With the Easter weekend approaching and families across the country ready to dig in to turkey, ham and all the fixings, Health Canada is cautioning everyone to place an emphasis on food safety, particularly with respect to people with weakened immune systems.
The agency estimates there are 11 million cases of foodborne illnesses in Canada every year, many of which could have been prevented by following proper food handling and preparation techniques. Of particular concerns are individuals with weakened immune systems — transplant patients, individuals with diabetes, HIV and those receiving chemotherapy for cancer are particularly at risk when it comes to foodborne illness.
Health Canada is asking Canadians to follow what it calls its four key steps to food safety — cook, clean, chill and separate. Examples include:
• Make sure meats are steaming hot before serving
• Do not eat raw or undercooked meat, poultry or seafood
• Avoid refrigerated smoked fish and seafood
• Do not consume unpasteurized juice, cider and milk
• Avoid soft and semi-soft cheeses made from raw or unpasteurized milk
• Avoid refrigerated pâtĂ©s and meat spreads
• Avoid uncooked foods made from raw or unpasteurized eggs
Individuals looking for more information about food safety can visit the Health Canada website at www.hc-sc.gc.ca or call 1-866-225-0709.
More than 30,000 safety gates sold in Canada are the subject of a recall due to a mechanical failure that has seen almost 200 incident reports in North America, with some involving injury.
The Evenflo Top-of-Stairs Plus Wood Gate has been recalled by Health Canada and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. The recall involves the product with model number 10502, which can be found on the bottom rail. Only products with a date of manufacture between October 2007 and July 2009 are included in the recall. They can also be identified by their UPC — 032884145652. It does not include model numbers 1050C, 10503 or 10513.
The gate is used to prevent small children from falling down stairs. At issue are the wooden slats on the gate, which can break or detach. This poses a falling hazard when the gate is used at the top of a staircase. In Canada, Evenflo has received 26 reports of incidents with one minor injury, while in the United States 142 incidents have been reported with 11 injuries, including bumps, scrapes and scratches. There were also reports of two children falling down stairs.
Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled gates and contact Evenflo for a replacement product at 1-800-265-0749.
Approximately 33,220 products were sold between December 2007 and September 2009 at Toys R Us stores in Canada. Another 150,000 were sold in the United States. The product was manufactured in Mexico.
An early March recall concerning one model of hockey stick has since been expanded to include almost 10 other models.
Health Canada initially flagged the Nike Bauer Supreme One50 composite hockey stick JR-52 with a UPC 440004249959 because the yellow paint on the sticks contains lead that exceeds the allowable limit.
Bauer Hockey Corp. has since tested the paint on all 150 models of hockey stick it produces and found that the paint in nine more models exceeded the allowable limit. These models include:
• Supreme One90 Youth and Junior Stick
• Supreme One50 Junior Stick
• Supreme One40 Junior Stick
• Supreme One70 Junior Stick
• Supreme One75 Junior Stick for player and goalie
• Vapor XX Junior Stick for player and goalie
• Supreme LTX Junior Stick
• Vapor XVI Junior Stick
• Supreme Accel Junior Stick
All recalled models were manufactured before 2008 except the Supreme One75. All of the sticks tested were manufactured since 2004.
Due to the risk of lead poisoning if accidentally ingested by young children, consumers should stop using the recalled sticks and contact Bauer Hockey Corp. at 1-888-734-0443 for a free replacement stick.
A total of 59,650 of the sticks were sold at sport equipment stores across Canada between 2004 and February 2010.
The same biological mechanism at work when individuals consume cocaine or heroin is also at work when people compulsively overeat, all of which is contained in the brain’s pleasure circuitry, according to a new study.
Published in Nature Neuroscience, the study demonstrates that, like drug use, binging on junk food is difficult for obese individuals to control.
The study, which used rats, showed that as the pleasure centres in the brain become less responsive, the rats will eat increasingly more high-calorie, high-fat food until they become obese.
Rats that were trained to anticipate a mild electric shock through the use of a light that illuminated as the same time as the light started to ignore it when they had become “addicted” to junk food and just continued to eat. The food used in the study was cheesecake, bacon, sausage and chocolate cakes. A second study that divided rats into three groups into healthy diet, healthy diet with timed access to junk food and healthy diet with unlimited access to junk food found the rats with unlimited access consumed the food all day long and eventually became obese.
