While people usually think first about the turkey or the ham during holiday meals, the sides are what help balance your plate. Colorful vegetables like green beans, collard greens, roasted carrots and mashed sweet potatoes are loaded with important micronutrients. But how you prepare them will help determine whether you get the most nutritional value out of each bite this holiday season.

As a biochemist, I know that food is made up of many chemical substances that are crucial for human growth and function. These chemical substances are called nutrients and can be divided into macronutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals.

Vegetables are full of micronutrients that human bodies need for metabolism – or converting food into energy – as well as to form and maintain cells and tissues. These micronutrients can be classified into three types: minerals, water-soluble vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins.

Minerals

The greens – collard greens, kale, spinach, green beans – on your table are rich sources of the elements magnesium and calcium. Your body needs these two major minerals for muscle movement and bone health.

Magnesium is essential for many of the enzymes that play important roles in DNA synthesis and repair, as well as protein production and metabolic function. The cellular processes, especially accurate DNA synthesis, are important in protecting your body from developing diseases such as cancer. Calcium helps regulate the pH in your body, influences your metabolism and strengthens your nerve impulses. Nerve impulses are important for your senses and your memory.

Greens are also a source of iron – you were right, Popeye! – which is particularly important for the oxygen-binding proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin that transfer and store oxygen in your body, respectively. In addition, human bodies require iron for processes that help generate energy, protect against oxidative damage and make hormones.

Orange vegetables – carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes and squash – contain some levels of calcium and iron as well as high levels of potassium. Potassium is important for muscle movement, nerve impulses and maintaining low blood pressure. Although not a colorful vegetable, white potatoes also contain very high levels of potassium.

Water-soluble vitamins

Most green and orange vegetables contain high levels of vitamin C. Vitamin C is an important water-soluble vitamin because it acts as an antioxidant. Antioxidants protect your cells against certain types of damage caused by very reactive molecules known as free radicals.

In addition, vitamin C can enhance immune response and is essential for the synthesis of collagen – the major protein in your skin. Although taking large levels of vitamin C will not keep you from ever getting sick, a healthy amount can help your skin stay soft, help you avoid diseases like scurvy and potentially shorten the length of a cold.

The white potatoes on the table have high levels of vitamin B6, which is a component of enzymes essential for carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism. It also helps create healthy blood cells and is important in the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which both regulate pleasure and happiness.

Fat-soluble vitamins

One of the most important vitamins you get from the green vegetables, especially leafy ones like kale, spinach, collards and Brussels sprouts, is vitamin K. Vitamin K is an essential component of enzymes that make proteins in bone and proteins that help clot blood after injuries.

Vitamin A is another important fat-soluble vitamin found in spinach and orange vegetables. The source of vitamin A in vegetables is actually beta carotene, which gets broken into two molecules of active vitamin A after consumption. Vitamin A is essential to vision as well as cell differentiation, reproduction, bone health and immune system function.

Absorption of micronutrients

Consuming vegetables that contain micronutrients is very important, but just as important is your body’s ability to absorb the nutrients and transport them to the cells that need them. Macronutrients like carbohydrates, fats and proteins that primarily make up the food we eat are very efficiently absorbed into your bloodstream.

However, only 3%-10% of some micronutrients actually get distributed throughout your body. Other ingredients and factors in your food can moderate whether you absorb vitamins and minerals.

Therefore, it is important to prepare vegetables in a way that can enhance the body’s ability to absorb their essential vitamins and minerals.

One good example of this is iron – specifically, the iron in the food you consume. Heme iron, which is the form necessary for incorporation into your body, comes only from animal products and is the most easily absorbed.

The plant-based iron contained in green and orange vegetables, on the other hand, is not bound to a heme, and your body can’t absorb it as readily. Consuming vitamin C alongside vegetables can increase the uptake of nonheme iron. So, a squeeze of lemon or orange juice can not only enhance the flavor of your vegetables but the micronutrients you obtain from them.

Fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin K and vitamin A, are best absorbed when the meal contains some dietary fat, which you can get from oil. This is particularly important for vitamin K because green vegetables are its primary dietary source. This is in contrast to the other minerals and vitamins discussed that can also be obtained from animals or legumes that contain some amounts of dietary fat already.

After consumption, vitamin K must be packaged with other fats in structures called micelles or lipoproteins that can move around in the bloodstream. That means that it’s a good idea to prepare your greens with some source of fat – olive oil, avocado oil, butter or even a little bacon grease.

So, if you’re staring at the southern style collard greens on your plate and wondering whether they’re as healthy as eating a raw green leaf, think about it in terms of the biochemistry. While raw greens provide you with plenty of fiber and minerals, they won’t help your vitamin K levels as greens cooked in oil will.

Enjoy your time around the holiday table. Load up your plate with everything you like to eat, and make sure to not go completely fat-free in order to help your body process and use all the micronutrients.

Julie Pollock, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Richmond

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Thanksgiving is a time for gathering with friends and family around the dinner table. No one wants to cause their family or friends to get sick from a foodborne illness on this holiday or any other occasion.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 6 Americans, or 48 million people, get sick from a foodborne illness each year. According to the CDC, more than 1 million of these people get sick from salmonella, which is the primary pathogen associated with poultry.

As a food safety specialist, my role is to educate food producers, manufacturers and consumers on how to ensure the safety of the food they produce.

This Thanksgiving – and, really, for any gathering – make sure you understand how to prepare your meal to ensure that everyone goes home without a foodborne illness. Understanding the safe food practices to follow at home during preparation, cooking, serving and storing leftovers will keep your holiday meal delicious and safe to eat.

Pathways to foodborne illness

Salmonella is a bacteria that causes a foodborne illness called salmonellosis. Salmonella is also often linked to undercooked poultry and beef, undercooked eggs, raw milk and produce. Symptoms of salmonellosis, which include diarrhea, fever and stomach pain, can begin six hours to six days after eating contaminated food.

Food contamination occurs when pathogens, toxins or chemicals make their way into food. Common pathogens that are attributed to foodborne illnesses are salmonella, E. coli, listeria and norovirus. Botulism is a foodborne illness that is caused by a toxin that is produced by a bacterium. A bacterial or viral contaminant can get on the food at any point along the food production chain, from the field, water, equipment, processing, handling, transportation, storage or preparation.

Every person who grows, handles, transports, stores or prepares food along the food production chain plays a very important role in detecting, eliminating or reducing contamination.

The perennial wisdom of hand-washing

Any food preparation and handling should always start with hand-washing.

There are five steps to proper hand-washing:

• Wash hands with running water.
• Apply enough soap to create a complete lather.
• Scrub hands, including the top, between fingers, around fingernails and wrists for a minimum of 20 seconds.
• Rinse hands under running water.
• Dry with a paper towel or air dry.

Hands should also be washed any time during food preparation that your hands have touched another food or surface that may have pathogens on it. This includes handling raw meat, poultry, seafood or eggs, as well as touching unwashed produce, blowing your nose, touching your cellphone or petting a cat or dog, to name a few.

A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service, which is the branch of the USDA that makes sure meat, poultry and eggs are safe for consumption, observed that 97% of study participants failed to wash their hands during food preparation when they should have. So while hand-washing might seem like a no-brainer, clearly it’s not.

Rinsing the poultry beforehand is a no-no

While preparing your meal, there are a few critical food-handling steps to follow to prevent cross contamination, or the transfer of pathogens from one surface to another.

First, keep raw meat, poultry and seafood away from raw or ready-to-eat foods. For example, do not prepare your raw turkey next to where you are preparing a salad, or do not cut produce on a cutting board that had raw meat on it without washing it thoroughly first.

Many people may not realize that it is unsafe to rinse poultry before cooking. The USDA recommends leaving poultry unwashed because it can cause pathogens to easily spread throughout the kitchen from the spray of the water. The only exception is a brined turkey. Brined turkeys are required to be rinsed before cooking, but use extra caution when doing so, and be sure to sanitize all surfaces in and around the sink afterward.

Having a clean work surface is critical

Another key step to keeping your Thanksgiving meal safe is to effectively clean and sanitize kitchen surfaces and equipment following instructions on your kitchen cleaner.

Chlorine bleach is a commonly used sanitizer that can be used in the kitchen, but there are a few things to know before using it. Chlorine bleach works best when mixed with cool – not hot – water and should be made fresh daily before using. To prepare, mix a teaspoon of bleach with one quart of water, and let the solution cover the surface for one minute before wiping, or allow to air dry.

Cooking the meat to safe temperatures

Cooking the Thanksgiving turkey or ham are two more critical steps in preparing a safe holiday meal.

Before cooking turkey, make sure it is completely thawed in the refrigerator. For large birds, this may require up to one week of thawing time, so plan ahead.

All poultry must be cooked to a minimum of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Cooking instructions and cooking temperatures will vary based on the cooking method that you choose. But no matter the cooking method, make sure to take the temperature of the turkey in the thickest portion of the breast meat and innermost part of the thigh, being sure not to touch bone with the thermometer. Poultry must be cooked to 165 F because this is the temperature that is required to kill salmonella instantly.

Based on the size of your bird and your cooking method, determine the amount of cooking time it will need well ahead of time. If you are cooking it in the oven with other dishes, consider that some extra roasting time may be needed, as the temperature of the oven decreases and extends cooking time every time the oven door is opened. You want to make sure you have enough time to cook the turkey thoroughly and allow approximately 30 minutes of rest time at room temperature before carving.

If you are preparing ham, first determine whether it is fully precooked at the time of purchase or if cooking is required. Even if fully cooked, hams still need to be heated to a minimum of 140 F. Those that require cooking need to be cooked to 145 F. Like turkey, roasting time will be based on the size of the ham – plan ahead so you know when to put it in the oven. A thermometer should be used to measure the temperature of the thickest portion of the ham without touching bone.

Safe handling and storage should not be an afterthought

Safe handling of the turkey, ham and other side dishes does not end after they are cooked.

If the food is served buffet style and will be kept out at room temperature for an extended period of time, make sure to have a plan to keep hot food hot, which means above 135 F, and cold foods below 40 F, which is equivalent to the maximum safe temperature of a refrigerator. For example, hot foods can be kept hot in a preheated chafing dish, and cold foods can be served in their serving dish that is nestled in a bowl or tray of ice. If you are unable to keep the food hot or cold during service, then make sure they are put away in the refrigerator within two hours after serving.

Thanksgiving leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator for no more than three to four days. If you have a lot of leftovers that won’t be eaten within this time frame, consider freezing them for a quick meal at a later date, then thaw and eat them within three to four months for best quality. Remember to label and date leftovers so you know what they are and when they were put in the refrigerator or freezer.

Kimberly Baker, Food Systems and Safety Program Team Director and Assistant Extension Specialist, Clemson University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl.

Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded. In 2016, my colleagues and I found that patients who came to the emergency department reporting a heroin overdose often only had fentanyl present in their drug test results.

As the Chief of Medical Toxicology at UMass Chan Medical School, I have studied fentanyl and its analogs for years. As fentanyl has become ubiquitous across the U.S., it has transformed the illicit drug market and raised the risk of overdose.

Fentanyl and its analogs

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that was originally developed as an analgesic – or painkiller – for surgery. It has a specific chemical structure with multiple areas that can be modified, often illicitly, to form related compounds with marked differences in potency.

For example, carfentanil, a fentanyl analog formed by substituting one chemical group for another, is 100 times more potent than its parent structure. Another analog, acetylfentanyl, is approximately three times less potent than fentanyl, but has still led to clusters of overdoses in several states.

Despite the number and diversity of its analogs, fentanyl itself continues to dominate the illicit opioid supply. Milligram per milligram, fentanyl is roughly 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

Lacing or replacing drugs with fentanyl

Drug dealers have used fentanyl analogs as an adulterant in illicit drug supplies since 1979, with fentanyl-related overdoses clustered in individual cities.

The modern epidemic of fentanyl adulteration is far broader in its geographic distribution, production and number of deaths. Overdose deaths roughly quadrupled, going from 8,050 in 1999 to 33,091 in 2015. From May 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died from a drug overdose, with over 64% of these deaths due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogs.

Illicitly manufactured fentanyl is internationally synthesized in China, Mexico and India, then exported to the United States as powder or pressed pills. China also exports many of the precursor chemicals needed to synthesize fentanyl.

Additionally, the emergence of the dark web, an encrypted and anonymous corner of the internet that’s a haven for criminal activity, has facilitated the sale of fentanyl and other opioids shipped through traditional delivery services, including the U.S. Postal Service.

During the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement to combat fentanyl trafficking.

Fentanyl is both sold alone and often used as an adulterant because its high potency allows dealers to traffic smaller quantities but maintain the drug effects buyers expect. Manufacturers may also add bulking agents, like flour or baking soda, to fentanyl to increase supply without adding costs. As a result, it is much more profitable to cut a kilogram of fentanyl compared to a kilogram of heroin.

Unfortunately, fentanyl’s high potency also means that even just a small amount can prove deadly. If the end user isn’t aware that the drug they bought has been adulterated, this could easily lead to an overdose.

Preventing fentanyl deaths

As an emergency physician, I give fentanyl as an analgesic, or painkiller, to relieve severe pain in an acute care setting. My colleagues and I choose fentanyl when patients need immediate pain relief or sedation, such as anesthesia for surgery.

But even in the controlled conditions of a hospital, there is still a risk that using fentanyl can reduce breathing rates to dangerously low levels, the main cause of opioid overdose deaths. For those taking fentanyl in nonmedical settings, there is no medical team available to monitor someone’s breathing rate in real time to ensure their safety.

One measure to prevent fentanyl overdose is distributing naloxone to bystanders. Naloxone can reverse an overdose as it occurs by blocking the effects of opioids.

Another measure is increasing the availability of opioid agonists like methadone and buprenorphine that reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings, helping people stay in treatment and decrease illicit drug use. Despite the lifesaving track records of these medications, their availability is limited by restrictions on where and how they can be used and inadequate numbers of prescribers.

Other strategies to prevent overdose deaths include lowering the entry barrier to addiction treatment, fentanyl test strips, supervised consumption sites and even prescription diamorphine (heroin).

Despite the evidence supporting these measures, however, local politics and funding priorities often limit whether communities are able to give them a try. Bold strategies are needed to interrupt the ever-increasing number of fentanyl-related deaths.

This article was updated on Nov. 16, 2023 to note developments regarding fentanyl at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Kavita Babu, Professor of Emergency Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.