maintain the full integrity of food safety. Below you will find an explanation of mad cow disease that will give you insight and understanding of this terrible disease.

Mad cow disease or Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE for short) is a neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system of cattle of all breeds. It is believed (although not 100% proven) that this disease is caused due to the feeding of animal tissue (usually from cattle by also from sheep or pigs) to cattle.

It is common practice nowadays to feed cattle proteins from animal sources. This may be bone meal, blood meal, brain tissue meal or even feather meal. The reason why cattle are fed animal protein is because the protein levels that are present in most plants are relatively low and some strains of bacteria in the cows rumen break them down into undesirable fatty acids such as butyric acid which are less than ideal for the production of milk and flesh mass on beef cattle. (Acetic acid is best for milk production and propionic acid produces the best muscle mass).

The thing that farmers and industrialists alike are constantly looking for is protein types that the bacteria resident with the rumen will not recognise and therefore will pass through the rumen unaffected by the bacteria and pass into the true stomach where they will passed into the bloodstream through the cows intestine. For this technique to be successful, the farmer must alternate the type of protein given to the cow in its feed so that the bacteria of the rumen will not grow to recognize it and hence metabolise it.

Animal proteins contain prions which are proteins that can change the structure of other proteins that they come into contact with. Factories that make animal protein feed (Often in the far east) are renowned for not adhering to procedure and this can cause fluctuations to happen both in the processing time and temperature levels. You see, if the proteins are properly cooked, they will not cause any damage because when cooked, proteins change their structure.

The effect of eating improperly processed protein feed can cause the prions within the protein of the feed to change the structure of the proteins of the cattles brain and spinal cord. This causes the tissue to become spongy meaning thet there are empty spaces within the tissue where there should have been nervous tissue. This wasting and structural change of the cows brain tissue cause the signals that come from the brain to malfunction causing the cow to appear to have fits and seizures. This condition can take up to five years to develop in the cow.

Although few cases were reported above the norm, in technical terms, this condition can be passed on to humans especially where meat is only lightly cooked (or red in the middle). This disease cost farmers billions of dollars worth of damage , especially in the UK where some six million cattle either died because of the disease or were slaughtered in an attempt to eradicate it.

It is believed that some bad feed is still being exported from the far east, (especially from India).

If you are like me you like shellfish in all forms, shapes and sizes. I just cant get enough shellfish, particularly shrimps, squid and lobster. Personally, I think that shellfish are one of the best food sources available. They are almost all protein, no fat and almost zero cholesterol. What could be better?

But wait. Before you let yourself dash off to the nearest seafood restaurant here are a few things that you should know about your favourite tasty morsel. Shellfish are one of the most dangerous of all forms of food. That’s right, you heard me well, one of the most dangerous and for several reasons.

Firstly, even if you are one hundred percent sure that the shellfish in question is completely fresh, there is still the question of seafood allergies to consider. Shellfish have one of the highest counts of allergic reaction rates per capita. The reason for this is precisely because shellfish are constituted primarily of protein. Most of our immune responce reacts to proteins and the reason for that is because our antibodies are themselves proteins and they are designed to seek out foreign invaders who’s skeletal walls are made of protein.

One of our antibodies, which is known as “I.G.E” causes very acute responses of the immune system. One such immune response is anafilactic shock. If a protein from a shellfish is recognized as an alien threat and becomes attached to I.G.E. antibodies, a potentially fatal chain of reactions may be set into effect.

So, say a person would like to try shellfish for the first time, how could he test if he has an allergic response? One simple option is to take a piece of the shellfish after it has been cooked and to rub it onto the inside of the lower lip. If you are allergic the lip will either swell up, tingle or produce a burning sensation. One may also feel internal side effects such as tightness of breath, facial swelling, excessive salivation,sweating and drop in blood pressure which may cause vomiting , dizziness or red rashes over extensive areas of the body. If that is the case, seek medical treatment immediately in a hospital and don’t go anywhere near shellfish, they are not for you.

Up to now I have talked about allergic reaction to the protein in fresh and untainted shellfish. There is, however a different kind of allergic reaction that one can get from shellfish. It may be of little consequence to the sufferer how he got his allergic reaction but the difference is important from medicinal and scientific perspectives. One may suffer an allergic reaction to bacterial toxins and/or to waste products of bacteria within the shellfish itself. This is important because the person affected from such bacterial substances may not be allergic to shellfish at all per say and had it not been for the bacterial activity, no reaction would have been encountered at all.

The other danger concerning shellfish is that of bacterial infection. Shellfish are a very easy target for bacteria because a) they contain a high percentage of water and b) they are made up of protein which are an excellent source of food for many dangerous forms of bacteria such as the clostridium genus. Shellfish become contaminated up to ten times more quickly than most other forms of food.

This means that we need to take great care when dealing with shellfish. Shellfish are safest when bought frozen. The reason for this is they are caught by trawler ships which are really floating factories and they are frozen and packed within minutes of being caught on production lines which are maintained at a constant ambient temperature of four degrees celcius. In conditions such as these the likelihood of contamination is as near to zero as it is possible to get.

So how do you prepare frozen shellfish? My advise is not to thaw frozen shellfish. Boil water and throw them into the boiling water. Cook them until your crustaceans have changed color and all of them have turned pinky orange in color. Take them out of the water without cooling them at all and after allowing them to drain mix instantly with your pre cooked sauce, while the sauce is still boiling. Serve sizzling hot.

Never allow shellfish dishes to cool and I strongly advise against re heating shellfish dishes, including Paella. Keep it simple and safe, thats the key. In the case of frozen clams, mussels, winkels and such like, discard any that have not opened during the cooking process.

When buying fresh shellfish you should always ensure that the creatures are still alive. If they don’t move, don’t buy. Shells like clams should be closed and you should see them tighten the pressure of the closure when you tap the shell. Do not buy any that don’t react. Personally I like to buy directly from the fishing boats right after they have docked. That way I am one hundred percent sure that they are absolutely fresh. Definitely do not by anything that is not stocked in crushed ice.

One trick that a lot of merchants use and you should look out for is to splash fresh sea water over shellfish and other forms of fish. The reason they do this is so that the merchandise had a fresh sea smell that will make it more difficult for you to recognize other bad smells that might be present on fish and shellfish that has not been stored properly and has been outside for an extended period of time. Watch out for this. If you sea a bucket of water near a stand, you will now know it’s purpose.

Shellfish should be cooked in a sauce which is tart, peppered and salted to taste. All of these qualities will lower the Ph of the shellfish and lessen the risk of bacterial growth. Avoid adding leaf herbs to shellfish because leaf herbs have bacteria on them which may contaminate your food.

All spices and herbs, if used, should be fried in oil at the beginning of the preparation of the sauce. This way, any bacteria in the spice or on the herb will be killed by the heat of the oil.

Follow these basic principles and you should stay out of shellfish hell.